Re: CONFIG_SMP patch updated for 2.1.61

Michael Elizabeth Chastain (mec@shout.net)
Tue, 4 Nov 1997 13:49:33 -0600


Linus Torvalds writes:

> Note that the principal reason why CONFIG_SMP isn't an option is that it
> affects too much. It means that if you re-make the config file,
> _everything_ gets recompiled. It _used_ to be a config option, but I
> removed it because of this problem.

I think the kernel is already so full of #include <linux/config.h>
that 80 more of them won't hurt.

But I will shelve my patch.

Linus also suggests:

> In short, I think that we need a more clever config setup, and before we
> have that I don't want to see CONFIG_SMP as an option.

Then I will work on that. Werner Almesberger has a patch that will
make config dependencies more clever. I will look into this.

I have a question: Werner's patch includes a perl script. Is it legal
to require perl to build the kernel, or should I rewrite the perl script
as a shell script or a C program?

Michael Chastain
<mailto:mec@shout.net>
"love without fear"