On Mon, Oct 31, 2005 at 03:46:56PM -0800, Pete Slagle wrote: > >>i agree 100%, i hate wizardy/black-magic, and this 'fix' falls in that > >>class. Why was a 5ton hammer used to fix non existing problem? > >>a small comment like 'you better keep these lines to make X happy' > >>would have sufficed. > > > > > >You've clearly never spent much time on the FreeBSD support forums, > >where every few days someone posts for help > > > >1) with an error caused by removing one of those "Do not remove this!" > >lines, and > > > >2) for help on getting X working when they forgot to add /dev/io and > >/dev/mem to their kernel. > > > >Those of us who spend a lot of time answering such questions will > >surely welcome the change, since it will hopefully reduce our > >workload. > > Abundant thanks and sympathy are due to the generous souls that staff > the support forums. That said, it is far from clear that ease-of-use > considerations are the most important factor. > > Freedom to not have the O/S second guess one's choices, or worse, > silently override them, is one of the main differentiators between > FreeBSD and other available operating systems. Many (most?) of us are > here because we do not want excessive complexity and hand holding. Let's > not give away the fundamental character of FreeBSD in an (undoubtedly > futile) attempt to make it idiot-proof. > > This is a small case in itself, but it represents a much larger issue > concerning future direction.
It doesn't silently override them, you can remove the defaults with appropriate nodevice settings. However, I bet you don't even want to build a kernel without npx, mem or io support, so you're just arguing for the sake of it. kris
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