Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 27 Nov 2002 03:36:33 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 27 Nov 2002 03:36:33 -0500 Received: from xsmtp.ethz.ch ([129.132.97.6]:11875 "EHLO xsmtp.ethz.ch") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 27 Nov 2002 03:36:32 -0500 Message-ID: <3DE485C5.8080309@debian.org> Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 09:43:49 +0100 From: Giacomo Catenazzi User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2b) Gecko/20021016 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en, it-ch, it, fr MIME-Version: 1.0 To: John Bradford CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: A Kernel Configuration Tale of Woe References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 27 Nov 2002 08:43:50.0147 (UTC) FILETIME=[1B89D530:01C295F1] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1459 Lines: 35 John Bradford wrote: > This demonstrates a very important point - _any_ automatic > configuration program is likely to cause more traffic to this mailing > list, and create more work for users and developers that the current > automatic configuration process: > > echo 'My box doesn't boot' | mail linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > > The kernel knows nothing about motherboards, cards, etc. It knows > about chipsets, and nothing else. By definition, you cannot have a > kernel configurator that works at a higher level than that. I disagree. When we have a booting kernel, finding out the used drivers is not so difficult: kernel give us already enough informations (modules loaded, in drivers that use some resources,...). The problem is: what will be the use of such minimalistic/optimal but non-modular kernel? If I add a new device (such a modem, a printer, new USB device...) or if I use a new disk with an other FS, the users of an autoconfiguration will be lost, but not the users of the vendors kernels. Thus the real problem is: where will use such autoconfiguration? Why? IMHO it can be used only by expert, to find what drivers is need for such device (when hotplug cannot help you). ciao giacomo - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/