[RFC] Make board force selection of PHYLIB

[Kumar Gala]

On Jun 3, 2008, at 10:36 AM, Scott Wood wrote:

> Kumar Gala wrote:
>> On Jun 3, 2008, at 10:18 AM, Scott Wood wrote:
>>> Kumar Gala wrote:
>>>> On Jun 3, 2008, at 10:10 AM, Scott Wood wrote:
>>>>> I'd rather avoid adding another case where the kernel needs to  
>>>>> know what modules are being built, though, especially if the  
>>>>> result of changing the .config and building modules is a  
>>>>> mysterious runtime failure (due to a missing platform fixup)  
>>>>> rather than compile- or insertion-time.
>>>> I don't follow what you are getting at here.  Is this something  
>>>> more than #ifdef PHYLIB in the platform code?
>>>
>>> If you just #ifdef PHYLIB, then things will break if the user does  
>>> this:
>>> make config, GIANFAR=PHYLIB=n
>>> make zImage
>>> make config, GIANFAR=PHYLIB=m
>>> make modules
>>>
>>> And the cause of the failure will not be something that obviously  
>>> points to a build problem, such as unresolved symbols.
>> what you are suggesting will not break with my patch.
>
> Yes, it will -- note the absence of a "make zImage" after the second  
> make config.
>
>> The second case will for PHYLIB=y w/the select.
>
> And that will only make a difference if you rebuild the kernel  
> itself after enabling the module.

I see.  However, I don't like the idea I have to build in the PHYLIB  
if I don't need it at all.  It seems like the type of breakage you are  
talking about exists today all over the place.  I dont like it anymore  
than you do, but it seems to me the lesser of evils is to allow the  
user the ability to config things as they want.

- k