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Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 15:47:29 +0100
From: Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@dplanet.ch>
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To: "Michael Lazarou (ETL)" <Michael.Lazarou@etl.ericsson.se>
CC: "'Giacomo Catenazzi'" <cate@debian.org>,
        Linux Kernel List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution
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Michael Lazarou (ETL) wrote:


>>Not a problem. Autoconfiguration is made to help configuring
>>the kernel, before to compile it. So you need a linux working
>>machine (actually you can cross-compile).
>>
>>Our task is to allow user to compile a kernel, with the
>>needed drivers, without the non used drivers.
>>
> 
> OK, well I guess I am a little confused.
> 
> If I hit an autoconfigurator button then I would expect a kernel that
> will boot and know everything there is to know about my machine.


Actually there is no yet 'autoconfigurator button'.
I recommend to run a std configuration tool and to check
the configuration before the kernel build phase.

> Without probing the hardware how will the autoconfigurator cope with 
> the hardware changing underneath it?


We probe the hardware (but in a soft manner).
Better: we probe nothing, we ask kernel to give us the results
of already done kernel probes. Thus we never hang, we never crash
machine, no 10-15 reboots to install a new kernel.
The good news: this is nearly enought.

Linux is magic: it can do infinite loops in 5 sec, but also
it can configure automatically a new kernel without real hardware
probes!.

	giacomo

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