[U-Boot-Users] Some questions about what is planned toimproveU-Boot configuration...

[Carsten Schlote]

Hi Joey,

> Plus, it's very slow to compile and build archives for a 
> billion modules that are be unrelated to your platform. I 
> agree KConfig seems like an obvious choice and I'm willing to 
> work with you in making these changes.

Nice to hear. So the following steps need to be done:

* Port the Kconfig tool from linux or busybox, so that is build and
called 
  from the Makefile framework of U-Boot.
* Extract all CONFIG_ and CFG_ defines from the sources and put them
into related
  Kconfig files (e.g. cmd_foobar.[ch] -> cmd_foobar.kcfg), using dummy
templates for
  each extracted CONFIG/CFG define.
  This can be automated by a script and created lots of small files.
* Fix and cleanup all these *.kcfg fragments - this will be the big
work! It requires to
  setup the right Kconfig type, default and inter-dependancies between
them. Also some
  sufficient help text is a must.
* Move and rearrange the *.kcfg fragments to form a logical tree of
options. Kcfg
  files might be merged together where appropriate to avoid hundreds of
small files.
* Use make menuconfig to clone all values from your platform header
file. Store the created
  .config file as your default config.
* Create and split autoconfig headers, so that only those sources are
rebuild whose defines 
  got changed.

All this could be done in parallel, so that the autoconf.h headers would
be created but not yet used. Later you comment all stuff in your
platform config and include the autoconfig stuff instead.

The difficult step is the migration from the old platform headers to the
autogenerated stuff, as this required somebody to test the platform - we
don't to break working platforms.

Any additional thoughts?

Regards
Carsten



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