From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andrew Morton Subject: Re: [patch 12/12] Configure out ethtool support Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:48:12 -0700 Message-ID: <20080730144812.a71156f7.akpm@linux-foundation.org> References: <200807301939.m6UJd5lT012610@imap1.linux-foundation.org> <20080730133727.7774de6a@extreme> <20080730224849.59852c68@surf> <20080730140136.42223e3c@extreme> <20080730233551.76fd38a8@surf> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: shemminger@vyatta.com, jeff@garzik.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org, davem@davemloft.net, mpm@selenic.com To: Thomas Petazzoni Return-path: Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([140.211.169.13]:58810 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753425AbYG3VtH (ORCPT ); Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:49:07 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20080730233551.76fd38a8@surf> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:35:51 +0200 Thomas Petazzoni wrote: > Le Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:01:36 -0700, > Stephen Hemminger a __crit : > > > Yes, but still concerned that the loss of functionality. The kernel > > developers have been preaching to get rid of module parameters for > > configuration, and use a standard interfaces such as ethtool;then the > > embedded folks want to save a meager 6K. > > I understand your point, and I understand that adding many > configuration options might not look pretty to everybody (even to me). > However, the kernel developers want to keep embedded people using recent > versions of the Linux kernel. Unfortunately, the kernel grows release > after release (see [1] for a report, for example), There is no [1]. > making the kernel > less and less usable in certain constrainted embedded contexts where > older kernels can be used. And people putting Linux in consumer > electronics devices sold several millions times really do care about > system size. > > The problem is that this kernel growth is well-spread over all the code. > So yes, it's 6k here, 10k here, 7k there, but once added, it starts to > be significant. I note that everybody thinks that their bit cannot possibly be removed, and that everyone else's can ;) But I do think we should see some evidence that people are actually using CONFIG_ETHTOOL=n in real setups.