Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 27 Dec 2001 19:59:39 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 27 Dec 2001 19:59:29 -0500 Received: from dsl254-112-233.nyc1.dsl.speakeasy.net ([216.254.112.233]:52431 "EHLO snark.thyrsus.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Thu, 27 Dec 2001 19:59:24 -0500 Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 19:44:44 -0500 From: "Eric S. Raymond" To: Linux Kernel List Subject: ISA core vs. ISA card support Message-ID: <20011227194444.A26341@thyrsus.com> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com Mail-Followup-To: "Eric S. Raymond" , Linux Kernel List Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Because the CML2 coodebase is basically buttoned down at this point, I'm now trying to do a little forward design -- looking for rulebase cleanups that will get much harder to do once the CML2 rulebase is dispersed to the care of four-dozen maintainers. Top of my list is maybe doing something about the ISA config symbol. There is a declaration in my arch/i386 rules file that looks like this: # There are PCI-only machines out there, but as of 2.4.0-test1 I'm told # nobody has tested the kernel with an x86 lacking ISA. Giacomo Catenazzi # believes that some motherboard chips use the ISA support code anyway even # if you don't have an ISA bus. require X86 implies ISA==y This is a real problem, because it means that people configuring for PCI-only X86 machines (an increasingly common case) are going to see a whole boatload of ISA-card questions irrelevant to them. I'd like to fix this *before* changing it everywhere might imply a turf war, thank you. There are a couple of ways I could address this in the rulebase. The best course depends on facts I don't know. Like, have kernels more recent than 2.4.0-test1 been built without ISA and tested on PCI-only machines? If this is known to work reliably, I can remove the above rule and life will be simpler and happier. If not, then I need to tghink about splitting the config symbol into ISA and ISA_SLOTS and hacking all of the present driver-visibility predicates to use the latter, with an implication like this require ISA_SLOTS implies ISA==y -- Eric S. Raymond It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part. -- Benjamin Franklin - 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/