Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 01 Aug 2002 11:33:33 +0200 | From | Helge Hafting <> | Subject | Re: [2.6] The List, pass #2 |
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David Lang wrote: > > > > o Remove all hardwired drivers from kernel > > > > I really hope this means drivers MAY be used as modules, not MUST. There > > is some overhead in doing things as modules, and added complexity usually > > means "harder to debug." Particularly with modules where there can be > > corner conditions and races on [un]load. > > Bill, > Several people (IIRC including Alan Cox) would like to make many of the > modules (network cards and scsi drivers for example) mandatory, requiring > use of an initrd (or it's replacement) on all boot setups.
As far as I know, they plan on doing things like disk partition detection outside the kernel, i.e. in a userspace program. That clearly require a initrd (or similiar) for anybody with root on a partitioned disk.
Lots of other bootup initialization, like DHCP, might move to userspace as well. This gives a smaller and safer kernel.
I cannot see this requiring modules though. Even a kernel without any module support at all should work fine for those who compile their own. Redhat and other distributors may be interested in shipping a completely modular kernel that loads modules from that initrd, but that certainly won't be a _requirement_ for all kernels.
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