From: Greg KH <gr...@kr...> - 2002-03-08 21:42:45
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On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 10:33:30PM +0100, Dave Jones wrote: > As a sidenote (sort of related topic) : > An idea being kicked around a little right now is x86 subarch > support for 2.5. With so many of the niche x86 spin-offs appearing > lately, all fighting for their own piece of various files in > arch/i386/kernel/, it may be time to do the same as the ARM folks did, > and have.. > > arch/i386/generic/ > arch/i386/numaq/ > arch/i386/visws > arch/i386/voyager/ > etc.. YES!!! I've been working on the Foster patches and keep thinking that this would be the best solution to our current #ifdef hell. > I've been meaning to find some time to move the necessary bits around, > and jiggle configs to see how it would work out, but with a pending > house move, I haven't got around to it yet.. Maybe next week. > > The downsides to this: > - Code duplication. > Some routines will likely be very similar if not identical. > - Bug propagation. > If something is fixed in one subarch, theres a high possibility > it needs fixing in other subarchs Make sure that every subarch has a maintainer/someone to blame who needs to make sure their subarch also keeps up to date with the "generic" one would help out a lot with this problem. > The plus sides of this: > - Removal of #ifdef noise > With more and more of these subarchs appearing, this is getting > more of an issue. > - subarchs are free to do things 'their way' without affecting the > common case. I think Martin's recent CONFIG_MULTIQUAD patches prove that the plus side would outweigh any possible downside :) thanks, greg k-h |