Hardware vendor supplied modules

Hardware vendor supplied modules

Posted Feb 13, 2003 22:53 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332)
In reply to: Hardware vendor supplied modules by Peter
Parent article: Driver porting: compiling external modules

>freeze the kernel/module interface, somehaw nullify or abstract away all differences...

IN OTHER WORDS, BUILD A IN KERNEL API/ABI (like in LSB)!!!

THE PROBLEM WHIT "UDI" WAS NOT THE IDEA IN ITSELF, BUT "HOW AND WHO" WAS IN CONTROL...IN THE BEGINING LINUS WAS A PROMOTER OF IT...

YOU ALREADY HAVE A "ABSTRACT INTERFACE" IN KERNEL IN THE FORM OF I2O...THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU NEED "SPECIAL HARDWARE" TO GET ALONG WITH IT...

The current "state of the art" is, as specified in your explanation, there is no simple answer to any question... be it cross-compilation, be it building external modules, or whatever related to hardware. There's almost 100% certainty now that you run against "gcc 2.95 vs. gcc 3.2, preemptible vs. non-preemptible, UP vs. SMP, 386 vs. 586 vs. K7, highmem vs. non-highmem"....

BUILDING GOOD AND COMPLETE WIDE SUPPORTE FOR A PIECE OF HARDWARE IN EXTERNAL MODULES, "IS FOR SURE NOW" ONLY FOR A SKILLED AND WELL DOCUMENTED "COMERCIAL" TEAM...(how about that????)

If you have to have a good and extensive support of hardware in the form of in kernel loadable modules, it would mean that the source of the kernel could easely be 10 times of current size, cutting out those that dont have broadband( more than half of the world), or...

...LINUS GETS FIRED FROM TRANSMETA OR DIES OF EXAUSTION!...OR FOR STABLE KERNEL 2.8/3.0 YOU HAVE A "DEVELOPMENT CICLE OF 4 YEARS",...OR WORST THAN EVERYTHING ELSE BEFORE!!!...YOU SEE THE KERNEL HIGHJACKED IN THE FORM OF NVIDEA-KERNEL, ATI-KERNEL, OR MORE COMPLET HP/COMPAQ-KERNEL, DELL_KERNEL, GATEWAY-KERNEL, LIVING IN THE DUST THE LESS COMPLIENT RH-KERNEL, MANDRAKE_KERNEL, SUSE_KERNEL, VMWARE_KERNEL!!!!...

IS THE LINUX KERNEL HEADING FOR A "ABISM", OR IS MY IMAGINATION?????????

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