Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 6 Jan 2006 23:37:02 +0100 | From | Adrian Bunk <> | Subject | Re: [2.6 patch] don't allow users to set CONFIG_BROKEN=y |
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On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 01:11:17PM -0800, David Lang wrote: > On Fri, 6 Jan 2006, Adrian Bunk wrote: >... > >>- Being able to easily enable it in menuconfig, then browse through > >>the menus to look for something matching your hardware is nice, even > >>if that something is marked BROKEN at least you've then found a place > >>to start working on. A lot simpler than digging through directories. > > > >Our menus are mostly made for _users_. > > true, but do you really want to raise the barrier for users to test > things? or do you intend to have a bunch of patches that remove BROKEN for > a config option so that people can test them during the -rc and then add > it back for them all before a real release?
If an option is untested it's EXPERIMENTAL. If it's broken it's BROKEN.
If an option is marked as BROKEN but works fine for you please send a bug report.
> >The more common are users accidentially enabling CONFIG_BROKEN and then > >wondering why a driver isn't compiling or working. > > > >And in my experience, when searching whether hardware might be supported > >a grep through the kernel sources brings you more than reading often > >outdated Kconfig help texts. Besides this, a BROKEN driver usually has > >the same value for the user as a non-existing driver. > > it depends on how broken something really is, in some cases you are > correct, in others you aren't.
It's so broken that a devloper said EXPERIMENTAL is not enough, users should really not see it. Often the developer additionall added an #error to the driver.
>... > >If you know the driver is marked as BROKEN and if you want to use it > >despite this, editing the Kconfig file is trivial. > > > >Unless you _really_ know what you are doing, no driver for your hard > >disk is better than a broken driver. > > for your hard drive you are probably right, but does this always apply for > your network card? or your sound card? >...
It might be marked as BROKEN because it crashes the kernel.
But well, the common case is that the code marked as BROKEN simply doesn't compile.
> David Lang
cu Adrian
--
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