I went through all the screens of 'make xconfig' and I have to report
a few points:
1) in "network device support", clicking to move the scroll bar always
moves two screenfulls. Same in "sound" but not in others.
2) many items are still missing help. This may be a general helpfile
defficiency rather than an xconfig issue.
3) some options offered were actually invalid (belong to wrong arch,
e.g. CONFIG_HISAX_AMD7930). Maybe a Config.in problem.
4) throughout the process I got the following warnings/errors:
code maturity:
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_PMAC was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_APOLLO was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_MAC was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_HP300 was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_FB_MAC was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_FB_G364 was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_FB_TBOX was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_FB_MDA was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_FB_VGA was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_AMIGA was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_ARM was not declared!
block devices:
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_ATARI was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_PPC was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_ZORRO was not declared!
SCSI low-level:
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_ARCH_ACORN was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_ARCH_ARC was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_ARCH_A5K was not declared!
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_MIPS_JAZZ was not declared!
character devices:
WARNING - broken Config.in! CONFIG_ALPHA_BOOK1 was not declared!
4a)
Why do I get these? Is this because my .config never has
a "is not set" entry for foreign archs? Either these
should all be added to .config or we should adopt a "n"
default.
network device support:
WARNING - broken Config.in! m was not declared!
4b)
I think it comes from this hack in drivers/net/Config.in
# There is no way to detect a comtrol sv11 - force it modular
#
dep_tristate 'Comtrol Hostess SV-11 support'
CONFIG_HOSTESS_SV11 m
Maybe it should use
define_bool CONFIG_HOSTESS_SV11 m
exit and save:
ERROR - Attempting to write value for unconfigured variable
(CONFIG_FB_ATY).
4c)
I have set CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL and CONFIG_PCI so CONFIG_FB_ATY
is
offered un-greyed in "console drivers". However, it has no value
and
accepts no value.
My .config has it as "is not set". Changing it to "=y" did not
help. Moving the line in drivers/video/Config.in did not help
either. Seems that xconfig somehow has a problem with this
option. Maybe the fact that this option appears a few times for
different archs confuses it?
5) after exiting, doing a 'make oldconfig' came up with
Comtrol Hostess SV-11 support (CONFIG_HOSTESS_SV11) [N/m/?]
(NEW)
Multi-Tech multiport card support (CONFIG_ISI) [N/m/?] (NEW)
ATI Mach64 display support (CONFIG_FB_ATY) [N/y/?] (NEW)
why did xconfig fail to configure these?
6) after aborting (quit without saving) I still see some processing
done
if [ -r include/linux/autoconf.h ]; then
\
scripts/split-include include/linux/autoconf.h include/config;
\
fi
Is this proper?
7) Why was I offered FB console bitplanes and fonts for foreign archs?
8) I see in some places we use $CONFIG_AMIGA etc while in other places
we use "$ARCH" = "sparc" . Is this correct?
9) well, a personal gripe, but I saw other people having difficulty
using xconfig for similar reasons.
In general, I think the config system is missing a clear indication
of the option types and their dependancy:
grouping - enabling a set of other options
e.g. CONFIG-EXPERIMENTAL, CONFIG_NET
a main kernel option
e.g. CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION
a module selection (loadable or not)
e.g. CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX
a setting for a module
e.g. CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX_DEFAULT_TAGS
AFAI can see, grouping should use submenus just like different config
files use. Or maybe the dependant enrties should simply be folded
when
the group is not selected? Greyed out is ok but it is often unclear
which greyed line depends on which option. Also, indentation is
used in a very inconsistent way.
-- Eyal Lebedinsky (eyal@eyal.emu.id.au)- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/