Re: [PATCH 0/7] arch/*: config: Remove ReiserFS from defconfig

Geert Uytterhoeven
2023-09-20T09:37:55Z

Hi Peter,

On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 6:16 PM Peter Lafreniere <peter@n8pjl.ca> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 12:02, Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 5:58 PM Peter Lafreniere peter@n8pjl.ca wrote:
> > > 2) Stops building an obsolete and largely-unused filesystem unnecessarily.
> > > Some hobbyist targets like m68k and alpha may prefer to keep all filesystems
> > > available until total removal, but others like arm and UML have no need for
> > > ReiserFS to be built unless specifically configured.
> >
> >
> > As UML is used a lot for testing, isn't it actually counter-productive
> > to remove ReiserFS from the UML defconfig? The less testing it
> > receives, the higher the chance of introducing regressions.
>
> UML is used for testing, but in my view that makes the inclusion of
> ReiserFS in its defconfig even worse. Users of UML are trying to test a

Why?
Because you want to avoid doing any testing at all on deprecated features?

> particular function, and so tend to use ext[2-4], as those are included in
> the defconfig and are well tested and stable. So there is no extra testing
> being done on ReiserFS due to its inclusion in the defconfig.

I'd expect global file system testers to use something along the line of:

for i in $(grep -v nodev /proc/filesystems ); do
echo --- Testing $i ---
dd if=/dev/zero of=testimage bs=1M count=1 seek=10000
mkfs.$i testimage
mount testimage /mnt -t $i
[run xfstests on testimage]
rm -f testimage
done

> Keeping UML's defconfig as slim as possible improves build times, which is
> particularly important for kernel testing and development.

Good luck testing all functionality using a "slim" kernel ;-)

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds