Hi,
Kernel has a growing number of CONFIG items which are not
user-selectable features of their particular kernel builds,
but simply booleans controlled by other CONFIGs.
Example:
config X86
def_bool y
select ARCH_MIGHT_HAVE_ACPI_PDC if ACPI
select ARCH_HAS_DEBUG_STRICT_USER_COPY_CHECKS
select ARCH_HAS_FAST_MULTIPLIER
select ARCH_HAS_GCOV_PROFILE_ALL
select ARCH_MIGHT_HAVE_PC_PARPORT
select ARCH_MIGHT_HAVE_PC_SERIO
select HAVE_AOUT if X86_32
select HAVE_UNSTABLE_SCHED_CLOCK
select ARCH_SUPPORTS_NUMA_BALANCING if X86_64
select ARCH_SUPPORTS_INT128 if X86_64
select HAVE_IDE
select HAVE_OPROFILE
...
I see how this practice originated: "select" statement
was initially added so that if feature X requires feature Y,
this can be enforced, but it was easy to use it to define
other booleans.
I have a feeling that in retrospect, it was a mistake.
It clutters .config with information which has nothing to do
with user's choice.
More importantly, now when you read some code, you don't know
whether a CONFIG_FOO you look at is user's configuration choice
or something else.
Now there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of these non-config
CONFIGs everywhere.
The same effect can be achieved, with marginally more typing,
with usual C defines in some header file:
#ifdef CONFIG_X86
# define ARCH_HAS_DEBUG_STRICT_USER_COPY_CHECKS
# define ARCH_HAS_FAST_MULTIPLIER
# define ARCH_HAS_GCOV_PROFILE_ALL
# define ARCH_MIGHT_HAVE_PC_PARPORT
# define ARCH_MIGHT_HAVE_PC_SERIO
...
Maybe we should stop doing the former and use the latter method?
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