Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:41:02 -0500 | From | Jon Smirl <> | Subject | Re: Christmas list for the kernel |
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On 11/22/05, Kasper Sandberg <lkml@metanurb.dk> wrote: > > Currently you have to compile most of this stuff into the kernel. > forgive my ignorance, but whats stopping you from doing this now?
It would be better if all of the legacy drivers could exist on initramfs and only be loaded if the actual hardware is present. With the current code someone like Redhat has to compile all of the legacy support into their distribution kernel. That code will be present even on new systems that don't have the hardware.
An example of this is that the serial driver is hard coded to report four legacy serial ports when my system physically only has two. I have to change a #define and recompile the kernel to change this.
The goal should be able to build something like Knoppix without Knoppix needing any device probing scripts. Linux is 90% of the way there but not 100% yet.
X is also part of the problem. Even if the kernel nicely identifies all of the video hardware and input devices, X ignores this info and looks for everything again anyway. In a more friendly system X would use the info the kernel provides and automatically configure itself for the devices present or hotplugged. You could get rid of your xorg.cong file in this model.
-- Jon Smirl jonsmirl@gmail.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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