RE: Dead Config Option STMMAC_ETH?

From: Peppe CAVALLARO
Date: Mon Aug 23 2010 - 03:42:51 EST


Hi Christian,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian Dietrich [mailto:qy03fugy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 2:29 PM
> To: David S. Miller; Peppe CAVALLARO; netdev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; linux-
> kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: vamos-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Dead Config Option STMMAC_ETH?
>
> Hi all!
>
> As part of the VAMOS[0] research project at the University of
> Erlangen we are looking at multiple integrity errors in linux'
> configuration system.
>
> I've been running a check on the drivers/net/stmmac sourcetree for
> config Items not defined in Kconfig and found such a case. Sourcecode
> blocks depending on these Items are not reachable from a vanilla
> kernel -- dead code. I've seen such dead blocks made on purpose
> e.g. while integrating new features into the kernel but generally
> they're just useless.
>
> As far as i can see in drivers/net/stmmac/Kconfig STMMAC_ETH and several
> depending flags are dead in the linux vanilla kernel, because it depends
> on CPU_SUBTYPE_ST40, but there isn't a Kconfig option for that. But
> f96691872439ab2071171d4531c4a95b5d493ae5 suggests, that support for this
> ST40 plattform was removed in 2007.
>
> There seems to be, that there was much effort on the stmmac drivers in
> the last few months, so i just wanted to ask if this problem is known.

There is effort on this driver: currently the driver fully works on STM platforms and starts working on ARM (SPEAr Kernels).
The driver Kconfig actually depends on the CPU_SUBTYPE_ST40 but it built on x86 if remove this dependency (just verified).
In the past, I added this dependency because the driver was initially tested on ST kernels (where we continue to have the CPU_SUBTYPE_ST40) but I can review it if you like.

Regards,
Peppe


> Regards
>
> Christian Dietrich
>
> [0] http://vamos1.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
> --
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