Re: sata & scsi suggestion for make menuconfig

Randy Dunlap
2007-09-08T16:32:31Z

Stefan Richter wrote:
> (added Cc linux-ide)
>
> Folkert van Heusden wrote:
>>>>> A popup makes some sense, but I don't know if menuconfig knows how to
>>>>> do popup warnings... and it needs to be done for all *configs,
>>>>> not just menuconfig.
>>>> Maybe add a new type?
>>> How about
>>> comment "Note: 'SCSI disk support' is required for SATA/PATA HDDs!"
>>> depends on ATA && !BLK_DEV_SD
>> Yes! Maybe create some status-line at the bottom of the screen in which
>> these hints scrollby. Like powertop does.
>
> 'comment' is already supported by make {menu,x,g}config and AFAIK by
> make oldconfig too. It is not effective in make oldconfig though
> because it will scroll off the screen quickly.
>
> I am not a friend of 'select', but maybe the following actually helps.
> I didn't follow all of this and previous related discussions, so I guess
> somebody else suggested something like this before:
>

The problem with 'select' here is that it will enable BLK_DEV_SD,
but if SCSI is not enabled, it will not become enabled -- i.e.,
select does not follow the dependency chain. So usually the
kernel will not build unless SCSI is enabled by the user.

> # drivers/ata/Kconfig
>
> config ATA
> [...]
>
> comment "Controller drivers"
>
> [...low-level drivers go here...]
>
> comment "Storage device drivers"
>
> config ATA_SD
> tristate "SATA/PATA HDD support (via SCSI disk support)"
> depends on ATA
> select BLK_DEV_SD
> help
> 'SCSI disk support' is required to access SATA HDDs. It is
> also necessary for parallel ATA (IDE) HDDs if you use the
> experimental parallel ATA option.
>
> You can say Y or M here to select SCSI disk support, or you
> can do so in the 'SCSI device support' section.
>
> [...ditto for CD/DVD-ROMs, tapes, and generic support...]

--
~Randy
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