On Mon, 16 Jul 2012, Alan Cox wrote:


Select the profile and then fixup the config the normal way.

If what the admin wants is incompatible with the profile, admin doesn't
select the profile.


Thats ugly - "distro except..." is a standard thing you ask users to do
for debugging.

However providing you separate the initial profile from the later tools
it simply becomes

make distroconfig
[cp /etc/system-kconfig(.$ARCH?) .config
make oldconfig]

make menuconfig (if you want to customise)

In addition the make oldconfig means you can ship a deliberately
incomplete distroconfig and get the user asked some bits.


exactly what I was fumbling to describe, thanks.

David Lang


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Dear all,
I usually don't take part of discussions in LKML but I recognized myself
in what Linus is actually describing as a "normal user" (one of the few
insane enough to read the mailing list...) so I wrote a few ideas below...
Please give me your thoughts ? Benjamin

On 7/16/12 6:50 PM, "Linus Torvalds" <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
>Your "problem" isn't what any sane person cares about, and isn't what
>I started the RFC for.
>Seriously. NOBODY CARES.
>You can do what you want to do *today*. Just edit the config file, or
>use any of the millions of config tools. Stop whining.

I guess the complexity of configuration in order to build a distro is why
I didn't even try to build a distro-specific kernel? Moreover the doc is
terrible for unfamiliar users...

>The thing I'm asking for is for normal people. Make it easy for people
>who DO NOT CARE about the config file to just build a kernel for their
>machine.

If you think about users like me who just want to build a basic featured
kernel we always do a make menuconfig with near default options...


What I would expect to build a distro/kernel is to have access in a
menuconfig-like to
1) basic features like networking, usb storage, power management ?etc?
_enabled by default_ so I can quickly build a "common platform" kernel
which gives me everything I need on my laptop? and
2) have a menu like "*distro* basic requirements" (never changes and only
for a few big distros) and finally
3) have a "*distro* advanced" menu having all the other non-mandatory
options available but with a conflict manager? (it could check against a
full Kconfig file kept up-to-date by each distro groups)

Without necessary talking of menuconfig, I liked very much the structure
Linus suggested in the first post regarding Kconfig files?

That maybe some idiotic suggestions but I'd like to know what you think
about it anyway?

Cheers! B.

>Don't complicate the issue by bringing up some totally unrelated
>question. Don't derail a useful feature for the 99% because you're not
>in it.
>
> Linus



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On Mon, 16 Jul 2012, Linus Torvalds wrote:


On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 9:43 AM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:


The problem is that you can't select the Fedora profile and then unselect
SELINUX, so the profile will do you no good.


Guys, stop it now.

Your "problem" isn't what any sane person cares about, and isn't what
I started the RFC for.

Seriously. NOBODY CARES.

You can do what you want to do *today*. Just edit the config file, or
use any of the millions of config tools. Stop whining.

The thing I'm asking for is for normal people. Make it easy for people
who DO NOT CARE about the config file to just build a kernel for their
machine.

Don't complicate the issue by bringing up some totally unrelated
question. Don't derail a useful feature for the 99% because you're not
in it.


Some of the proposed ways to implement the minimum distro kernel would not
allow you to override the distro defaults because they would be
implemented by setting dependancies, not by selecting options that you as
the user could then unselect.


If you have to edit the .config file, and then have your next make *config
override your edits (due to dependancy resolution) and so have to edit the
.config file again this is a really ugly way of working.


David Lang


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On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 12:26 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:
>
> Some of the proposed ways to implement the minimum distro kernel would not
> allow you to override the distro defaults because they would be implemented
> by setting dependancies, not by selecting options that you as the user could
> then unselect.

The sanest thing to do is just a list of "select" statements. And in
any case it would have to depend on the "distro config" entry, so EVEN
THEN you could just create the Kconfig file, then edit out the distro
config thing, and then do whatever you want.

So I don't see why you're arguing. Even if it is very much a "if you
select the FEDORA_X kconfig option, that will automatically force all
those other options on", I don't see why you are so upset. Just set
it, generate your kconfig, and then edit to file to NOT set the distro
config. Then you can do whatever the hell you want.

What I'm upset about is simply the fact that EVEN IF your arguments
were valid (and I don't think they are: see above for trivial fix) I
think your arguments are bogus, for the simple reason that what you
ask for isn't even what the whole "distro minconfig" is at all about.
It's about normal users who absolutely DO NOT want to edit the config.
People who want to say "I know I have intel/amd/nvidia graphics,
standard USB, and no CD-ROM drive". They couldn't care *less* about
SELINUX, and in fact that very issue is why we should have this.

Anybody who says "I want to run Fedora without SELINUX because I do my
own security development" is by *definition* not relevant to the whole
feature.

Linus


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On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 12:26 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:
>
> Some of the proposed ways to implement the minimum distro kernel would not
> allow you to override the distro defaults because they would be implemented
> by setting dependancies, not by selecting options that you as the user could
> then unselect.

The sanest thing to do is just a list of "select" statements. And in
any case it would have to depend on the "distro config" entry, so EVEN
THEN you could just create the Kconfig file, then edit out the distro
config thing, and then do whatever you want.

So I don't see why you're arguing. Even if it is very much a "if you
select the FEDORA_X kconfig option, that will automatically force all
those other options on", I don't see why you are so upset. Just set
it, generate your kconfig, and then edit to file to NOT set the distro
config. Then you can do whatever the hell you want.

What I'm upset about is simply the fact that EVEN IF your arguments
were valid (and I don't think they are: see above for trivial fix) I
think your arguments are bogus, for the simple reason that what you
ask for isn't even what the whole "distro minconfig" is at all about.
It's about normal users who absolutely DO NOT want to edit the config.
People who want to say "I know I have intel/amd/nvidia graphics,
standard USB, and no CD-ROM drive". They couldn't care *less* about
SELINUX, and in fact that very issue is why we should have this.

Anybody who says "I want to run Fedora without SELINUX because I do my
own security development" is by *definition* not relevant to the whole
feature.

Linus

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On Mon, 16 Jul 2012, Linus Torvalds wrote:


On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 12:26 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:


Some of the proposed ways to implement the minimum distro kernel would not
allow you to override the distro defaults because they would be implemented
by setting dependancies, not by selecting options that you as the user could
then unselect.


The sanest thing to do is just a list of "select" statements. And in
any case it would have to depend on the "distro config" entry, so EVEN
THEN you could just create the Kconfig file, then edit out the distro
config thing, and then do whatever you want.

So I don't see why you're arguing. Even if it is very much a "if you
select the FEDORA_X kconfig option, that will automatically force all
those other options on", I don't see why you are so upset. Just set
it, generate your kconfig, and then edit to file to NOT set the distro
config. Then you can do whatever the hell you want.

What I'm upset about is simply the fact that EVEN IF your arguments
were valid (and I don't think they are: see above for trivial fix) I
think your arguments are bogus, for the simple reason that what you
ask for isn't even what the whole "distro minconfig" is at all about.
It's about normal users who absolutely DO NOT want to edit the config.
People who want to say "I know I have intel/amd/nvidia graphics,
standard USB, and no CD-ROM drive". They couldn't care *less* about
SELINUX, and in fact that very issue is why we should have this.

Anybody who says "I want to run Fedora without SELINUX because I do my
own security development" is by *definition* not relevant to the whole
feature.


Don't mistake the example for the feature. the SELINUX thing is just an
example. As Alan Cox commented, taking a distro config and disabling one
thing is a common troubleshooting request from kernel developers.


I am not that familiar with the internals of kconfig, but my understanding
was that if you select feature X that then turns on A, B, and C, if you
then edit the .config file to remove feature X features A, B, and C will
be turned off the next time you do a make *config. If this is not the
case, then it's not as horrible as I was thinking.


However, there's still the question of how many different variations of
how many different distros are you going to accept into the upstream
kernel. How many different versions of Fedora are you going to be willing
to have in the menu? This seems to me to be the defconfig problem
multiplied by many distros and many versions of each distro. If we can
eliminate this combinational explosion by referencing something outside of
the kernel tree, it seems to me that it's a big win.


