Re: [PATCH] Add possibility to set /dev/tty number

From: Austin S. Hemmelgarn
Date: Tue Jan 05 2016 - 11:23:41 EST


On 2016-01-05 11:11, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
On Tue, Jan 05, 2016 at 08:16:52AM -0500, Austin S. Hemmelgarn wrote:
We don't do regressions.
Requiring only a recompilation isn't a regression, especially when it works
fine without being recompiled, and I have yet to actually see anything that
changing the number of VT's would break other than ConsoleKit
(systemd-logind might also need a rebuild, but I'm not sure about that, and
don't have a system I could test it on).

Sorry, breaking a compiled binary is a regression.

People have outlined more clever ways of trying to accomplish your
goal (saving memory) without breaking other people. I suggest you
give that a try instead of just trying to defend your existing patch.

First, it's not my patch.

Second, my usage of the term 'break' was probably not the best choice here, as ConsoleKit doesn't stop working. All that happens is that it spits out some warnings about not finding VT's that it thinks should be there. All that recompiling gets you is that it stops it from spitting out these warnings, which could just as easily be suppressed by other means. And, while I can't personally test this, I'm pretty certain that the same applies to systemd-logind. They have to gracefully cope with not being able to see all the VT's they think they should, because it's fully possible for something to hook into early boot and deallocate most of them before ConsoleKit or logind run.

Third, as Greg stated in his response to the patch, it should be updated so that the default matches current behavior, which would mean that nothing would break unless the person building the kernel chose to break it.

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