Re: Internationalizing the kernel - (was: Procfs problems)

Adam D. Bradley (bradley@cs.unca.edu)
Thu, 17 Apr 1997 12:02:25 -0400 (EDT)

> > Additionally, one of the nice things about Linux is that so much of its
> > interface is intelligible human-readable text, as opposed to other (herein
> > unnamed) OS's that use things like a binary registry; to rely on a
> > user-space daemon or translator to translate these things is a bad idea
> > because:
> > (a) versioning inconsistencies will show up: a translator for
> > 2.1.X may barf on messages for a 2.0.X kernel, and many of us have
> > multiple kernels on our systems
> > (b) If the system becomes unstable, the binary messages may not be
> > logged, and the translater may not be available to do real-time
> > translations (what if ld.so becomes inaccessible?)
> > (b2) similarly for a userspace daemon - it may be swapped out and
> > become inaccessible/useless.
> Why do you want to use a daemon? A normal program which parses the output
> of the normal kernel messages and which does some translation is enough,

See (b) above...

> to help many peoples. If a kernel crashes, this application could run
> after the next boot...

Assuming the machine is bootable ;-) ... root fs corruption has a way of
preventing that. Crashes can also prevent the binary/encoded error
message from being logged, making a run of the decoder on the next boot
useless.

> > It's a neat idea, but there isn't enough practical benefit to justify the
> > increased complexity.
> Hmmm, we just need to standardize the kernel output. I've searched in
> kernel source for printk's and found over 10 000! So we need the help of
> all developers to make a standardized, nice, parsable kernel output.

Thing is, the bulk of kernel output (printk) isn't intended or needed for
in-depth parsing; module initialization data is mostly for debugging
purposes (perhaps a standard "Initialized : isdn0" line would be nice,
for quick grep'ing...)

/proc is different beast, I'm going to stay out of that one...

Adam

--
He feeds on ashes; a deluded mind has led him    Adam Bradley, UNCA Senior
astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say,             Computer Science
"Is there not a lie in my right hand?"   Isaiah 44:20
        bradley@cs.unca.edu       http://www.cs.unca.edu/~bradley      <><