From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Nov 25 18:49:10 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0273A4FF for ; Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:49:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@damnhippie.dyndns.org) Received: from duck.symmetricom.us (duck.symmetricom.us [206.168.13.214]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF9F78FC18 for ; Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:49:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from damnhippie.dyndns.org (daffy.symmetricom.us [206.168.13.218]) by duck.symmetricom.us (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id qAPIn2mH049500 for ; Sun, 25 Nov 2012 11:49:02 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from freebsd@damnhippie.dyndns.org) Received: from [172.22.42.240] (revolution.hippie.lan [172.22.42.240]) by damnhippie.dyndns.org (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id qAPImwh0036406; Sun, 25 Nov 2012 11:48:58 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from freebsd@damnhippie.dyndns.org) Subject: Re: Where do I purchace an unlock code to build a custom kernel? From: Ian Lepore To: Andreas Nilsson In-Reply-To: References: <27e2b51a63d1a04a3f5035ea2bfd215b.authenticated@ultimatedns.net> <1864583315.20121123233938@takeda.tk> <7d9b8b9da9bbf74a134fb581bc133ec1.authenticated@ultimatedns.net> <1147916428.20121124000013@takeda.tk> <8c535b696c2a9cd805d68f52633c3044.authenticated@ultimatedns.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2012 11:48:58 -0700 Message-ID: <1353869338.69940.71.camel@revolution.hippie.lan> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.32.1 FreeBSD GNOME Team Port Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Warren Block , Derek Kulinski , bright@mu.org, FreeBSD Stable Mailing List , Chris H X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:49:10 -0000 On Sun, 2012-11-25 at 00:29 +0100, Andreas Nilsson wrote: > [big discussion snipped, including advice to include GENERIC] > > I full-heartedly agree that include-statement is good, but still > $ wc -l /usr/src/sys/amd64/conf/MINI > 174 /usr/src/sys/amd64/conf/MINI > > And this is just after removing network cards ( (usb)ethernet, > (usb)wlan, > raid drivers and firewire) for my pretty standard lenovo t510. There > is so > much in GENERIC today that seems to work just as well as modules. I > guess > one thread on a mailing list this summer tried to achieve a more > modular > config, which would make the include statement even more useful. > > Best regards > Andreas > I think including GENERIC and then trying to customize by disabling what you don't need is horrible advice, and results in just as big and unmaintainable a mess as writing a custom config file from scratch. Either way you do it, you are absolutely required on each OS release to carefully comb through every line of the new GENERIC and compare it to your customizations to make sure you're still turning on and off the right things to get the kernel you want. Where's the benefits? The problem, as I see it, is that GENERIC is not intended to be a baseline config to which various little extras can be added and maybe one or two things might be trimmed away. It's an ever-changing vision of a config that can be almost everything that almost everyone needs. The ever-changingness of that vision is the big problem. Things that had to be in GENERIC 10 years ago are all but meaningless now (NDIS drivers, anyone? device EISA?). It would be nice if kernel configs were truly modularized and designed to be used in a mix-ins sort of way. There should be an I386-BASE and AMD64-BASE and so on that contains just things that are truly required to get that hardware working. There should be useful mix-ins like FIREWALL and ROUTER and DESKTOP. I should be able to write a config file that looks like ident MYBEAST include AMD64-BASE include DESKTOP include DISKLESS-NFSROOT device frannistan # The cheap-o multi-io card I bought device uftdi # My favorite usb->serial adapters -- Ian