Re: Configure.help 2.4.17 update patch

Re: Configure.help 2.4.17 update patch

[Steven Cole]

On Tuesday 04 December 2001 04:44 pm, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Marcelo Tosatti <marcelo@conectiva.com.br>:
> > Still doesnt apply cleanly.
>
> Weird.  OK, I rebuilt 2.4.17-pre2 from 2.4.16 plus the 2.4.17-pre2 patch.
> Here is the diff:
>
[large patch snipped]

Eric and Marcelo, 

That large patch applied cleanly against 2.4.17-pre2, but had two rejected hunks
against 2.4.17-pre4, but not to worry.  The rejected hunks are in two options
which got removed between pre2 and pre4.  

Here is a diff between pre2 and pre4 to show what got dropped.
This diff is not meant to be applied, I'm just including it here to show what happened.

I suggest that Marcelo go ahead and apply Eric's patch, with the two meaningless rejects,
and let the resulting Configure.help be the new baseline for the 2.4.x series, and fork
Configure.help for the 2.4.x and 2.5.x series, since we have different sets of patches
coming in and it is just not practical (or reasonable) to try to fit the same Configure.help
file to both the stable and development series.

Steven

Note again, this diff is just FYI, between pre2 and pre4.

--- linux-2.4.17-pre2/Documentation/Configure.help.pre2	Sat Dec  1 19:47:27 2001
+++ linux/Documentation/Configure.help	Wed Dec  5 19:01:08 2001
@@ -5154,13 +5154,6 @@
 
   It is safe to say N here for now.
 
-IPv6: routing messages via old netlink
-CONFIG_IPV6_NETLINK
-  You can say Y here to receive routing messages from the IPv6 code
-  through the old netlink interface. However, a better option is to
-  say Y to "Kernel/User network link driver" and to "Routing
-  messages" instead.
-
 Kernel httpd acceleration
 CONFIG_KHTTPD
   The kernel httpd acceleration daemon (kHTTPd) is a (limited) web
@@ -5915,33 +5908,6 @@
 
   If unsure, say N.
 
-Kernel/User network link driver
-CONFIG_NETLINK
-  This driver allows for two-way communication between the kernel and
-  user processes.  It does so by creating a new socket family,
-  PF_NETLINK.  Over this socket, the kernel can send and receive
-  datagrams carrying information.  It is documented on many systems in
-  netlink(7), a HOWTO is provided as well, for example on
-  <http://snafu.freedom.org/linux2.2/docs/netlink-HOWTO.html>.
-
-  So far, the kernel uses this feature to publish some network related
-  information if you say Y to "Routing messages", below. You also need
-  to say Y here if you want to use arpd, a daemon that helps keep the
-  internal ARP cache (a mapping between IP addresses and hardware
-  addresses on the local network) small.  The ethertap device, which
-  lets user space programs read and write raw Ethernet frames, also
-  needs the network link driver.
-
-  If unsure, say Y.
-
-Routing messages
-CONFIG_RTNETLINK
-  If you say Y here, user space programs can receive some network
-  related routing information over the netlink. 'rtmon', supplied
-  with the iproute2 package (<ftp://ftp.inr.ac.ru>), can read and
-  interpret this data.  Information sent to the kernel over this link
-  is ignored.
-
 Netlink device emulation
 CONFIG_NETLINK_DEV
   This option will be removed soon. Any programs that want to use
@@ -13852,30 +13818,11 @@
 CONFIG_TMPFS
   Tmpfs is a file system which keeps all files in virtual memory.
 
-  In contrast to RAM disks, which get allocated a fixed amount of
-  physical RAM, tmpfs grows and shrinks to accommodate the files it
-  contains and is able to swap unneeded pages out to swap space.
-
-  Everything is "virtual" in the sense that no files will be created
-  on your hard drive; if you reboot, everything in tmpfs will be
-  lost.
-
-  You should mount the file system somewhere to be able to use
-  POSIX shared memory. Adding the following line to /etc/fstab should
-  take care of things:
-
-  tmpfs		/dev/shm	tmpfs		defaults	0 0
-
-  Remember to create the directory that you intend to mount tmpfs on
-  if necessary (/dev/shm is automagically created if you use devfs).
-
-  You can set limits for the number of blocks and inodes used by the
-  file system with the mount options "size", "nr_blocks" and
-  "nr_inodes". These parameters accept a suffix k, m or g for kilo,
-  mega and giga and can be changed on remount.
+  Everything in tmpfs is temporary in the sense that no files will be
+  created on your hard drive. If you reboot, everything in tmpfs will
+  be lost.
 
-  The initial permissions of the root directory can be set with the
-  mount option "mode".
+  See <file:Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt> for details
 
 Simple RAM-based file system support
 CONFIG_RAMFS
@@ -24001,10 +23948,10 @@
 # LocalWords:  filesystems smbfs ATA ppp PCTech RZ www powerquest txt CMD ESDI
 # LocalWords:  chipset FB multicast MROUTE appletalk ifconfig IBMTR multiport
 # LocalWords:  Multisession STALDRV EasyIO EC EasyConnection ISTALLION ONboard
-# LocalWords:  Brumby pci TNC cis ohio faq usenet NETLINK dev hydra ca Tyne mem
+# LocalWords:  Brumby pci TNC cis ohio faq usenet dev hydra ca Tyne mem
 # LocalWords:  carleton DECstation SUNFD JENSEN Noname XXXM SLiRP LILO's amifb
 # LocalWords:  pppd Zilog ZS SRM bootloader ez mainmenu rarp ipfwadm paride pcd
-# LocalWords:  RTNETLINK mknod xos MTU lwared Macs netatalk macs cs Wolff
+# LocalWords:  mknod xos MTU lwared Macs netatalk macs cs Wolff
 # LocalWords:  dartmouth flowerpt MultiMaster FlashPoint tudelft etherexpress
 # LocalWords:  ICL EtherTeam ETH IDESCSI TXC SmartRAID SmartCache httpd sjc dlp
 # LocalWords:  thesphere TwoServers BOOTP DHCP ncpfs BPQETHER BPQ MG HIPPI cern

Re: Configure.help 2.4.17 update patch

[Eric S. Raymond]

Steven Cole <elenstev@mesatop.com>:
> I suggest that Marcelo go ahead and apply Eric's patch, with the two
> meaningless rejects, and let the resulting Configure.help be the new
> baseline for the 2.4.x series, and fork Configure.help for the 2.4.x
> and 2.5.x series, since we have different sets of patches coming in
> and it is just not practical (or reasonable) to try to fit the same
> Configure.help file to both the stable and development series.

I specifically do *not* want to fork Configure.help.  

Reason: it's going to go away anyway when CML2 drops in, which (unless
Linus has changed his mind) is scheduled for sometime in 2.5.1-xxx. At
that point it will be functionally replaced by the contents of the
master symbols.cml file, which will have been mechanically derived
from it.

(The reason for this change is to unify the help information with the
symbol-prompt and other message strings.  In the new architecture, it
will be possible to localize the entire kernel config system by dropping in a
localized symbols.cml.)

Because the 2.5.1 side of the Configure.help fork would have a short
lifetime anyway, I'd really prefer not to have to maintain two
separate helpfiles before CML2 comes in.  There are 110 missing
entries that could be filled in before then that go in both trees and
I really, *really* don't want to have to track them in two different
versions.

Afterwards, of course, the 2.4.x file will be strictly Marcelo's baby
and I'll maintain symbols.cml (actually Steven Cole will probably take
over).

I handled a closely analogous problem between the Linus and ac trees by
making Configure.help contain the union of the two sets of entries, some 
marked "Alan's tree" and some marked "Linus's tree".  What I'd prefer to
do in this case is mark NETLINK and RT_NETLINK "Linus's tree only" and
let Marcelo edit them out of the 2.4.x Configure.help file if he wants after
the CML2 conversion.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

When all government ...in little as in great things... shall be drawn to
Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks
provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive
as the government from which we separated."	-- Thomas Jefferson, 1821

Re: Configure.help 2.4.17 update patch

[Bill Davidsen]

On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Eric S. Raymond wrote:

> Steven Cole <elenstev@mesatop.com>:
> > I suggest that Marcelo go ahead and apply Eric's patch, with the two
> > meaningless rejects, and let the resulting Configure.help be the new
> > baseline for the 2.4.x series, and fork Configure.help for the 2.4.x
> > and 2.5.x series, since we have different sets of patches coming in
> > and it is just not practical (or reasonable) to try to fit the same
> > Configure.help file to both the stable and development series.
> 
> I specifically do *not* want to fork Configure.help.  
> 
> Reason: it's going to go away anyway when CML2 drops in, which (unless
> Linus has changed his mind) is scheduled for sometime in 2.5.1-xxx. At
> that point it will be functionally replaced by the contents of the
> master symbols.cml file, which will have been mechanically derived
> from it.

I hope that in the excitement of re-re-inventing the build process no one
has lost sight of the Configure.help file being very useful with the
database tools `more' and `grep.' Having to run a configure to get access
to that info is a step backwards.

It would be nice if the information gave a link between options and module
names as well, poking through Makefiles and source code to see how it's
done is educational, but a real waste of time.

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.