"Next Generation" kernel configuration?

[Anish Mistry]

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On Wednesday 21 July 2004 01:00 pm, Andrew Konstantinov wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 05:43:45AM -0700, Avleen Vig wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 07:39:31PM -0500, Conrad J. Sabatier wrote:
> > > Just musing on an idea here:
> > >
> > > I've been thinking for a while now about trying to write a tool to make
> > > kernel configuration easier, sort of a "make config" (as in ports) for
> > > the kernel, similar to what's available on some of the Linux distros.
> >
> > I've read over the other posts in this thread, but I cannot say I think
> > this is a good idea. In fact, I think it's a very bad idea, but with
> > very good intentions. Here's why..
> >
> > I'm a strong proponent of user education. The FreeBSD handbook is one of
> > the best education tools for someone who wants to use FreeBSD, right
> > from beginner to more advanced levels.
> >
> > A "config tool", while useful for beginners, would quickly result is
> > those beginners not learning about building a kernel themselves, copying
> > GENERIC to `hostname -s | tr "[:lower:]" "[:upper:]"`, editing it,
> > learning what is in LINT, remembering to look through there, etc.
> > This process teaches users a lot about how a BSD kernel is configured,
> > what options are availible, and where to look for more options.
> >
> > The end result would be more people building kernels themselves, but not
> > knowing what is actually happening, or what more is possible. It would
> > mean less educated users, and I don't think that is somewhere any
> > organization needs to go (look at what happened to the average Microsoft
> > user's IQ level, after people stopped using DOS and started having
> > machines do the work for them).
> >
> > Like I said, I think your intentions are good, but I have concerns about
> > the suggested solution.
>
> I think such a tool would actually influence user education in a positive
> way. Here is a sample scenario:
>
> 1) User starts this "program" to configure the kernel
> 2) User sees unknown to him option
> 3) User decides to look it up on www.google.com
> 4) "That's a nice feature, although I don't really need it"
> 5) GOTO 1
>
> The only suggestion I have is to make it a third party program and not
> build it into the make procedure for the kernel. It would look like
> pkg_tree that's located in ports, although with a better ncurses interface.
>
> Andrew
I think a tool with the functionality described in the original post would be 
very nice, but it shouldn't be menu driven etc.  Something more like a kernel 
dependency checker that would take the kernel config file, and check that all 
the dependencies are correct.  ie. for umass you need da, but if you forget 
you'll only get a cryptic failing of the kernel build.  Also for things like 
bktr, which you need to have iic and friends.
Something along the lines of a command line "make depend-check" before you do 
a make kernel would be nice.

- -- 
Anish Mistry
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