Re: config(8) - remove 'device'

On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 02:49:25AM +0100, Lexi Winter wrote:
> hello,
> 
> as older BSD users may remember, 'device' when used in a kernel config
> used to have a fairly specific syntax, e.g.:
> 
> device foo0 at pci? irq? ... etc ...
> 
> nowdays of course this isn't a thing, you just write:
> 
> device foo
> 
> so, practically this is no different from writing:
> 
> options FOO
There is a difference, and it is quite significant.
As a hint, look at sys/conf/options* and it's second column.

> 
> i propose to remove the 'device' syntax from config(8) and simply use
> 'options' to include various parts of kernel code in the kernel.
> 
> i am prepared to create a patch to do this, but of course, i would
> prefer to find out if people would accept this before putting the effort
> in.
> 
> the concrete benefit of this is that we don't have two different
> syntaxes in kernel configs that do exactly the same thing.