[arch-dev-public] [signoff] initscripts-2011.07.1-1

[Tom Gundersen]

On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Dan McGee <dpmcgee at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Tom Gundersen <teg at jklm.no> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Ionut Biru <ibiru at archlinux.org> wrote:
>>> On 07/26/2011 05:43 AM, Evangelos Foutras wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 25 July 2011 23:51, Tom Gundersen<teg at jklm.no>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> The VERBOSE parameter no longer has an effect, use the kernel's
>>>>> loglevel= parameter instead. Most p
>>>>
>>>> I don't like this change. While you say there's a way to make it less
>>>> verbose, after only merging the changes to rc.conf, dmesg output will
>>>> get interleaved with initscripts output during boot, which looks
>>>> horrible: http://imgur.com/a/wbG9z
>>>>
>>>> No signoff. :>
>>>
>>> i'm with you in this. kernel logs are in the middle of starting daemons.
>>> hate it
>>
>> I agree that the kernel default is annoying, but it _is_ the upstream
>> default, and there is a known workaround (boot with "quiet"), so I
>> don't want to keep hacking around this in initscripts.
>>
>> Luckily, my stubbornness prompted Dave to do the right thing, and
>> submit a kernel patch to allow the default to be set to something
>> sensible at compile-time: <https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/26/227>.
>> Hopefully this means that the problem will be solved upstream soon.
>
> As great as this all is:
> 1) it isn't upstream yet, so you're forcing a patched package (which
> we don't like to do)
> 2) it requires every custom kernel to match the Arch default level of
> 4 for initscripts output to not look like ass
>
> So I'm all for the upstream patch, but I'm not so sold on the removal
> of this from initscripts. We're breaking a lot of established setups
> here.

Right, so it seems this change drew a lot of attention. I'll try to
justify it one last time, and if I still have everyone against me,
I'll revert.

1) The change is purely cosmetic, so nothing is broken. At worst you
get some extra messages on your console.
2) There are several ways of disabling this:
   a) pass "quiet" on the commandline, this is what most other
distro's do, and what is suggested by the kernel docs
   b) set kernel.printk=4 in sysctl.conf
   c) add an init hook that changes the loglevel. Maybe this actually
belongs in mkinitcpio, as the output from the initrd would also get
interleaved with kernel messages, even now.

So that takes care of why I think the change does not make anything
worse. The reasons I think it is a good idea to make the change are:

3) Simplicity: the native behavior is simple. You set the loglevel on
the commandline and that is it. We have added an extra layer that
makes it more difficult to understand (just by looking at the kernel
docs) why the loglevel is not what you expect it to be.
4) Follow upstream: by not changing the upstream behavior it should be
simpler for people to interact directly with upstream when debugging.
5) I'll always be biased in favor of a patch that deletes code.

-t