Re: Smarter Kconfig help

Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult
2019-03-06T20:16:26Z

On 06.03.19 13:42, Russell King - ARM Linux admin wrote:

> In case it isn't clear, this is the *exact* point here - I don't know> whether this option should be enabled for iMX6 or not, and the only>
way I found out was to grep the dts files in arch/arm/boot/dts for> the
driver's compatible string. What that reveals is that *no* 32-bit> dts
files contain the compatible string, and so I summise that *no*> 32-bit
iMX SoC should have this driver enabled.
The problem is a bit more generic. I often have to spend lots of time
to find out which configs to enable on a specific board, to get certain
features (eg. network, sata, display, gpu, ...). Even worse: many
options require other stuff enabled before even showing up. And when
disabling unneeded stuff, it leaves lots of other things enabled.
(we don't have some `apt autoremove` kconfig counterpart :().

I've decided to cope w/ that on a higher level and written a little
config generator tool for that - here you can enable high level
features (eg. 'network' or 'display', etc) and it will generate the
actual .config:

https://github.com/metux/kmct

> The excuse that "we can't list the explicit SoCs" to me seems to be> a very lame excuse

Maybe this actually means "nobody here volounteered to actually maintain
these help texts" ?

> The best that I can come up with right now, given what little I know> from grepping the 32-bit DTS files, is that the help text should at>
least indicate that it *isn't* applicable to 32-bit SoCs, or if you>
prefer, *is* applicable to 64-bit SoCs. Beyond that, I have no>
information to formulate a better suggestion.
Perhaps just fix the text based on your knowledge and send a patch to
the maintainers. They'll propably tell you if it's incorrect.

--mtx

--
Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult
Free software and Linux embedded engineering
info@metux.net -- +49-151-27565287