KCONFIG(1)

🎀 KCONFIG 🎀

okay bestie, welcome to the kconfig manual — it's the kconfig page from the kconfig manual, dated October 2017, and honestly? it's giving "quietly runs your entire kernel config and never asks for credit." let's get into it 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

kconfig — a standalone implementation of the Linux Kconfig parser. that's it, that's the whole vibe 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

kconfig [options] <KConfig_file>

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so the kconfig toolkit is the whole girlboss situation: it supports the Kconfig language, and it implements the parser plus all the configuration support that goes along with the KConfig files — and it respects the Linux kernel KConfig convention the entire time. no notes, iconic behavior 👑

At configuration time, you've got options, literally:

• kconfig-mconf — built on ncurses (menuconfig) 💅
• kconfig-conf — built on dialog (config)
• kconfig-gconf — built on GTK+ (gconfig)

And the associated tools, bestie, don't sleep on these:

• kconfig-diff — displays the symbols diff between .config files 🦋

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• --silentoldconfig — only for kconfig-conf, okay? it reloads a given .config and regenerates the header and command files accordingly. very "i'll handle it quietly" energy 🙈
• --allnoconfig — sets all boolean configuration to no. respectfully, everything is off 💀
• --allyesconfig — sets all boolean configuration to yes. everything is ON. main character config 🔥
• --randconfig — generates a random configuration. chaos mode, no cap 🌈

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✨ ENVIRONMENT ✨

🌸 Environment variables for '*config' 🌸

• KCONFIG_CONFIG — you can set this environment variable to specify a default kernel config file name, so it overrides the default name of ".config". cute little rename 💖
• KCONFIG_OVERWRITECONFIG — if you set KCONFIG_OVERWRITECONFIG in the environment, Kconfig will not break symlinks when .config is a symlink to somewhere else. it respects the link, periodt ✨
• CONFIG_ — if you set CONFIG_ in the environment, Kconfig will prefix all symbols with its value when saving the configuration, instead of using the default, "CONFIG_". 🎀

🌸 Environment variables for '{allyes/allmod/allno/rand}config' 🌸

• KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG — the allyesconfig/allmodconfig/allnoconfig/randconfig variants can also use the environment variable KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG as a flag or a filename that contains config symbols that the user requires to be set to a specific value. so if KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG is used without a filename where KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG == "" or KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG == "1", "make *config" checks for a file named "all{yes/mod/no/def/random}.config" (corresponding to the *config command that was used) for symbol values that are to be forced. and if that file is not found, it checks for a file named "all.config" to contain forced values. 🕵️‍♀️

This enables you to create "miniature" config (miniconfig) or custom config files containing just the config symbols that you are interested in. then the kernel config system generates the full .config file, including symbols of your miniconfig file. literally so efficient 🫶

This 'KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG' file is a config file which contains (usually a subset of all) preset config symbols. these variable settings are still subject to normal dependency checks — so don't think you can just sneak past deps, bestie 😭

Examples:

KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG=custom-notebook.config make allnoconfig or
KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG=mini.config make allnoconfig or
make KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG=mini.config allnoconfig

These examples will disable most options (allnoconfig) but enable or disable the options that are explicitly listed in the specified mini-config files. iconic. obsessed. 💅

🌸 Environment variables for 'randconfig' 🌸

• KCONFIG_SEED — you can set this to the integer value used to seed the RNG, if you want to somehow debug the behaviour of the kconfig parser/frontends. if it's not set, the current time will be used. ⭐
• KCONFIG_PROBABILITY — this variable can be used to skew the probabilities. see /usr/share/doc/kconfig-frontends/kconfig.txt.gz. 📖

🌸 Environment variables for 'silentoldconfig' 🌸

• KCONFIG_NOSILENTUPDATE — if this variable has a non-blank value, it prevents silent kernel config updates (requires explicit updates). no sneaky updates allowed, we ask first 🙈
• KCONFIG_AUTOCONFIG — this environment variable can be set to specify the path name of the "auto.conf" file. its default value is "include/config/auto.conf". 💜
• KCONFIG_TRISTATE — this environment variable can be set to specify the path name of the "tristate.conf" file. its default value is "include/config/tristate.conf". 🌸
• KCONFIG_AUTOHEADER — this environment variable can be set to specify the path name of the "autoconf.h" (header) file. its default value is "include/generated/autoconf.h". 🎀

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✨ HISTORY ✨

June 2017 — this man page was originally compiled by Philippe Thierry (phil at reseau-libre dot com). thank you for your service, king 🫡💖

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🦋 this was the kconfig man page from the kconfig manual, page date October 2017, written by Philippe Thierry, and it's a wrap 💅✨👑