[RFC] shipping kernels with default modules?

[Warner Losh]

On Jun 11, 2011, at 7:21 AM, Adrian Chadd wrote:
> On 11 June 2011 18:43, Kostik Belousov <kostikbel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Is there any reason we aren't doing this at the moment? Eg by having a
>>> default loader modules list populated from the kernel config file?
>> I use highly modularized kernel on all machines, because it allows me
>> to use (almost) the same kernel config.
>> 
>> Will you provide a prototype change for your suggestion ?
> 
> Sure, but in a couple weeks, or when I decide next to avoid study and
> need a break from if_ath hackery, whichever comes first.

For 9, I'd suggest compiling MINIMAL config file that takes everything out of GENERIC that can be a module.  This would be the install kernel.  We'd create a loader.conf that lists everything currently in GENERIC.  This would give us most of the benefits and allow our users to edit loader.conf to include the minimal set.

For 10, I'd suggest that we'd standardize the driver data such that we can determine from the plug and play strings what to load.  This should be done with devd, not the boot loader.  The boot loader would need to load all device's necessary to get / mounted.

Robert suggested having an /etc/driverdb file.  Unless that file is automatically generated, it will be stale all the time.

One last thing to note is that we'd only need to know which modules to load from the plug and play strings.  There's a few instances in the tree where from the plug and play strings we'd need to load two different modules (look at the re/rl attach routines for one instance of why).

Oh, the other last thing to consider is that the module system doesn't have any notion of drivers that are attached (or even bound to device nodes unattached).  If we had some notion, it would be easier to automatically unload the unnecessary drivers.

Warner