James Sutherland <jas88@cam.ac.uk> writes:
> On 9 Jun 2000 yoann@mandrakesoft.com wrote:
>
> > "Johan Kullstam" <kullstam@ne.mediaone.net> writes:
> >
> > > Tonglu Yi <tlyi@fm365.com> writes:
> > >
> > > > linux is not micro kernel based OS, would it change to that in the
> > > > future?
> > >
> > > never say never, but the chances of this happening are slim and none.
> > >
> > > especially since linux has automatic loading and unloading of kernel
> > > modules, the advantages of microkernel are few.
> >
> > There is advantage : with microkernel, you have one kernel, which is
> > really small and run on top of the system which is there to manage
> > basic task, all the other stuff ( drivers for exemple ) are located
> > in userspace.
>
> In theory, this is a good thing; in practice, it doesn't gain you very
> much. If my network server's NIC driver collapses, and it's running in
> usermode, then the server could continue serving files - except... it
> doesn't have anywhere to send them! It's effectively dead anyway.
humm, you're talking about a configuration where there is > 1 machine,
and where each machine is a server ( for exemple disk server, sound
server )...
What about the same problem if there is only one machine :
You have no NIC anymore, but the system stand up.
>
> Similarly storage drivers, I/O drivers, etc. OK, there are a few
> "expendable" drivers, where I can continue without them - sound, video,
> mouse, perhaps. However, if this is a desktop/workstation, I need to
> reboot anyway;
why ?
just restart the faulty server, you do not need to reboot the machine.
> if it's a server, what does it have a sound card or mouse
> for in the first place?!
misunderstanding : here, when i'm talking about server, i am talking
about one entity on the machine which is the ressponssible for such
or such system task ( eg : sound driver )
> > The advantage is that there is really not many chance for the kernel
> > to crash, as it only do minimal thing.
>
> It's a nice theory, but in practice you need the device drivers working
> anyway.
It depend on which driver...
> Having "the kernel" working, but the machine being isolated from
> the outside world with no network or disk access, isn't much different
> from the kernel being dead as well.
Humm, i prefer having a network card down, because of a bug in the
userspace NIC driver server which i just need to restart...
>
> > If a driver crash, it doesn't disturb the kernel.
>
> No - but it does cripple the machine as a whole, so it might as well take
> the kernel with it.
well, why ?
-- -- Yoann http://www.mandrakesoft.com/~yoann/ It is well known that M$ product don't make a free() after a malloc(), the unix community wish them good luck for their future developement.- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 15 2000 - 21:00:18 EST