CONFIG_SERIAL_CONSOLE

Thanks to Tom for spotting this.

We seem to have configuration breakage in several architectures regarding CONFIG_SERIAL_CONSOLE. This option began life to select the serial console code in serial.c, and had its own "bool" option in drivers/char/Config.in

However, several architectures seem to be using this to select similar code in their serial drivers by the following method (eg, from ppc):

if [ "$CONFIG_8260" = "y" ]; then
define_bool CONFIG_SERIAL_CONSOLE y

   choice 'Machine Type'        \
        "EST8260        CONFIG_EST8260  \
         SBS8260        CONFIG_SBS8260  \
         RPXSUPER       CONFIG_RPX6     \
         TQM8260        CONFIG_TQM8260  \
         Willow         CONFIG_WILLOW"  Willow

fi

Since ppc also include{s,d} drivers/char/Config.in, this means there was a define_bool _and_ bool for the same configuration variable. This sounds contary to the shell-nature of the configure scripts, and therefore illegal, and as such gets broken when changes happen.

Firstly, these platform specific serial drivers need to be ported to the new serial driver (cvs available...) They can then use CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE_CONSOLE to indicate whether a serial console has been built into the kernel or not. But please don't go and hijack this configuration symbol like you did the CONFIG_SERIAL_CONSOLE symbol.

Russell King ([email protected])                The developer of ARM Linux
             http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/personal/aboutme.html