Re: GGI, EGCS/PGCC, Kernel source
Keith Rohrer (kwrohrer@enteract.com)
Wed, 25 Feb 1998 13:21:12 -0600 (CST)
And lo, Stefan Mars saith unto me:
> On 25 Feb 1998, Jes Degn Soerensen wrote:
> > Stefan> No no no.. we only put in the ones that are available for the
> > Stefan> specific card that a driver supports (well, some are so common
> > Stefan> that they are always there, but these are very few), and the
> > Stefan> rest is userspace.
> >
> > X different drivers means X times acceleration functions in the
> > kernel or am I missing something here? (no it doesn't matter that one
> > should only compile what one uses, its still in the kernel tree).
I held your position ("stuff that almost nobody uses shouldn't be in
the main kernel source") since the linux*.tar.gz was only three or
four megs. Now that it's 8 or 9 megs and all the proprietary CD-ROM
drivers are STILL in the main kernel source, I've given up. The
size of the kernel source distribution, and the size of archives
thereof, have *never* been a serious consideration that I've seen,
especially once something gets into the kernel distribution in the
first place.
The linux kernel tarball is a five-year-old roach motel, and needs to
be shaken out or thrown out. Nobody (myself included) wants to do
the latter, and nobody's willing to do the former...and I expect that
despite the semi-freeze on 2.1.astronomical, more roaches will climb
on in before 2.2...
> But then I have to ask this, where else are you going to put the
> functions? [besides the kernel]
I think that there should be three console drivers in the kernel source
distribution: serial, legacy vga, and KGI with a default vga driver.
Some of the current console code would run over top of these, the
rest would be the "legacy vga" lowlevel code. All KGI video drivers
should be available as modules. I don't think that any KGI drivers
beyond the basic, unaccelerated, pre-S- VGA driver should be included
with the main kernel distribution, but history suggests they will be
anyway...
Keith
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