What SHOULD go in the kernel

Guy Harris guy at auspex.auspex.com
Sun Oct 22 06:51:59 AEST 1989


 >>        One could argue that device drivers don't belong in the kernel
 >> at all.
 >
 >As device drivers continue to bloat in number and size,
 >and as hardware becomes more sophisticated,
 >this argument gains strength.

Yes, but...

 >The NeXT Mach 1.0 operating system supports loadable device drivers.
 >The MIDI interface, and other things like a SLIP (RS-232 TCP/IP) driver,
 >are done that way.  The driver is dynamically linked to the kernel,
 >at which point it functions like an ordinary driver.

...down to being a part of the kernel.

Sorry, just making drivers loadable into and, possibly, unloadable from
the kernel doesn't keep them from being in the kernel - it just makes it
easier to control which ones you are in your particular kernel.



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