Re: Linux and real device drivers

Jes Sorensen (Jes.Sorensen@cern.ch)
21 Sep 1999 21:19:13 +0200


>>>>> "Bret" == Bret Indrelee <breti@bit3.com> writes:

Bret> It is unfortunate that the kernel interface keeps changing, and
Bret> they expect you to recompile after every kernel patch.

This is not unfortunate at all, this is how the Linux world works. If
there is a reason to change an interface, the interface has to be
changed.

>> If not, is anyone willing to discuss things with me on this subject
>> ? Maybe we can come towards a proposal to implement it.

Bret> If what you wanted is something like Sun's DDI/DKI, you should
Bret> probably look at UDI. It provides a device driver interface that
Bret> is portable among several operating systems. The prototype was
Bret> done on Linux and Intel is doing the changes to make it
Bret> compliant with 1.0 of the specification.

Yes, UDI also guarantees you a trendous overhead and almost certainly
lousy performance - last time I looked at the spec, about a year ago,
it certainly wasn't pretty.

Jes

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