Re: [patch] MTD: fix DOC2000/2001/2001PLUS build error

[Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>]

Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 08:09:58PM -0500, Theodore Tso wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 11:21:34PM +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
>>> But Alan makes a reasonable suggestion -- we could work around this in
>>> the tools too. 
>> I wouldn't call it "work around this" in the tools.  It's a useful
>> feature we can add in the tools for developers who aren't men enough
>> to use "sed/grep" pipelines.  :-)
>>
>> But I have to agree with Linus here that we should be optimizing the
>> tools for people who know how to compile the kernel, but who aren't
>> necessarily familiar with all of the hidden dependencies in the
>> literally hundreds of config options in the kernel tree.  In reality,
>> you want to make it easy to turn on *or* off any arbitrary config
>> option, and to understand what you need to do so you can turn an
>> arbitrary config option on or off.  If that means tools enhancements,
>> so be it.  
> 
> With apt (or presumably with yum), you can happily apt-remove
> a package that nothing else depends on. If you remove something that
> other things depend on, you get a list of those things and opportunity
> to force it (with a -f flag, for instance). If you ask for a package
> that has other dependencies, it automatically pulls all those things
> in unless there's a conflict. In which case you can force it again.
> 
> There's no reason we shouldn't be able to do exactly that with config
> symbols in Kconfig-land. The only difference is that we've got
> slightly different semantics for our "depend" keyword. Things which
> don't have their "depend" requirements met aren't offered as options.
> Whereas "select" is "automatically pull in dependencies"
> apt/yum-style.

Perhaps this is because there is a lacking keyword. The depends controls 
visibility, perhaps a "requires" could be used to provide advisory 
information which mean "these other things will be turned on if you 
build this feature."
> 
> While we're at it, it would also be nice to be able to do:
> 
> $ kconfig enable ACPI
> CONFIG_ACPI conflicts with CONFIG_APM
> $ kconfig enable -F ACPI
> disabling CONFIG_APM
> $ kconfig disable SCSI
> CONFIG_USB_STORAGE depends on CONFIG_SCSI
> $ kconfig disable -f SCSI
> disabling USB_STORAGE
> $ make
> 
I think depends and select provide this now, the postulated "requires" 
might make building the trees easier.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot