Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

Eric S. Raymond
2002-01-16T04:26:06Z

Alex Bligh - linux-kernel <linux-kernel@alex.org.uk>:
> & this has a seemingly obvious solution, which is, if the autoprobe
> stuff is selected, and, after presentation of the initial list
> of drivers, plus comments like 'Network card: none', 'Sound card: none',
> say 'We may have missed some stuff if you have an old computer, press
> Y if what we've detected doesn't find all your hardware', and if
> they press Y (only), select as modules every ISA driver except
> those, which when loaded on a system not containing the relevant
> card, can cause a hangup; thus deferring the autoprobing until
> boot time.

Not a bad idea, but it conflicts with one of the goals of
`make autoconfigurator', which is completely hands-off opration.

Giacomo Catenazzi thinks he has collected enough "safe" probes to
find effectively all ISA devices, by grovelling through various bits
of /proc. So this problem may get solved directly.
--
Eric S. Raymond

Probably fewer than 2% of handguns and well under 1% of all guns will
ever be involved in a violent crime. Thus, the problem of criminal gun
violence is concentrated within a very small subset of gun owners,
indicating that gun control aimed at the general population faces a
serious needle-in-the-haystack problem.
-- Gary Kleck, "Point Blank: Handgun Violence In America"