Re: My personal wish-list

Graham Mitchell (gmitch@woodlea.wintermute.co.uk)
Tue, 30 Apr 1996 19:50:22 +0000


On 29 Apr 96 at 0:27, lilo wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Apr 1996, Graham Mitchell wrote:
>
> > I dont think this is a good idea.... There will be more and more
> > commonality in the future, as more different architectures start to
> > use PCI eg PowerPC
>
> Hmmm, PCI on Apple vs. PCI on non-Apple seem to be somewhat of a different
> breed. In any event, there is often a fair amount of code which differs
> between different architectures.
>

I dont know about that.... Yes there will be some differences, but I
dont think there will be THAT much difference between a PC PCI card
driver and an Apple PCI driver for the same card.

> > > o Option to throw away 'other' architecture code
> >
> > Again no. Lets keep ALL the kernel sources together.
>
> Sooner or later, the kernel tar file will be separated into several
> different subfiles. It's going to happen, purely by virtue of size.

Yeah..... Thats a good point. A kernel download is getting to be a
serious job these days. The problem is going to be ensuring that all
the subfiles are kept in step. Trying to compile something with
1.3.93 include files, 1.3.95 kernel, and a 1.3.103 file system will
be a nightmare. Even worse, will be when we cant get it to work and
the messages start hitting the list. I also imagine its going to be a
pain for Linus himself when issuing patches.
Maybe one way, would be to have one subfile for each of the
architectures, and a subfile for everything else. Mark EVERY source
and include file with the version number, and when you do a compile,
the first thing make does, is to check the file versions of the whole
subtree.

Graham

Ask not what you can do for your country,
but what your government is doing to you