Here is a series of 9 patches to init/Kconfig intended to improve the
usefulness and consistency of the help descriptions. The patches are
against linux-2.6.24.2.
Rationale:
Even though I've been using Unix for 20+ years, I find it sometimes
daunting to configure a linux kernel. The help descriptions supplied
sometimes help, and sometimes they do not.
The problems I can see with the supplied help descriptions fall into
these areas:
- Uses arcane terminology which only kernel developers can understand
- Inconsistently describes safe response (if unsure, ...)
- References out-of-date external resources (404 error)
- Description has not kept pace with recent kernel changes or standards
- Poor grammar or layout.
My approach to improving the descriptions is to go through each option
checking the correctness of the description, validating any references
it makes, finding inconsistency with the rest of the kernel config,
and trying to improve the usefulness of the explanation. I want to
end up with:
1 - Single sentence summary of what the option does
2 - Explain terminology or situation if necessary and possible, linking
to validated information sources (Documentation directory, manpages,
scripts, URLs, Wikipedia)
3 - Suggest safe answer for people who just don't know what to do.
The patches are in 9 parts because I wouldn't want to overwhelm any
reviewers, and also because I might have got some of them wrong. I
learned some cool things while researching these kernel options, like
what POSIX message queues are, and about the SLAB allocator, but my
grasp of cgroups and cpusets is tenuous at best. Here's a list of
the patches and the affected config options:
Patch 1
EXPERIMENTAL
LOCALVERSION
LOCALVERSION_AUTO
SWAP
SYSVIPC
POSIX_MQUEUE
BSD_PROCESS_ACCT
BSD_PROCESS_ACCT_V3
Patch 2
TASKSTATS
TASK_DELAY_ACCT
TASK_XACCT
TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING
Patch 3
USER_NS
PID_NS
Patch 4
AUDIT
AUDITSYSCALL
Patch 5
IKCONFIG
IKCONFIG_PROC
LOG_BUF_SHIFT
SYSFS_DEPRECATED
RELAY
BLK_DEV_INITRD
Patch 6
CGROUPS
CGROUP_DEBUG
CPUSETS
FAIR_GROUP_SCHED
FAIR_CGROUP_SCHED
CGROUP_CPUACCT
PROC_PID_CPUSET
Patch 7
EMBEDDED
SYSCTL_SYSCALL
KALLSYMS
KALLSYMS_ALL
KALLSYMS_EXTRA_PASS
HOTPLUG
PRINTK
BUG
ELF_CORE
BASE_FULL
FUTEX
EPOLL
SIGNALFD
TIMERFD
EVENTFD
Patch 8
SLUB_DEBUG
SLAB
SLUB
SLOB
Patch 9
MODULES
MODULE_UNLOAD
MODULE_FORCE_UNLOAD
MODVERSIONS
MODULE_SRCVERSION_ALL
KMOD
Changelog:
Improve usefulness and consistency of kernel configuration help messages.
Signed-off-by: Nick Andrew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--
PGP Key ID = 0x418487E7 http://www.nick-andrew.net/
PGP Key fingerprint = B3ED 6894 8E49 1770 C24A 67E3 6266 6EB9 4184 87E7
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
