Re: Linux 2.6.39

[Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>]

On 19 May 2011 16:44, Mark Lord <kernel@teksavvy.com> wrote:
> Here's some more funny business that was new after rc7-git12:
>
> warning: (AX88796_93CX6 && RTL8180 && RTL8187 && ADM8211 && RT2400PCI &&
> RT2500PCI && RT61PCI && RT2800PCI && R8187SE) selects EEPROM_93CX6 which has
> unmet direct dependencies (MISC_DEVICES)
> warning: (ACPI_APEI) selects PSTORE which has unmet direct dependencies
> (MISC_FILESYSTEMS)
>
> The exact same .config didn't do that with rc7-git12,
> but does do it with 2.6.39 final.
>
> Odd thing is, if I select both MISC_DEVICES and MISC_FILESYSTEMS,
> but do NOT select anything from under either of those,
> the warnings go away.
>
> Which likely means the warnings are totally bogus.

The problem is:

AX88796_93CX6 selects EEPROM_93CX6
EEPROM_93CX6 depends on MISC_DEVICES (as part of the EEPROM menu which
is only included if MISC_DEVICES)

By enabling MISC_DEVICES, you allow AX88796_93CX6 to select
EEPROM_93CX6 without any warning as it has the dependencies met.

The issue here is that EEPROM_93CX6 doesn't really depend on any
MISC_DEVICES infrastructure. That's just a directory for various
drivers and MISC_DEVICES only has a visibility role. There was a
proposal last year for kbuild to differentiate between dependency and
visibility but I don't know what happened to it.

-- 
Catalin