Re: [PATCH] default to n for GROUP_SCHED and FAIR_GROUP_SCHED

Linus Torvalds
2008-05-05T20:49:35Z

On Mon, 5 May 2008, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>
> yeah, that's what i meant mostly - to new drivers we unfortunately
> default to 'n'. And most of the time (i hope!) our defaults for new core
> kernel and architectural features otherwise make sense.

I doubt it.

People are *way* too eager to mark things 'y', because it may make sense
as a default to the developer of the feature, never mind that the average
user should never *ever* enable it.

There are even things that are clearly marked experimental (and depend on
the EXPERIMENTAL config option), and then have the gall to say "default
y".

Another example of that kind of behaviour, for example, is just you
fighting turning off 'default y' from FAIR_GROUP_SCHED, considering that
it is known to cause latency problems and the reason isn't understood.

Developers want their features to be enabled. Regardless of whether they
are features that make sense to normal people.

I'd love to make "default y" be something you must never do (except for
question that don't get asked at all!), but that would just cause people
to create negative config options ("disable my cool feature?") which we
already have to some degree, and which is *really* irritating.

Linus