Re: [PATCH] Combine instrumentation menus in kernel/Kconfig.instrumentation

[Mathieu Desnoyers]

* Valdis.Kletnieks@xxxxxx (Valdis.Kletnieks@xxxxxx) wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:06:28 EDT, Mathieu Desnoyers said:
>  
> > * Valdis.Kletnieks@xxxxxx (Valdis.Kletnieks@xxxxxx) wrote:
> > > OK, I'll bite - given the mention of 'debugging' there, do we want to go for
> > > broke and *also* suck in the 'Kernel Hacking' menu as well?
> > 
> > Instrumentation primarity aims at debugging user-space applications by
> > giving the ability to extract information across execution layers, hence
> > being a feature useful to users, not only kernel hackers.
> 
> Ahh.. Where I come from, "Instrumentation" includes *all* the code that doesn't
> actually *do* the work, but exists solely so you can tell what the code is
> doing - so almost everything on the i386/x86_64 "Kernel Hacking" menu counts
> as "instrumentation" in my book.
> 
> Now if we're talking about the features provided by one specific *instance*
> of instrumentation code, I can buy that too - but I think that help text
> needs to be clear on what is included under "debugging"
> 
> (I'd settle for "If you're trying to debug the kernel itself, go see the
> Kernel Hacking menu" or similar.. ;)
> 

Ok, let's add that.

> > to many, not only kernel developers. Please have a look at the
> > papers (especially the OLS2007 paper) linked on http://ltt.polymtl.ca as a
> > starting point if you are intereted in the question.
> 
> Ahh, LTT. *that* I recognize.  Yeah, I count that as *one flavor* of
> instrumentation. :)
> 

Systemtap, kprobes and oprofile would also fall into the same category.

Mathieu


-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
Computer Engineering Ph.D. Student, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
OpenPGP key fingerprint: 8CD5 52C3 8E3C 4140 715F  BA06 3F25 A8FE 3BAE 9A68

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