Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com> writes:
> Sure. I just don't see many end-users single-stepping through
> interrupt handlers etc.
>
> But yes, there probably are a few.
I think you would be surprised, and I speak as someone who has found
and fixed race conditions in your kernel.
There are more Linux users who are competent with x86 hardware and SMP
issues than there are Linux developers. A *lot* more.
When these technically savvy users have a problem, they want to
diagnose it as best they can and then hand it off to a kernel expert
to analyse and to fix. They wish they had the time to understand the
kernel deeply and come up with the "right" solution, but they don't;
and the expert can do the job ten times faster anyway.
If you give us better diagnostic tools, your kernel *will* improve
faster. Whether this benefit outweighs the cost is, of course, up to
you.
- Pat
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Sep 15 2000 - 21:00:10 EST