Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:30:15 -0500 (EST) | From | Gregory Maxwell <> | Subject | Re: You question about drivers for Linux |
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On 12 Jan 1999, Andi Kleen wrote:
> In article <Pine.LNX.3.96.990112104240.6865B-100000@z.ml.org>, > linker@z.ml.org (Gregory Maxwell) writes: > > Can someone knoweldgable please, please, go work for them? :) > > > All we need is a popular hardware vendor introducing shared libs into the > > kernel :).. > > Shared libraries in the kernel are pointless. > > A shared library is a common library that can be shared between different > address spaces. That is not needed, because the kernel has only one > (kernel) address space. > > When kernel modules are loaded they can export symbols, and other kernel > modules can use it. When the kernel wants to use functions in external > modules it can use kmod/kerneld (with a bit of bootstrapping, the external > module has to put the needed address into some hook which the kernel > will call then, this is usually done with some shared structure like > a device). > > So all things you would want from shared libraries are already there.
I thought sarcasm was internationally understood. :( Can someone mail me off list with some pointers how I can avoid such a misunderstanding again (short of actually being clear. :) ).
I ment that "I've seen windows device drivers do some very unnice things, like call .dll's and I am worried that someone not very versed in Linux/Unix would produce some very 'wrong' drivers".
> This is only a short term stopgap solution. For example extensions to the > Linux source architecture (the ALSA project) will probably not well handled > by OSS. > > This would only work out if the library (lib*.a not .LIB btw@) is very thin. > Things like disabling interrupts or translating kernel addresses to bus > addresses are all done with inline functions or macros in Linux, and the > interface is only defined for source code portability. There is just no > stable ABI for kernel modules.
> Also it does not address the issue of porting the drivers to other > architectures like Sparc,Alpha,Merced,ARM.
They obviously dont care about other arches, we'll be luckey with just x86. AFIK their product wont even work under Alpha/NT.
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