But instead of just wiping them, save their configuration?/state?/entire core?
into a swappable chunk. When they are needed they can be reloaded, but
since all the probing and configuration is done at boot, the module loading
would avoid the probing conflict/order problems, as well as the problem of
passing device modes and configuration arguments around.
In essence, the kernel would behave as a monolithic kernel, except that
parts of it could disconnect and page out. (But the normal insmod rmmod
could still be used.)
This could give the benefits of modularity such as experimental modules,
conflicting modules (lp and ppa) and the slight memory savings ... and might
clean up stability problems... (if your ne2000 didn't crash/burn at boot-up,
you won't risk it again by reloading under different machine and device
states).
Some parts of course would not need this feature... anything which does not
need configuration can just be yanked in from the .o file anytime.
(Of course, some of the stability can be gotten by just keeping the less
well-behaved stuff in the monolithic part.)
__kmb203@psu.edu_________________________Debian__1.1___Linux__1.3.97___
Parents: this version of Linux contains small components that new
users may pick up and put in their mouth.