Re: [PATCH v2] arm64: defconfig: Enable zram, xfs and loading compressed FW support

[Maxime Ripard]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 04:41:38PM +0100, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2024, at 16:24, Maxime Ripard wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 04:10:12PM +0100, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> >> On 21/02/2024 15:48, Maxime Ripard wrote:
> >> > On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 03:22:38PM +0100, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> >> >> On 21/02/2024 15:13, Javier Martinez Canillas wrote:
> >> >>> These options are needed by some Linux distributions (e.g: Fedora), so
> >> >>
> >> >> How ZRAM is needed? Why Fedora cannot boot without it? Debian, which I
> >> >> use on my arm64 boards, does not have any problem.
> >> > 
> >> > Is it relevant in any way?
> >> 
> >> Yes, because it is justification why we are doing it. Each commit is
> >> supposed to explain "why" and the explanation here is not enough.
> >
> > There's a why though: it makes Fedora boot. It might not be enough for
> > you, but that's a different story. So, if it's not enough, please state
> > exactly what you expect from that patch description so Javier can
> > provide it.
> 
> It's definitely enough for me. It makes a lot of sense to have
> a defconfig that boots common and popular distros.
> 
> I don't use ZRAM either, but I can see that being useful to
> avoid swapping to SD cards or eMMC when that is the only
> available swap device.
> 
> >> >> I kind of repeat comments from similar patch earlier:
> >> >> https://lore.kernel.org/all/fe1e74a2-e933-7cd9-f740-86d871076191@xxxxxxxxxx/
> >> >>
> >> >> About XFS: I don't think it is needed to boot anything.
> >> > 
> >> > Just like 9P_FS, NFS or UBIFS.
> >> 
> >> NFS is often used on targets, e.g. my board farm, but also by other people.
> >> 
> >> UBIFS was added recently because one device was using it - you needed
> >> it. 9P_FS looks unnecessary.
> >
> > So all we need is one person or use case to require it? Sounds like
> > we've checked that mark here.
> 
> I think we want all of the above. We can probably drop ext2 since
> we already need ext4, but that is a different question.
> 
> >> I was working in distro so trust me - they do stuff differently
> >> and they not need XFS in our defconfig for anything.
> >
> > Sure, but you're not just arguing for XFS there.
> >
> > What I really don't get is this: this makes the life of people easier.
> >
> > Being able to test an upstream kernel quickly when you have a bug in a
> > downstream distro is super valuable for any distro developper. And on
> > the long run, if we don't make the switch from a kernel distro to a
> > mainline kernel relatively easy, we're the ones that will lose out.
> > Because people just won't bother, or be frustrated and thus super
> > reluctant to do that work.
> 
> We had previously discussed adding config fragments for common
> distros the way we have kvm_guest.config, but if the Javier's
> patch is all that is actually needed for Fedora, that seems better
> to me than the added complexity of fragments.

Oh, right. Fragments would be a great tool to reconcile the need for
minimal boot time and supporting reasonable use-cases.

I guess it's even more of a struggle with the single arm64 defconfig vs
the minimal vs batteries included defconfig setup we had for arm.

Maxime

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