Re: Maybe my frequent kernel building could be of some help to the community? And how to build?

[Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>]

On 03/25/10 10:48, Piotr Hosowicz wrote:
> Randy Dunlap wrote:
>> On 03/25/10 10:37, Piotr Hosowicz wrote:
>>> Randy Dunlap wrote:
>>>> On 03/18/10 08:40, Randy Dunlap wrote:
>>>>> On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:24:35 -0700 Randy Dunlap wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 03/16/10 12:02, Piotr Hosowicz wrote:
>>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I own quite strong PC, 4 core Pentium. I recently started to
>>>>>>> build my
>>>>>>> kernel frequently, whenever I see a new patch on kernel.org I build
>>>>>>> again. Bothers me that I do it only for doing it. Maybe it could
>>>>>>> be of
>>>>>>> some help to the community? And if so, what would be more
>>>>>>> appreciated -
>>>>>>> linux-next patched kernel or gitN patched kernel? And how should I
>>>>>>> configure the kernel for this purpose? I am afraid of putting all
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> options on, yesterday I tried to put everything on as a module
>>>>>>> plus I
>>>>>>> tinkered with some other options that seemed innocent. The kernel
>>>>>>> was
>>>>>>> built but could not boot, saying that there was a problem with the
>>>>>>> root
>>>>>>> device, it could not recoginze /dev/sda2, which is my correct root
>>>>>>> device. I did not investigate much and reverted to working kernel.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks in advance for your remarks.
>>>>>> Many linux-next builds are done daily: see
>>>>>>   http://kisskb.ellerman.id.au/kisskb/branch/9/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> and then I do 25 x86_32 randconfigs and 25 x64_64 randconfigs
>>>>>> daily and fix most build errors that I find in them.
>>>>>> (I am also using a quad-core PC with a cron job that finds the
>>>>>> next day's linux-next, downloads it, and does 50 builds.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You are welcome to do the same or test mainline (with daily
>>>>>> builds) and/or Andrew Morton's mmotm patchset.
>>>>> One thing that you could do that no one focuses on is building
>>>>> with some kconfig symbols disabled (ones that are typically enabled),
>>>>> such as CONFIG_SMP=n, CONFIG_SYSFS=n, CONFIG_PROC_FS=n, CONFIG_PM=n,
>>>>> CONFIG_PCI=n, CONFIG_BLOCK=n, CONFIG_NET=n, CONFIG_INET=n (but latter
>>>>> with CONFIG_NET=y), CONFIG_HOTPLUG=n.  Not all of these at the same
>>>>> time,
>>>>> just various/random combinations of them.
>>>> and CONFIG_SYSRQ=n  (just found some errors due to this one)
>>> You mean CONFIG_SYSRQ=n exactly and mandatory in every config or this
>>> was just an example?
>>
>> Sorry about that.  Just make it random (sometimes disabled).
> 
> Ok.
> 
> The problem I face and want to overcome now is that not all options can
> be random, some options require to be not y or no a tall, but a string
> or a number. So my plan is that first thing to be done is to do make
> defconfig and put it as a template to be used by my scripts. Then only
> the options that you enumerated earlier will be randomized. Is this
> correct?

Yes, that's one way to approach it.

Another way (similar) would be to use a combination of "make randconfig"
with KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG.  See Documentation/kbuild/kconfig.txt for info
on KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG.  Basically it allows you to tell kconfig values for
a subset of config symbols to be used.


-- 
~Randy