Heads up: Linus plans to kill ARM defconfigs
Tony Lindgren
tony at atomide.com
Tue Jun 8 08:31:03 EDT 2010
* Russell King - ARM Linux <linux at arm.linux.org.uk> [100608 14:53]:
> On Fri, Jun 04, 2010 at 04:51:24PM -0400, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> > Linus wants something to be done about the current defconfig mess which
> > is perfectly legitimate. He even suggested a possible solution. I
> > don't think he'll simply drop those defconfig files if we demonstrate
> > that we're taking action to fix the actual problem.
>
> However, having a set of patches which combine a load of defconfig
> files into one is not going to solve the problem.
>
> If you're hypothesis that Linus is only looking at the diffstat, then
> what are patches to combine the defconfigs going to do? It's going
> to create lots of noise in arch/arm/configs/ - which is precisely what
> Linus is complaining about. In fact, patch-wise it's going to create
> an extremely large patch. And if we do this time and time again while
> progressively reducing the defconfigs. No, this isn't the answer -
> it's only going to make the problem worse.
>
> I believe the only acceptable solution is to get an alterative method
> in place - no matter what it is - and remove the all but one of the
> defconfig files from the mainline kernel. _And_, most importantly,
> kautobuild needs to be fixed so that we still get build coverage.
>
> The loss of kautobuild is a major concern here, and I believe it trumps
> everything else for the next merge window. Kautobuild is an extremely
> important resource that we simply can not afford to lose.
How about the following strategy for the next merge window:
- Update kautobuild to temporarily host the current defconfigs
- Remove all the arm defconfigs except one
Then over the next few merge cycles:
- Make the ARM platform specific Kconfig or similar option to work
- Drop the old defconfigs from kautobuild once we have the new solution
Then over yet unknown lenght of time:
- Work towards building in more features (TLS/SMP/VFPvX) into the same kernel
- Work towards building in multiple ARM platforms into the same kernel
Regards,
Tony
More information about the linux-arm-kernel
mailing list