Re: linux-next: Tree for December 8 (drivers/platform/x86/Kconfig:422:error:recursive dependency detected!)

From: Randy Dunlap
Date: Wed Dec 08 2010 - 19:35:32 EST


On 12/08/10 15:49, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 11:35:08PM +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
>> On Wed, 2010-12-08 at 15:31 -0800, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
>>> Even better tool would allow selecting the needed optios right there,
>>> without the need of moving away from teh current option.
>>
>> That's exactly what the Nemesis version of xconfig did, almost 15 years
>> ago.
>>
>>> And yet better tool would not even ask user and enable them on its
>>> own. Hey, but we have it! It's called "select".
>>
>> The tools could do that with 'depends on' too. Why make a distinction?
>
> To allow automatic/manual selection. Sometimes the only answer to
> "shoudl it be enabled" is "Yes". I.e. drivers that need polling need
> input-polldev support. There is no reason whatsoever to even ask user.
>
> Same thing for platform drivers. "Don't you also want to enable option for
> your keyboard and mouse to work? Go do that, you won't regret." "Well,
> duh!"
>
>>
>>> Seriously, select is dangerous. I wonder if a rule like "One can only
>>> select a symbol whose dependencies are all satisfied by the current
>>> symbol and/or its parents and the symbols they select or depend on"
>>> would not make select safe enough.
>>
>> "One can only select a symbol which isn't otherwise presented to the
>> user as a choice".
>
> Input-polldev _is_ presented as a choice in case user or distro want to
> use out of tree driver that depends on it. Does this mean we shoudl
> disallow selects on it? I don't think so.

To me it means that we have too many config options, but I'm sure that some
embedded people would disagree with that.

| GUI tools have means of presenting this, menuconfig and oldconfig have
| harder time...

Sure, I know that.


--
~Randy
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