cvs commit: src/sys/i386/conf DEFAULTS GENERIC

[Scott Long]

David O'Brien wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at 05:34:35PM +0000, John Baldwin wrote:
> 
>>jhb         2005-10-27 17:34:35 UTC
>>
>>  FreeBSD src repository
>>
>>  Modified files:
>>    sys/i386/conf        GENERIC 
>>  Added files:
>>    sys/i386/conf        DEFAULTS 
>>  Log:
>>  Create a default kernel config for i386 and move 'device isa' and
>>  'device npx' (both of which aren't really optional right now) and
>>  'device io' and 'device mem' (to preserve POLA for 4.x users upgrading
>>  to 6.0) from GENERIC into DEFAULTS.
> 
> 
> I may be missing something.  I don't quite follow the benefit of the new
> 'DEFAULTS' file.

It's been 2+ years since the io and mem devices were made optional, and 
the mailing lists are still filled with people who don't understand why
X doesn't work after they remove them from their kernel config.  We 
expect there to be a large migration of people from 4.x to 6.0 who
never tracked the change in 5.x, or who want to bring their 4.x kernel
config files over with as few surprises as possible, so this will make
their lives easier.

>  I'm also curious why we don't explicitly 'include'
> DEFAULTS in GENERIC vs. the new automagic include feature.

Because if it was specifically mentioned in the GENERIC config file then
it would be deleted by people who don't understand what it does or why
it's important, and it would be missed by people writing config files
from scratch or migrating from previous versions of FreeBSD.

> 
> I wonder if someone might trip over this not realizing everything that
> winds up in their config file.  I for one have been using io.ko and
> mem.ko after coping GENERIC to FOO and removing the 'io' and 'mem'
> devices.
>  

If you delete the DEFAULTS file then config will silently be happy, 
though you'll need to manually add the isa and npx devices to your
kernel config.  You can also use the 'nodevice' directives to manually
exclude the io and mem devices from your config.  Contrary to Mark's
response, I'd recommend doing this instead of editing DEFAULTS directly.

Scott