From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Grant Likely" Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/1] Embedded Maintainer(s), linux-embedded@vger list Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:00:40 -0600 Message-ID: References: <20080610075432.GB776@uranus.ravnborg.org> <20080610090924.150D9248AC@gemini.denx.de> <20080610131236.GC28565@shareable.org> <87a5b0800806100625m5a6d20dao47b884bff663c24c@mail.gmail.com> <1213104800.32207.778.camel@pmac.infradead.org> <87a5b0800806100647r178e54c0qd34cbf26f6ce24d@mail.gmail.com> <1213106008.32207.784.camel@pmac.infradead.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <1213106008.32207.784.camel@pmac.infradead.org> Content-Disposition: inline Sender: linux-embedded-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: David Woodhouse Cc: Will Newton , Jamie Lokier , Wolfgang Denk , Sam Ravnborg , Rob Landley , Leon Woestenberg , linux-embedded@vger.kernel.org On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 7:53 AM, David Woodhouse wrote: > On Tue, 2008-06-10 at 14:47 +0100, Will Newton wrote: >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 2:33 PM, David Woodhouse wrote: >> > On Tue, 2008-06-10 at 14:25 +0100, Will Newton wrote: >> >> Using a kernel compile as a test isn't such a great idea. Stress tests >> >> of that kind are not particularly useful for pinning down bugs - so >> >> your kernel compile failed, what now? Far better to use LTP tests or >> >> similar that are designed to be reproduceable and tunable for your >> >> system. For example I don't think I'll ever be able to self host a >> >> kernel build on a board with only 32Mb of on-board RAM. >> > >> > Actually, cross-building on NFS does tend to find a _lot_ of issues >> > which crop up with board ports; especially PCI arbitration, DMA >> > coherency, cache and MMU issues. LTP often doesn't catch the same >> > problems. >> >> It may trigger a number of bugs, I don't disagree, but as a test it is >> a blunt instrument. > > Yes, it's a blunt instrument, but blunt instruments are often effective. > > I disagree with your claim that using it as a test isn't a good idea. > I would, however, grant you that using it as your _only_ test is a bad > idea :) Just to add my voice to the chorus; I fully agree. Brute force testing is useful. It can expose corner cases that haven't been considered in formal test suites. Cheers, g. -- Grant Likely, B.Sc., P.Eng. Secret Lab Technologies Ltd.