[Precise][PATCH 0/2] zcache can't be built as a module

[Jesse Sung]

2012/5/9 Tim Gardner <tim.gardner at canonical.com>:
> On 05/08/2012 12:19 AM, Jesse Sung wrote:
>>
>>
>> BugLink: http://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/995163
>>
>> Since an extra kernel boot parameter must be provided
>> to enable zcache functionality, making it builtin would
>> not harm users who do not use it.
>>
>>
>> Jesse Sung (1):
>>   Set CONFIG_ZCACHE to y
>>
>> Seth Jennings (1):
>>   staging: zcache: make zcache builtin only
>>
>>  debian.master/config/config.common.ubuntu |    2 +-
>>  drivers/staging/zcache/Kconfig            |    2 +-
>>  2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> While this patch is correct in that zcache cannot be a module in order to be
> useful, I'm not too wild about enabling a built-in staging driver. Folks
> that want to experiment with this feature can also likely build their own
> kernel. Do you have a compelling use case ?
>
> rtg
> --
> Tim Gardner tim.gardner at canonical.com

Yes, enabling a built-in staging kernel may be too risky. But since
it requires an additional parameter to really enable it, for normal users,
the only difference is the sysfs_create_group() call in zcache_init().
Risk seems to be relatively low for this case. But for users who want to
give it a try, this may save them a lot of kernel building work.

Because zcache is useless as a module, if we decide not to make it
built-in, maybe we should disable it instead of making it as a module?

Asking for use cases on launchpad and have one reply so far:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/995163/comments/26

Thanks,
Jesse