Re: [2.6] The List, pass #2

From: Pavel Machek (pavel@suse.cz)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 22:40:19 EST


Hi!

> > > > o Remove all hardwired drivers from kernel
> > >
> > > I really hope this means drivers MAY be used as modules, not MUST. There
> > > is some overhead in doing things as modules, and added complexity usually
> > > means "harder to debug." Particularly with modules where there can be
> > > corner conditions and races on [un]load.
> >
> > Bill,
> > Several people (IIRC including Alan Cox) would like to make many of the
> > modules (network cards and scsi drivers for example) mandatory, requiring
> > use of an initrd (or it's replacement) on all boot setups.
>
> As far as I know, they plan on doing things like
> disk partition detection outside the kernel, i.e. in
> a userspace program. That clearly require
> a initrd (or similiar) for anybody with root
> on a partitioned disk.
>
> Lots of other bootup initialization, like DHCP,
> might move to userspace as well. This gives a smaller
> and safer kernel.

Why *safer*? Partition (,DHCP,..) code is ran once at boot. It is hard for
it to harm security.
                                                                Pavel

-- 
Philips Velo 1: 1"x4"x8", 300gram, 60, 12MB, 40bogomips, linux, mutt,
details at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/velo/index.html.

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