Or try to compile with procfs turned off, but scsi turned on. Or
without CONFIG_INET. Or... well, you get the idea. Trying to port to
a machine with a 640K kernel limit causes one to turn off just about
everything, and some things don't react well.... (A mips PC, btw. And
the limit was just crushed by Ralf Baechle in a recent release, but
that didn't help me in the past :-).
It is fundamentally hard to test all the combinations. The number is
something like 100ish! if I counted right, which is a number that is
too big to test, even with an multiple MP P6-200 boxes :-). Even at a
second a kernel build, it would take literally thousands of years to
compile all possible comibinations. The fewer there are, the better,
IMHO.
Warner