Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

[Giacomo Catenazzi]

T. A. wrote:

 
>     1. Don't see any reason for the kernel hardware autoconfigurator to be
> included in the kernel.


Linus and Alan last year (end Dec 2000), told that it would nice to have
some kind of autoconfiguration.
The problem was the bug report about non running kernel, because of
false configuration (CPU configuration).
How many people try new kernel with the wrong CPU configuration?
(and mornally user know the name of own CPU, with netcards this is
more difficult).

[ We don't reduce trafic on lkml, because the fewer bug reports
are hidden by this huge flamewar]

> 
>     2. Don't see any reason the kernel hardware autoconfigurator cannot be
> run as root.  Actually see one very good reason why it shouldn't be able to
> be run as a regular user.  Probing certain hardware is inherently dangerous.
> Machine can hang.  Hardware could be probed to death.  Heck a clever coder
> could even make use of the user level access required to allow user hardware
> autoconfiguration.  Wiping disks, destroying flash roms, finding system
> backdoors, etc, etc.


Root will help, but AFAIK, not needed. Forget DMI.
Out detection is 'hang' free. (so a soft detection, but with some
tests, I can say that with this soft detection we can detect nearly
all, without the difficult to write hard probes).

> 
>     3. ISA is pretty much dead outside of certain standard PC equipment.
> And of the remaining ISA out there, most in any machine than can still run a
> Linux kernel effectively is most likely PNP ISA.  Plus there are a few
> fairly common ISA cards that can also be found easily.  It seams that the
> vast majority of Aunt Tillies will be served with just PCI autoconfiguration
> and maybe PNP ISA configuration.

PCI, USB and ISAPNP detection works well.
ISA is a further step.
I will send Eric the new detections and database for new probes (for ISA
and others) drivers. So I hope also the ISA thread will end.

	giacomo

Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 02:00:38PM +0100, Giacomo Catenazzi wrote:
> How many people try new kernel with the wrong CPU configuration?
> (and mornally user know the name of own CPU, with netcards this is
> more difficult).

All of us get the CPU wrong. By using modules however I don't have to guess
the PCI devices. My system already did that. I just need the configurator
to hit M a lot and to work out which root devices are for the initrd.

The code for that exists

> PCI, USB and ISAPNP detection works well.
> ISA is a further step.
> I will send Eric the new detections and database for new probes (for ISA
> and others) drivers. So I hope also the ISA thread will end.

I suspect ISA is a dead loss - but again build all the modules, the user
system already has the right ones to load configured.

Alan

Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

[Giacomo Catenazzi]

Alan Cox wrote:

 
> All of us get the CPU wrong. By using modules however I don't have to guess
> the PCI devices. My system already did that. I just need the configurator
> to hit M a lot and to work out which root devices are for the initrd.
> 
> The code for that exists


It is easier to get autoconfigure in linux sources, than
modify the default (and broken) configuration from Linus.
(Sorry Linus :-) )

 	giacomo

Re: [lkml] Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

[Ian Soboroff]

Alan Cox <alan@aunt-tillie.org> writes:
> ...

whois aunt-tillie.org
ROTFL!
ian

Re: [lkml] Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

[Chris Friesen]

Ian Soboroff wrote:
> 
> Alan Cox <alan@aunt-tillie.org> writes:
> > ...
> 
> whois aunt-tillie.org
> ROTFL!

Alan, that is a thing of beauty!

Chris


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Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

[Horst von Brand]

Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@debian.org> said:
> It is easier to get autoconfigure in linux sources, than
> modify the default (and broken) configuration from Linus.
> (Sorry Linus :-) )

Say again? Then get HPA to give you a space on kernel.org for "Giacomo
Standard Configure Entries" which you update. _Much_ less pain going around
that way.
-- 
Horst von Brand			     http://counter.li.org # 22616