Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S272128AbTGYOdF (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 Jul 2003 10:33:05 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S272132AbTGYOdF (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 Jul 2003 10:33:05 -0400 Received: from 81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk ([81.2.122.30]:59777 "EHLO 81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S272128AbTGYOc7 (ORCPT ); Fri, 25 Jul 2003 10:32:59 -0400 Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 15:58:10 +0100 From: John Bradford Message-Id: <200307251458.h6PEwAMD001065@81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk> To: ecki-lkm@lina.inka.de, Fabian.Frederick@prov-liege.be, rpjday@mindspring.com Subject: RE: why the current kernel config menu layout is a mess Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 4039 Lines: 89 > from my poking around in the whole Kconfig structure, it seems that the > menu structure is tied awfully closely to the underlying directory > structure. this would make it overly difficult to shift parts of > the config menu around without dragging the corresponding directories > around as well. > Internal -> Legacy -> ISA There are also complications with taking configurations from old kernel versions, and using them with later kernels - a 2.4 config typically won't work simply by using make oldconfig on a 2.6 tree. Maybe a completely new, out of kernel tree configurator would be worth thinking about, leaving the in-kernel configurator as a legacy option. I know the config system underwent a major overhaul during 2.5, but I think we could go even further. Ultimately, any configurator generates a plain text .config file with various options set. There is no reason why we couldn't have a modular system: ---------------------- ---------------- | Kernel .config | | Out of tree | ---------------- | options description|--->| configurator |--->| .config file | | file | | | ---------------- ---------------------- ---------------- / / | | \ \ / / | | \ \ ^ v ^ v ^ v / / | | \ \ / / | | \ \ ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- | MODULE 1 | | MODULE 2 | | MODULE 3 | ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- The out of tree configurator on it's own would simply display all the options in the kernel .config options description file, with their descriptions, and allow them to be set to specific values. The display could be colour coded for yes/no values. The modules could allow things like: * Creating a config file using an existing config file - similar to make oldconfig * Turning groups of options on and off - similar to the existing make menuconfig, but more flexible - you could just load a 'bus options' module, which would provide verbose prompting for bus options, allow the turning on and off of groups of .config options, and hide advanced options, but which would leave the raw .config options editable for everything that wasn't to do with 'bus options'. * Creating a minimal .config file from the output of boottime dmesg output - similar to the adjustkernel perl script that works with NetBSD: http://www.feyrer.de/Misc/adjustkernel Distributions could create their own modules to customise the configurator however they wanted to. John. - 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/