[PATCH 0/4] ARM: mvebu: minor Armada 370 RD improvements

[Jason Cooper]

merf.  It helps if I actually _add_ Ian to the Cc. :)

On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 10:26:01AM -0400, Jason Cooper wrote:
> +Ian
> 
> On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 04:00:00PM +0200, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> > On Thu, 11 Sep 2014 15:43:23 +0200, Andrew Lunn wrote:
> > > A point for discussion, triggered by 3/4. We have repeatedly seen
> > > issues with modular builds, which we don't see with everything built
> > > in. Can we improve our testing? Is there is way to take for example
> > > mvebu_v7_defconfig and turn any y tristate options into m? Build and
> > > boot? Get this added to the boot test farms?
> > 
> > I indeed agree that we are not testing much the modular case, but:
> > 
> >  1/ In my case, a mvebu_v7_defconfig where most the stuff would become
> >     enabled as a module would make mvebu_v7_defconfig pretty much
> >     useless for my daily work. When I'm doing active development, I
> >     typically have everything built-in including the initramfs itself,
> >     so that I don't rely on any storage/network to get the rootfs and
> >     additional kernel drivers.
> > 
> >  2/ I don't think it would change much in terms of runtime coverage:
> >     the tests done on the boot farm are just boot tests, I don't think
> >     they load any kernel module. We could ask Kevin and Olof what
> >     rootfs they use, but most likely it's some very small rootfs that
> >     doesn't even have udev/mdev for automatic module loading. So no
> >     module would be loaded, which would mean that a mvebu_v7_defconfig
> >     with everything as a module would actually test *less* thing than a
> >     configuration that has everything built in.
> > 
> > So, I agree on the observation, but I'm unsure the proposed solution
> > will really solve or even improve the situation :/
> 
> Since debian does modular builds on a regular basis, maybe they have
> some recommendations.
> 
> My thought is that I doubt we're the only SoC family with this issue.
> To avoid the maintenance headache of extra _mod_defconfig's, perhaps we
> could add a ./scripts/config toggle to turn the current .config enabled
> tristates into modules?
> 
> thx,
> 
> Jason.