Re: [PATCH] More accessible usage of custom flags

[Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Feb 16, 2008 at 09:52:51PM -0500, Nicholas Marquez wrote:
> I submitted this patch to the zen-sources Gentoo community and got
> much praise and has promptly been included.  This kind of thing have
> very likely already been done in other patchsets, but I haven't seen
> it around,

Probably it wasn't done by other patchsets. ;-)

> so I've gone ahead and made one.  The idea is that one can
> enable -Os and various other options transparently through standard
> kernel configuration, so why bar the builder from any other options to
> pass on to gcc (et al)?

Examples, please. Which compiler flags do you want to add to your .config?
Speaking of -Os, it's CONFIG_CC_OPTIMIZE_FOR_SIZE .

> One can indeed add one's own flags in the
> Makefile, but this method is a good deal friendlier.  Granted, this
> could be misused by ricers and idiots, but they'll get themselves into
> that mess all of their own fault and we'll all go on our merry ways.

No, they will come here and report bugs they created themselves. And
there will be a policy: "too long CONFIG_CUSTOM_CFLAGS -- go away" and
so on.

> It just seems that much use could be made out of this, both in terms
> of (sane) optimizations

Sane optimizations should be added to main Makefile. 

> and easier access to enhanced debugging
> opportunities.

Which ones exactly?

> I see that people who build a Linux kernel are largely of two types:
> ~the ones that understand and know enough that they could, with some
> nudging and learning, become bonafide kernel devs and
> ~the ones that understand it to some very basic degree and can get
> through configuring it without too much trouble (though with limited
> understanding)
> I believe one of the very simple things that can be addressed is to
> make the kernel more "accessible" without harming its integrity or
> functionality.  This involves trying to fill the gap between those two
> types of people, allowing there to be more understanding,
> configuration, and (down the line) development opportunities within
> the kernel to better ease these people into learning enough to begin
> contributing back.

> More developers can only be a Good Thing (tm).

In general, wrong.