Re: GENERIC and INSTALL kernels (was: Re: CVS commit: src/sys/arch/i386/conf)

[Izumi Tsutsui <tsutsui%ceres.dti.ne.jp@localhost>]

jeanyves.migeon wrote:

> IMHO, the real question is whether we should have a self-sufficient
> GENERIC kernel for _booting_ a minimum system, or not.

There are two points:

(1) Benefits of module(7) system

The reason of using module(7) is flexible configuration
without recompiling a kernel. Most NetBSD geeks always have
whole source tree in their machines and they can build their own
kernels in a few minutes, but most ordinary users won't bother to
fetch whole large sources to enable/disable just one feature.

module(7) allows users to choose necessary functionarity
and I see several users who say kernel modules are useful
on other OSes.

If you don't think module(7) has any benefit as some other developers,
this discussion is over.


(2) Definition of "GENERIC"

If you think GENERIC should also be applicable to RAMDISK based
INSTALL kernel, it should be MONOLITHIC.

If you think GENERIC should be "self-sufficient," (I'm not sure
what it means but I guess no dependency on external file systems?)
it should be MONOLITHIC.

If GENERIC is considered to be used with a prepared root file system,
it can be MODULAR and can provide flexible configurations to users.

I don't think GENERIC should have common configuration with INSTALL kernels.

> Current NetBSD bootloader is capable of loading modules on-demand, but
> we are not forcing everyone to use NetBSD's bootloader (some may want to
> use Grub, Grub2, uboot, whatever).

Again, bootloader support is necessary only for modules required
to mount root file system, i.e. typically FFS or NFS.
All other modules can be loaded by a _kernel_ if all *.kmod files
are prepared in the root file system.

I agree that GENERIC should contain at least FFS and NFS,
but bootloader doesn't affect EXEC_FOO or TMPFS/MFS etc.

---
Izumi Tsutsui