Re: [kbuild 2/5] Dont use the running kernels config file by default

[Andreas Gruenbacher <agruen@suse.de>]

On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 21:15, Roman Zippel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Andreas Gruenbacher wrote:
> 
> > A user ran into the following problem: They grab a SuSE kernel-source
> > package that is more recent than their running kernel. The tree under
> > /usr/src/linux is unconfigured by default; there is no .config. User
> > does a ``make menuconfig'', which gets its default values from
> > /boot/config-$(uname -r). User tries to build the kernel, which doesn't
> > work.
> 
> NAK. This isn't normally supposed to happen and it shouldn't be as bad 
> anymore as it used to be. Removing these path doesn't magically create a 
> working kernel.

"Not normally supposed to happen" and "shouldn't be as bad anymore"
aren't very sound arguments. It's fundamentally broken to use a
semi-random configuration for a kernel source tree that may be
arbitrarily far apart. In the best case you notice that the
configuration doesn't work anymore. In the worst case you will fall flat
on your nose and only notice what happened after a long time.

It's not uncommon that users who build their own kernel modules often
are very clueless. Nevertheless we shouldn't cause them pain
unnecessarily.

Removing the running kernel's paths at least ensures that we don't get
arbitrary, unexpected results. I'd much prefer the user to be explicit
when he wants to clone the running kernel's configuration. That's what
patch 3/5 in this set does.

Cheers,
-- 
Andreas Gruenbacher <agruen@suse.de>
SUSE Labs, SUSE LINUX GMBH