As Alan Cox put it in code


make distroconfig
[cp /etc/system-kconfig(.$ARCH?) .config
make oldconfig]

make menuconfig (if you want to customise)


with the distros providing /etc/system-kconfig files seems far more
scalable as well as far more flexible than either setting up a lot of
dependancies for new tags or adding a field to every option to make it
part of some profile.


This approach works both for the users who just want to say "I know I have
intel/amd/nvidia graphics, standard USB, and no CD-ROM drive", for the
users who know a bit more, but want to start with a known point, and for
the production sysadmins who want to use the same mechanism for other
purposes (standardizing builds for systems as kernel versions move
forward)


David Lang


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On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:56 PM, Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 12:26 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:
>> Some of the proposed ways to implement the minimum distro kernel would not
>> allow you to override the distro defaults because they would be implemented
>> by setting dependancies, not by selecting options that you as the user could
>> then unselect.
>
> The sanest thing to do is just a list of "select" statements. And in
> any case it would have to depend on the "distro config" entry, so EVEN
> THEN you could just create the Kconfig file, then edit out the distro
> config thing, and then do whatever you want.

Except that "select" is one of the ugliest things in Kconfig, as it
blindly sets a symbol
without checking if its dependencies are fulfilled.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

Geert

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In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds


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On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:56 PM, Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 12:26 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:
>> Some of the proposed ways to implement the minimum distro kernel would not
>> allow you to override the distro defaults because they would be implemented
>> by setting dependancies, not by selecting options that you as the user could
>> then unselect.
>
> The sanest thing to do is just a list of "select" statements. And in
> any case it would have to depend on the "distro config" entry, so EVEN
> THEN you could just create the Kconfig file, then edit out the distro
> config thing, and then do whatever you want.

Except that "select" is one of the ugliest things in Kconfig, as it
blindly sets a symbol
without checking if its dependencies are fulfilled.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

Geert

--
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In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds

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* david@lang.hm <david@lang.hm> wrote:

> > Anybody who says "I want to run Fedora without SELINUX
> > because I do my own security development" is by *definition*
> > not relevant to the whole feature.
>
> Don't mistake the example for the feature. the SELINUX thing
> is just an example. As Alan Cox commented, taking a distro
> config and disabling one thing is a common troubleshooting
> request from kernel developers.

It's still irrelevant:

- if a user chooses a distro config it means that he is using
that distro. Disabling an essential component of the distro
config, even if a kernel developer asks for it, will likely
break that distro and is thus a dumb thing to do. (the
typical user will also be unlikely to be *able* to edit a
.config and make sure it works.)

- Furthermore, there's *already* over ten thousand select's in
our Kconfig's, and it's already hard at times to disable
dependent options.

- I've been using what Linus suggested for many years via
private patches to do bootable randconfig testing and the
concept works just fine - enabling a distro specific
minconfig is absolutely useful, I'm glad it's being pursued
upstream as well...

So what you are arguing about is IMO irrelevant, it is
immaterial to the problem at hand and the concept works just
fine in practice.

Thanks,

Ingo


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* david@lang.hm <david@lang.hm> wrote:

> > Anybody who says "I want to run Fedora without SELINUX
> > because I do my own security development" is by *definition*
> > not relevant to the whole feature.
>
> Don't mistake the example for the feature. the SELINUX thing
> is just an example. As Alan Cox commented, taking a distro
> config and disabling one thing is a common troubleshooting
> request from kernel developers.

It's still irrelevant:

- if a user chooses a distro config it means that he is using
that distro. Disabling an essential component of the distro
config, even if a kernel developer asks for it, will likely
break that distro and is thus a dumb thing to do. (the
typical user will also be unlikely to be *able* to edit a
.config and make sure it works.)

- Furthermore, there's *already* over ten thousand select's in
our Kconfig's, and it's already hard at times to disable
dependent options.

- I've been using what Linus suggested for many years via
private patches to do bootable randconfig testing and the
concept works just fine - enabling a distro specific
minconfig is absolutely useful, I'm glad it's being pursued
upstream as well...

So what you are arguing about is IMO irrelevant, it is
immaterial to the problem at hand and the concept works just
fine in practice.

Thanks,

Ingo

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