Re: [PATCH] platform/x86: dell: Fix ALIENWARE_WMI dependencies

[Kurt Borja]

Hi Ilpo,

On Mon Mar 10, 2025 at 9:29 AM -05, Ilpo Järvinen wrote:
> On Sun, 9 Mar 2025, Kurt Borja wrote:
>
>> If ACPI_PLATFORM_PROFILE is selected by ALIENWARE_WMI_WMAX, the former
>> is forced to be at least =m, because the latter is a bool.
>> 
>> This allows the following config:
>> 
>> 	CONFIG_ALIENWARE_WMI=y
>> 	CONFIG_ACPI_PLATFORM_PROFILE=m
>
> Hi,
>
> selecting from =y should not result in =m for the other symbol. This is 
> a bug in Kconfig infrastructure.
>
> I ran across this a few years back and even had a test case to prove the 
> select bug but back then the original problem eventually was solved in a 
> different way which no longer hit the problem. I never could figure out
> how to fix the kconfig logic though without breaking something and it 
> ended up into low priority bin and never got solved.
>
> Sadly, it seems I've lost the test case patch that exhibits the bug 
> somewhere... I'll try to look for it from my archived files.

That's funny.

I thought this was a Kconfig quirk, that resulted from the following
hierarchy:

Type		0	1	2
=============== ======= ======= =======
Bool		n	y
Tristate	n	m	y

So a <bool> selecting the <tristate> would force it to be at least =m.

The same thing happens with depend, where a dependecy would be fulfilled
for a <bool> if a <tristate> was at least =m. That's why in the kernel
robot report the linking error was also due to the HWMON dependency.

Anyway, this patch could serve as a workaround if you feel it's
necessary. I'm going to put the HWMON dependecy in the ALIENWARE_WMI
symbol for my other series.

-- 
 ~ Kurt