>> We don't _need_ virtual consoles. We don't _need_ a parallel port
>> driver in the kernel. We don't _need_ TCP/IP in the kernel.
>> All of these things can be done in userspace.
>
> No they can't.
>
> At least not with sane secure semantics they can't.
For virtual consoles, all you need is the screen program.
Hack it to use raw keyboard mode if you want Alt-Fn switching to work.
For the whole console, you can run X with a full-screen xterm.
The AltFn switching is done by a severely hacked window manager.
For /dev/lp0, you can use a daemon that listens on a FIFO.
Data is sent out in the normal way, with IO privs and polling.
For TCP/IP, you just need a trusted daemon and your choice of IPC.
You can use a normal Ethernet driver, or the same trick as above.
> And it goes without saying the we could use a calendar
> instead of rdtsc for benchmarks.
Yes, exactly. We support many things that we don't really need.
While "we don't need devfs" is obviously true, that is a poor
argument against devfs. Many things we don't need are good to have.
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