It is easy to waste a bunch of time when one takes a 32-bit .config
from a test machine and try to build it on a faster 64-bit system, and
its existing setting of CONFIG_64BIT=n gets *changed* to match the
build host.  Similarly, if one has an existing build tree it is easy
to trash an entire build tree that way.

This is because the default setting for $ARCH when discovered from
'uname' is one of the legacy pre-x86-merge values (i386 or x86_64),
which effectively force the setting of CONFIG_64BIT to match. We should
default to ARCH=x86 instead, finally completing the merge that we
started so long ago.

This patch preserves the behaviour of the legacy ARCH settings for commands
such as:

   make ARCH=x86_64 randconfig
   make ARCH=i386 randconfig

... since making the value of CONFIG_64BIT actually random in that situation
is not desirable.

In time, perhaps we can retire this legacy use of the old ARCH= values.
We already have a way to override values for *any* config option, using
$KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG, so it could be argued that we don't necessarily need
to keep ARCH={i386,x86_64} around as a special case just for overriding
CONFIG_64BIT.

We'd probably at least want to add a way to override config options from
the command line ('make CONFIG_FOO=y oldconfig') before we talk about doing
that though.

Signed-off-by: David Woodhouse <David.Woodhouse@intel.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1356040315.3198.51.camel@shinybook.infradead.org


Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@linux.intel.com>