Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757010Ab1DFXWk (ORCPT ); Wed, 6 Apr 2011 19:22:40 -0400 Received: from h1446028.stratoserver.net ([85.214.92.142]:59942 "EHLO mail.ahsoftware.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753026Ab1DFXWj (ORCPT ); Wed, 6 Apr 2011 19:22:39 -0400 Message-ID: <4D9CF5B3.9020007@ahsoftware.de> Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 01:22:27 +0200 From: Alexander Holler User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.14) Gecko/20110223 Thunderbird/3.1.8 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Nicolas Pitre CC: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org, lkml , Eric Cooper Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ARM: Differentiate SheevaPlugs and DockStars on the basis of the memory size. References: <1302122121-3652-1-git-send-email-holler@ahsoftware.de> <1302122121-3652-2-git-send-email-holler@ahsoftware.de> <4D9CED15.2010806@ahsoftware.de> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2126 Lines: 55 On 07.04.2011 01:01, Nicolas Pitre wrote: > On Thu, 7 Apr 2011, Alexander Holler wrote: > >> On 06.04.2011 23:44, Nicolas Pitre wrote: >>> On Wed, 6 Apr 2011, Alexander Holler wrote: >>> >>>> It is possible to differentiate a SheevaPlugs and DockStars on the basis >>>> of the memory size. >>>> >>>> This makes it possible to unify both setup files. >>> >>> No no no !!! This is an abomination! >>> >>> We are not going to reduce the amount of code under arch/arm/ with such >>> fragile hacks. This would create an even worse maintenance problem the >>> day either of those devices is released with more RAM or whatever. >> >> DockStars are already obsolet and vanilla Linux was never supported by the >> manufacturer (Seagate). And they never used the machine type in question. > > Is the code for DockStar in mainline actually useful? If no then we may > simply delete it. I don't know, I can't speak for others. >> So I don't think this in any way a fragile hack. > > Determining a machine type based on its amount of RAM is fragile, ugly > and sets up a bad example for even more hacky tricks like this to crop > up. If someone is experimenting with his SheevaPlug by giving different > memory information in the kernel cmdline e.g. to create memory holes in > order to test some memory allocator changes, then the kernel may think > that it is not running on a SheevaPlug but a DockStar, and the resulting > behavior will certainly be unexpected. People doing such should now what they do. And the pr_info() in the "abomination" should be enough to give those experimenters a hint (if it is missing or new). >> Anyway, it was just a suggestion. > > Better luck next time. Sorry, I don't feel the need to waste my time prodcuing patches to get them called "abominations". Which means my willingness to post further patches just got below zero. Regards, Alexander -- 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/