Messages in this thread | | | From | Benno <> | Date | Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:33:40 +1100 | Subject | Re: is killing zombies possible w/o a reboot? |
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On Thu Nov 04, 2004 at 11:07:49 +0100, Matthias Andree wrote: >On Wed, 03 Nov 2004, Gene Heskett wrote: > >> >Yes it does - the problem is that not all resources are managed >> >by processes. Some allocations are managed by drivers, so a driver >> >bug can get the device into a unuseable state _and_ tie up the >> >process(es) that were using the driver at the moment. >> >> This from my viewpoint, is wrong. The kernel, and only the kernel >> should be ultimately responsible for handing out resources, and >> reclaiming at its convienience. > >Linux's driver model is the way it is. If you want the kernel to clean >up after a driver has puked, you need something like a microkernel I >believe, where only a minimal core kernel is a real kernel and where all >the drivers are actually in user-space, but that's no longer Linux then.
Of course some drivers are already in user-space on Linux. (E.g: X graphics cards). Work by the Gelato project has added support to the Linux kernel to allow more complicated drivers (e.g: those requiring interrupts) to be run outside the kernel on Linux.
http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/cvs/kernel/usrdrivers/
Cheers,
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