Re: [patch 1/22] Add __early_param for all arches

[David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>]

On Wed, 2004-03-24 at 19:55 -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> Please tell us a little more about why we need these patches.  (Apart from
> what seems to be a moderate amount of code consolidation).

A lot of command line options need checking before we get out of
setup_arch() into start_kernel() where parse_cmdline() is currently
called.

In particular, the only thing stopping us from registering real
permanent consoles from the moment we hit setup_arch() is the fact that
we haven't yet handled 'console=' on the command line, and we end up
enabling the first console registered as if there's no console=
argument, _despite_ the fact that there _is_ such an argument.

> Also, what is different between __setup and __early_setup?  Why is it not
> possible to make __setup run sufficiently early for whatever application is
> requiring these changes?

Drivers may require allocation (bootmem not slab). We want to run before
that's feasible -- before 'mem=', by definition :)

There _are_ a lot of patches but most of them are trivial and were
separated just for cleanliness. Where they're non-trivial that's because
there's real consolidation.

-- 
dwmw2