Driver porting: more module changes

Posted Feb 21, 2003 6:35 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332)
Parent article: Driver porting: more module changes

Well, I wonder why bother, ...perahps going for one of the kernel maintainers listed emails,...but then, if anyone can answer to this question i'l be very much appreciataded...it's very important to me!!!

Does this >"new "version magic" scheme also records other information, including the compiler version, SMP status, and preempt status; it is thus able to catch more incompatible situations than the old scheme did"<, storm, is to be lefted in production 2.6 kernels, or is it going to be somehow abstracted??

Better put!, does a "stupid trying to be a hacker" programmer like me, if by any change achieves the feat of getting a working kernel hardware driver module for the most trivial piece of hardware in the world, say, compiled with kernel 2.6.6 and gcc 3.4, "be in a versioning storm" and have to fix the module for it to recompile with preempt enable, and fix the module againg for it to recompile with SMP enabled, and for Kernel 2.6.7 the same, and for gcc3.4.1 the same,..., meaning that 20 kernel versions and 3 compiler versions ahead i would have to make 180 fixes!?????

whaw!!...without meaning any disrespect, it sure is a job for a full time payed hacker!

Well!!...If the answer is yes than is very sad "for me and for thousands like me,...because i have a very small shop that transforms old gear and also produce new linux servers and firewall appliences, and dont have the many to hire an army of programmers.

Its double sad, because after 10 years of dreams and foughts, the kernel is sleeping to the hands of IBM, HP and the like, that not only have the resources for thousands of programmers, but also control the machines on witch full working kernels can be deployed.

Any way, i respectfuly be waiting for a answer.... thank you.