Subject: Re: [patch 12/12] Configure out ethtool support

From: Andrew Morton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:48:12 -0700

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:35:51 +0200
Thomas Petazzoni <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Le Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:01:36 -0700,
> Stephen Hemminger <[email-masked]> a __crit :
> 
> > Yes, but still concerned that the loss of functionality. The kernel
> > developers have been preaching to get rid of module parameters for
> > configuration, and use a standard interfaces such as ethtool;then the
> > embedded folks want to save a meager 6K.
> 
> I understand your point, and I understand that adding many
> configuration options might not look pretty to everybody (even to me).
> However, the kernel developers want to keep embedded people using recent
> versions of the Linux kernel. Unfortunately, the kernel grows release
> after release (see [1] for a report, for example),

There is no [1].

>  making the kernel
> less and less usable in certain constrainted embedded contexts where
> older kernels can be used. And people putting Linux in consumer
> electronics devices sold several millions times really do care about
> system size.
> 
> The problem is that this kernel growth is well-spread over all the code.
> So yes, it's 6k here, 10k here, 7k there, but once added, it starts to
> be significant.

I note that everybody thinks that their bit cannot possibly be removed,
and that everyone else's can ;)

But I do think we should see some evidence that people are actually
using CONFIG_ETHTOOL=n in real setups.