First I have to congratulate the people who have brought Linux to the
current state of what it is.
Second, I have to complain about the size of the current 2.1.x
kernel.... (especially for modem download)
Reasons:
1) More than 10Megs of compressed source code.
2) Most of the downloaded stuff aren't needed for the average
installation (ie. no SCSI or IDE and also only using less than halve the
SCSI or IDE options, and only using one or two network adapters, not
every one have a UFS/SYSV filesystem etc. )
Isn't it time to start a break down of the kernel?
What I'd like to see is a situation where there actual "kernel" is
something which contains the stuff necesary to support the device
drivers. The device drivers are then maintained by there respective
maintainers and could then be released on a seperate schedule as and
when changes are needed for then.
I'd advise people to take a look at http://docs.sun.com under the
section 9 manual pages to see the Solaris type DDI/DDK.
If we start using something like this, a device driver developed for
eg. Solaris SPARC/x86 could then be much easier to port (or even run as
binary on the relevant architecture) to Linux and vice versa. Something
by which some OEMs might be quicker to respond to Linux versions...
In this environment, the "kernel" would then be just enough with enough
knowledge to load drivers into memory and to provide then with the
needed support etc. This would most probably include the scheduler, etc.
Thus, we shouldn't have a option to compile something as a module or
not, it should be the ONLY option available.
I do feel that the options regarding the "kernel" should be limited to
stuff like:
a) Sparc/x86/68k/ARM/SGI etc.
aa) Optimization for specific versions
b) SMP/Uniproc
c) Debugging
d) Profiling
For booting you'll then have to create a boot file for each type of FS,
like (boote2fs, bootminix, bootnfs etc.) which would create a temporary
FS for loading the kernel which the kernel would ask for the necessary
config files and driver files (like the REAL fs driver) to be loaded.
Having this "single" boot program could also help with other problems
I've encountered like running lilo (etc.) every time I've created a new
kernel, whereas this program would need an initial lilo, (stating where
it lives on the disk) and subsequent new/previous kernels would be
loaded from this program (given the right boot options like asking for
the kernel file and directories etc.)
I do feel that Linux could learn from Solaris (Yes I do like Solaris,
but prefer Linux at home because of resources) to be much more modular
and by providing a framework for others to drivers on, rather also
providing lot's and lot's of drivers with the single xxxxMeg file.
Greezt
Hendrik Visage
hvisage@iafrica.com
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