Disable EISA and probes

[Greg KH]

On Sat, Sep 05, 2020 at 07:31:13AM -0400, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 2:15 AM Greg KH <greg at kroah.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 04, 2020 at 10:57:38PM -0400, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> > > Hi Everyone,
> > >
> > > I would like to disable EISA and its probes during boot. I found the
> > > docs at https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/eisa.html,
> > > but it does not discuss how to disable EISA or the probes.
> > >
> > > I also found https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1543919,
> > > where folks are wondering why EISA is enabled by default nowadays. And
> > > one person asks about a kernel option to disable it (like I am doing).
> > >
> > > I'd like to add a boot param like eisa=0 or eisa=off, but I suspect
> > > it's not that easy. Looking at the three documented kernel parameters,
> > > they all enable EISA and probes.
> > >
> > > How do I disable EISA and the probes?
> >
> > Build a kernel without EISA in it at all?  That's the simplest way as
> > you must have some custom hardware that doesn't like this, so a
> > custom-configuration seems like the best option.
> 
> Nothing custom. I just have modern hardware.
> 
> What's the purpose of including EISA by default? It has not been used
> in 25 years.

distro kernels have to support everything.  The kernel should still just
work just fine with it enabled but not present, right?

> > Did you try that and it did not work?  What is the problem of EISA at
> > boot anyway?
> 
> No, I did not build a custom kernel. I was looking for kernel options
> to disable it.

Again, why?  What is breaking because it is enabled in your kernel?

thanks,

greg k-h