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SubjectRe: dropping kerneld...
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In linux.dev.kernel, article <6F5724445CA@espoo.fipower.fi>,
"Lauri Tischler" <ltischler@fipower.fi> writes:
>
> Yup, I'm missing a lot of pain and useless complications by not
> using kerneld and modules. Quite useless contraptions both.
>
Ah, come on...

Here, we have a heap of server machines, different hardware (start with
wildly differrent SCSI adapters), different software requirements (one
serves Appletalk, the rest quite frankly can't be bothered).

Before modules and initrd, I've had to build a kernel for each of these
beasts. Ugh. Now, I build the kerneld 100% modularized (OK, OK, binfmt_elf
and ext2 aren't, but they're used on every system anyway). Initrd then just
loads one SCSO adapter after the other until one is found, then kicks the
real boot process which loads the network card and protocol drivers, and
that's it. (I'm not loading the protocol stacks with kerneld because it
doesn't work yet -- every call to ifconfig would load the whole code, only
to find that there aren't any Appletalk or IPX addresses. The appropriate
kernel code should not bother to ask kerneld if SIOCG* calls are made,
IMHO, but I haven't had the time to actually do something about this.)

> Any lurking need to use kerneld is easily cured by getting enough
> memory.
>
That is not an option for many people out there, and if given the choice to
let heaps of dead code lie around in the kernel, or to spend a little bit
of time and one additional page of memory when I do need the code, I'll
happily take the latter route.

--
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