Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 20 Jun 2004 18:16:26 -0700 | From | 4Front Technologies <> | Subject | Re: Stop the Linux kernel madness |
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David Lang wrote:
> > or they need to go through the process of getting their driver included > in the main kernel and these headaches go away. >
How would you handle the following modules that aren't drivers - like filesystems:
- ClusterFS - Intermezzo - Sistina
There are loads of other very specific drivers for embedded systems that have no real applicability in the mainstream kernel like DSP boards, specialized encryption board drivers, military grade video capture/display devices. There are other things like PCI-Express "development" drivers that aren't stable and developers need a way to build them outside the kernel.
Infact it's good programming practices to ensure that drivers/modules build independant of the kernel. There are too many companies like Win4Lin/VMWare that only offer support for Redhat or SuSE kernels with debian, gentoo and other's left out of the action.
You and others can keep suggesting that put the world+kitchen sink into the kernel and have the problems go away but it's not realistic. Many drivers are still maintained outside the kernel and you aren't providing a solution.
Right now the kernel configuration has become complex enough that someone ought to write a cool program that probes the customer's hardware + OS system and be able to build an optimized kernel + drivers + modules with minimal user intervention. Make it a commercial app and mint money because there's such a dire need. Most Linux users aren't able to do this and this basically means you have little ability to test all kinds of kernel configuration combinations.
> > it's less likly that the people running the 6.x distros are going to be > installing the latest and greatest hardware that needs the new > out-of-kernel driver, but if you think you need to create modules that > will work with every kernel since 2.0 have fun. >
How about just dealing with Linux 2.6.0 to Linux 2.6.7?. It's become bad enough that you need stuff like ifdef REGPARM, ifdef NOREGPARM, ifdef GCC 3.2, ifdef GCC 3.4, ifdef SMP, and other ifdefs if you're doing a bunch of /proc types of sysadmin stuff
> > David Lang >
best regards Dev Mazumdar ----------------------------------------------------------- 4Front Technologies 4035 Lafayette Place, Unit F, Culver City, CA 90232, USA. Tel: (310) 202 8530 URL: www.opensound.com Fax: (310) 202 0496 Email: info@opensound.com ----------------------------------------------------------- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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