Re: [PATCH] Combine instrumentation menus in kernel/Kconfig.instrumentation

From: Valdis . Kletnieks
Date: Wed Sep 19 2007 - 01:58:47 EST


On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:06:28 EDT, Mathieu Desnoyers said:

> * Valdis.Kletnieks@xxxxxx (Valdis.Kletnieks@xxxxxx) wrote:
> > OK, I'll bite - given the mention of 'debugging' there, do we want to go for
> > broke and *also* suck in the 'Kernel Hacking' menu as well?
>
> Instrumentation primarity aims at debugging user-space applications by
> giving the ability to extract information across execution layers, hence
> being a feature useful to users, not only kernel hackers.

Ahh.. Where I come from, "Instrumentation" includes *all* the code that doesn't
actually *do* the work, but exists solely so you can tell what the code is
doing - so almost everything on the i386/x86_64 "Kernel Hacking" menu counts
as "instrumentation" in my book.

Now if we're talking about the features provided by one specific *instance*
of instrumentation code, I can buy that too - but I think that help text
needs to be clear on what is included under "debugging"

(I'd settle for "If you're trying to debug the kernel itself, go see the
Kernel Hacking menu" or similar.. ;)

> to many, not only kernel developers. Please have a look at the
> papers (especially the OLS2007 paper) linked on http://ltt.polymtl.ca as a
> starting point if you are intereted in the question.

Ahh, LTT. *that* I recognize. Yeah, I count that as *one flavor* of
instrumentation. :)

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