GENERIC and DEFAULTS

[Scott Long]

Pete Slagle wrote:
>>> i agree 100%, i hate wizardy/black-magic, and this 'fix' falls in that
>>> class. Why was a 5ton hammer used to fix non existing problem?
>>> a small comment like 'you better keep these lines to make X happy'
>>> would have sufficed.
>>
>>
>>
>> You've clearly never spent much time on the FreeBSD support forums,
>> where every few days someone posts for help
>>
>> 1) with an error caused by removing one of those "Do not remove this!"
>> lines, and
>>
>> 2) for help on getting X working when they forgot to add /dev/io and
>> /dev/mem to their kernel.
>>
>> Those of us who spend a lot of time answering such questions will
>> surely welcome the change, since it will hopefully reduce our
>> workload.
> 
> 
> Abundant thanks and sympathy are due to the generous souls that staff 
> the support forums. That said, it is far from clear that ease-of-use 
> considerations are the most important factor.
> 
> Freedom to not have the O/S second guess one's choices, or worse, 
> silently override them, is one of the main differentiators between 
> FreeBSD and other available operating systems. Many (most?) of us are 
> here because we do not want excessive complexity and hand holding. Let's 
> not give away the fundamental character of FreeBSD in an (undoubtedly 
> futile) attempt to make it idiot-proof.
> 
> This is a small case in itself, but it represents a much larger issue 
> concerning future direction.
> 

The future direction is that FreeBSD will continue to be friendly to
novice users while still affording power users the control that they
seek.  This feature is not going to be a dumping ground of dubious
and secret options that are impossible to control.  If you truly don't
want the isa, npx, io, or mem devices in your kernel, then you can
exclude them via the 'nodevice' directive. You can even just delete the
DEFAULT file entirely if you choose, though I really don't recommend
this.

Scott