>> Something similar happened to me some weeks ago. I just forgot to
>> change the setting to be non-modular, and it didn't boot. Wouldn't
>> it be possible to have a "Default device to boot from" entry in
>> {,menu,x}config to enter a value and have the config stuff check
>> for the appropriate drivers to be compiled into the kernel?
> There's no easy and failsafe way to check something like that
> (consider compiling a kernel on a machine for another one).
> Don't try to make the kernel's Makefiles pretend to be more clever
> than they are. You are root, if you compile the kernel, so you know
> what you are doing, right? (And this is typical for Un*x like
> systems: Have tools that do basic things without trying to be too
> intelligent. So you can predict what they will do and it's up to
> you to combine them in the right way to solve your problem.)
Most Unix tools include basic sanity checks, and that's one area where
the Linux kernel could be improved. The following sanity check should
not be that hard to do:
Q> Complain if the configuration selects file systems without also
Q> selecting somewhere to mount them, as there's little point to a
Q> kernel supporting (say) ext2 without supporting any form of disk
Q> drive to use it on.
Note that I'm not advocating that either IDE or SCSI have to be
selected, just that if neither is selected, then few of the file
systems make any sense...
Likewise, a kernel compiled with NFS support but without networking
support doesn't make a great deal of sense, but appears selectable; I
can't check at the moment, so can't be sure re that at this point...
Best wishes from Riley.
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