On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 10:46:00AM -0700, Laura Abbott wrote:
The Fedora kernel has had roughly the same system for generating the kernel configuration for a very long time. There are a series of files listing configuration choices (CONFIG_FOO=y, CONFIG_FOO is not set etc.) that get combined to generate the final config files. This has gotten unsustainable for several reasons:
- When the system was first introduced, the only supported
arches were x86_32 and x86_64. Fedora now supports enough other arches that we have a config-$arch-generic in addition to config-generic
- It's difficult to tell what is actually enabled since
there are several layers of configuration combining (I have to look at config-generic, then config-$arch-generic, then the final config-$specific file to see what the option actually is)
- Keeping the files organized requires manual work and pruning
I've been thinking about alternatives to the existing config generation. One proposal was to take advantage of the upstream kernel now supporting config fragments and keep some part of the fedora configuration upstream. This would have the disadvantage of requiring the configuration to be kept in sync with upstream.
Another option is to switch to a system of generation where each configuration option is kept in a separate file. There is no sorting or organization necessary. This would result in a lot of small files for all the arches Fedora supports though.
Hi Laura,
Just to throw it out there, RHEL has been using the one option per file mechanism for years now with success. Minimizes the maintenance and conflicts. ( I know you already know that, just wanted to publicly state that).
The volume of files is large, but it is hidden away and you only package the resulting kernel.config files into the src.rpm.
Just a thought.
Cheers, Don
Anyone have experiences with or opinions about the kernel configuration generation? The goal is to only change the way the configurations are generated and not the options that are enabled.
Thanks, Laura _______________________________________________ kernel mailing list -- kernel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to kernel-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org