Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 10:01:15 +0300 (IDT) From: Nadav Eiron <nadav@cs.technion.ac.il> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: LINT and GENERIC - between a rock and a generic place. Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95-heb-2.07.970601095133.4782A-100000@csd> In-Reply-To: <9876.865110612@time.cdrom.com>
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On Sat, 31 May 1997, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > More and more people are trying to use GENERIC as a template for their > own kernels and they're losing, of course, because generic sets many > limits (like max children or open files) too low. > [snip] > Meanwhile, of course, the users continue to use GENERIC (or worse, > LINT) as their only available guides and they continue to walk off > cliffs, year after year. > > How shall we conduct the debate this time? Same old same old, or > something genuinely productive? :-) On a (related???) issue... We had a short discussion on -questions lately about kernel config files. It may just be a question of documentation, but I suspect it's more than that. At least every other day you get a newbie on -qeustions who can't boot because he commented out npx, or INET, or he can't open xterms because he commented out COMPAT_43 or his config won't build because he commented out pci but not the PCI devices (this is a bit less of a problem, as you can see what's wrong from the compile-time errors, but a newbie usually doesn't understand what he did wrong). I've just rechecked the handbook, and INET for once is listed under "Networking", not under "Mandatory keywords" (though it says there to leave it in). I'm not sure that changing just the docs would help, but it is the first step (same goes for npx0, FFS, COMPAT_43, loop etc.). I think what would be better is for config, or even the kernel's makefile, to do some sanity checks and spit out warnings like: *** You didn't put in INET. There's a good chance your kernel won't boot *** This sure will save bandwidth on -questions, and many frustrated newbies from climbing up on walls. > > Jordan > Yet another $.02 (I think someone is getting rich here collecting these cents :-) ). Nadav
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