svn commit: r187426 - head/sys/amd64/conf

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <4974B484.7030608 at FreeBSD.org>
            Maxim Sobolev <sobomax at FreeBSD.org> writes:
: Sam Leffler wrote:
: > Maxim Sobolev wrote:
: >> Scott Long wrote:
: >>> prepare to be wrong.  And above all else, don't put drivers into here
: >>> that you haven't tested.  It's pretty silly to admit in your commit
: >>> message, for all to see, that you are blatantly committing without
: >>> testing.
: >>
: >> Actually this is interesting point, what the best strategy for us as 
: >> the project should be? Should we new put drivers that have been tested 
: >> on i386 only and don't have any particular reason to be i386-specific 
: >> (i.e. ISA/EISA drivers, PCMCIA drivers etc) into amd64 GENERIC 
: >> automatically and wait for somebody to report a problem, or stay on 
: >> the safe side and enable drivers on amd64 only after somebody actually 
: >> has tested them and confirms that they are working? Should this policy 
: >> depend on driver class (for example a storage driver has much higher 
: >> potential for screwing user's data compared to a network driver or a 
: >> sound driver) and on release (HEAD / STABLE)? IMHO FreeBSD could 
: >> benefit by putting at least non-storage untested non i386-specific 
: >> drivers into amd64 kernel and/or at least in HEAD to give them testing 
: >> and a wider exposure.
: >>
: >> This is not just idle interest for me - recently our company has 
: >> started shipping amd64 version of our FreeBSD-based product, so that 
: >> we are a little bit concerned about hardware support with amd64 7.1 
: >> kernel being a little bit narrower compared to i386 7.1 kernel.
: >>
: >> I apologize if this topic has been discussed somewhere already.
: > 
: > I think the answer to your question about default-enabling drivers is 
: > very clear: it is the decision of the person maintaining the driver.  If 
: > you're willing to SUPPORT a driver on a platform then feel free to 
: > enable it.  Otherwise doing a drive-by to enable a driver that may or 
: > may not work may easily result in complaints that are unanswered.  These 
: > have resulted in people concluding wider breakage that easily becomes 
: > de-facto and are hard to kill given that people google for help, find 
: > old complaints, and stop searching.
: 
: OK, makes sense.
: 
: By the way, there is a question on this topic to you. The wi(4) has been 
: removed from i386 GENERIC, but it is still present in amd64 GENERIC. Is 
: it intentional or just a mistake?

I'd remove it from amd64 too.  It isn't terribly useful these days
outside of open access points.

Warner