Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 17 Mar 2000 02:32:19 -0600 (CST) | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: 2.3.51 tulip broken |
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On Thu, 16 Mar 2000, Jim Morris wrote: > Donald Becker wrote: > > But this letter isn't about this detailed, narrow issue. It is instead > > about the attitude that such interface changes are readily, and only lightly > > considered. Each one of those minor interface change impacted multiple > > drivers. Many of those drivers were being actively worked on, perhaps based > > on a stable 2.2 kernel. > > Bingo. I think you've hit the nail on the head. It comes down to the > difference between just junping in and doing a "quick hack" that seems > to suit an immediate need, or actually "designing" the change. By > design, I mean considering how the change might impact other peices of > code, etc.
The PCI interface in 2.3 is quite well designed and covers a superset of the features in Donald's pci-netif interface. Further, it receives/has received much wider testing.
> > To you such an interface change is a minor tweak that can be with an > > automated search-and-hack. What takes you only a minute per file to change > > might take the developer hours over the next few months to deal with to > > integrate with testing. This is especially true when Linus insists that all > > traces of 2.2 support be expunged in the 2.3 drivers. > > Ouch! That's a sore spot for me... I have no intention of moving any > production system to 2.3.xx, or even the 2.4 kernel until its been out > for some time. For that matter, I've still got production systems > running the 2.0.36 kernel, with uptimes of hundreds of days. If it > ain't broke, don't fix it! > > The architectural changes to the drivers that Linus is insisting on mean > that I have to have completely different drivers for 2.0.xx, 2.2.xx or > the later 2.3/2.4 kernels.
It does not mean that at all. Look at current acenic or rrunner drivers for example. It is ENTIRELY possible to create a 2.3 driver which is fully backwards compatible with 2.0 and 2.2.
Donald chooses to create a 2.0 driver which happens to work in 2.2/2.3.
> 2.2.xx source, I think. I have yet to see a good solid explanation for > breaking driver compatibility between 2.2 and 2.3.
Much better kernel infrastructure.
Jeff
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