Linux-kernel mailing list archive 2000-23,: State of CML2

# State of CML2

Eric S. Raymond (esr@thyrsus.com)
Mon, 5 Jun 2000 05:12:29 -0400

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It occurs to me that amidst the noise of debate about CML2's implementation
and my point release announcements, many people on the list may not be
aware of the capabilities CML2 has grown since I announced it last week.

So here is a brief list of things CML2 can do, *right now*, given a correct
rulebase:

1. When a symbol is turned on, all the stuff it requires is turned on as well.
Thus, features can be selected in any order.

2. Invalid configurations will be caught at the moment you try to create
them. In fact, the configurator won't let you create an inconsistent
configuration at all; instead, you get notified of the rules it would
break and your last change (including its side effects) is backed out.

3. You can search for symbols matching a given regexp in their name or
prompt. The search hits are presented as a menu like any other menu.
You can also go to a symbol by name.

4. In the normal, "top-down" view, questions are not visible until you have
enabled all their pre-requisites. Thus (for example) you won't even see
questions about individual SCSI drivers unless you specify that you want
to support SCSI.

5. However, there is a switch you can flip which will cause all symbols to
show, so you can configure "bottom-up" by specifying your hardware and
letting the front end deduce what it needs.

6. I fibbed a bit in point 5. It is possible to commit or "freeze" symbols
so they are never queried for, even in bottom-up mode. In particular,
the equivalent of "make oldconfig" works by reading in your .config,
freezing all the symbols in it, and then using those to deduce most of
the rest of your configuration.

For balance, here is a list of CML2's known problems.

1. The Tk front end sometimes creates panels too large for the screen.
The xconfig trick using a canvas and scrollbar is the *only* CML1
thing that CML2 can't yet do.

2. The curses front end cannot yet edit string values longer than 8 chars.

3. The curses front end, as of two days ago, still had some crash bugs.
These may be gone now but I'm not holding my breath. It will
probably take another week to be reasonably sure they're nailed.

4. Turning module support on and then off may leave some module symbols
stranded in a bad state.

These things will be fixed. I have some long plane flights coming up :-).

    --
    		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric S. Raymond</a>

    What if you were an idiot, and what if you were a member of Congress?
    But I repeat myself.
            -- Mark Twain

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