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Posted on 03/29/2007 6:22:16 AM PDT by GeorgiaDawg32
As long as the hardware you have is supported, and the drivers don't use any of the kernel functions that they decide to remove in that particular minor kernel revision. Yes, Linux kernel developers do change and remove significant kernel functions on a regular basis in MINOR kernel revisions.
They will usually leave the old function in the kernel and mark it as depreciated for a few minor revisions, so if you keep recompiling your drivers against the new revisions with all the warnings turned on you can usually avoid having your code simply not work with the latest revision, but simply maintaining the same level of functionality requires vigilant maintenance.
Linux can't have and maintain a consistent api for kernel functions, because that would make it easier for vendors to produce binary loadable kernel modules.
They want to make it so that you need to provide source or constantly maintain your code yourself.
However, since we sell high end, low volume products, our customers don't find it acceptable to have to try and understand why the driver doesn't work with the latest kernel and fix it themselves. They expect us to support our product.
That is not an unreasonable expectation on their part. However, we spend far more time supporting Linux drivers that Windows drivers, and the Windows driver actually end up being more stable because of the consistent interface.
Not necessary - that's what a Loadable Kernel Module is for. Think of a LKM as a driver, though it can be much more. Even the kernel can be updated with the autoupdate features.
That's a great concept, except for the fact that many subsystems in Linux (such as the SCSI subsystem) lack a clean interface that doesn't change. To produce a kernel loadable module, you need to compile it not simply for that kernel, you need to compile it against the configured kernel sources for that particular kernel. The kernel source must be configured exactly as it was for the kernel that is running on that system.
So if your drivers aren't maintained as part of the kernel distribution, you need to explain to your customers how to load their kernel sources on their system, and and either run make oldconfig with the proper config file if they have it, or rebuild their kernel and make sure they boot the kernel they rebuilt.
Power PC Linux is also a lot of fun. It has the same problems as X86 Linux, it just a bit less stable, distributions tend to be configured more poorly, and the kernel developers break things more often.
However, once you get everything working, it is a great OS that suits our customers needs very well. That is as long and you can get them to quit playing with it and updating to the latest kernel just because they can.
There must be some law of the universe that states that software will eventually grow in size and complexity until the HW can just barely keep up. If this were not the case, then some other developer would add in that *next* feature and so on and so on until the user responsiveness was not fast but tolerable.
Sort of like no matter how much storage space you have in your house and how big your house is, your closets are always full, and you stumble over bicycles when getting out of your car.
Not sure we can blame all of this on MS - I suspect 50 years from now whatever we have that corresponds to today's computers will still suffer the same problems!
pings...
ib4ge
I've got Xandros 4 and I'm going to start using it soon. Goodbye to Windows.
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I'm using Linux now 50/50 with Windows. The water is just fine, my costs are way reduced. Someday the light bulb is going to click on in a lot of people's heads that they no longer need to take the abuse.
Grove giveth and Gates taketh away.— Bob Metcalfe.
It depends who they go with. If, for example, they go with Redhat (with whom they already have a relationship on the server side) they will contract through them and I would assume hacking the kernel would not be supported.
As for 'the problem with linux' are you telling me MS is not always being patched? as someone who has delt often with redhat I can tell you its no different than dealing with windows. You click a button for vendor security updates.
Most linux versions provide a kernel upgrade packate (eg an rpm) which installs without problem.
Won't they be missed?
For the general consumer market that's true. But some markets still are trying to keep it tight, like the embedded market. Although that'll probably change now that Microsoft is getting into that market.
Right you are - I do remember that now LOL.
I think for embedded it's still probably true, it's just that in the embedded space the parameters are different. (less RAM, less disk storage, perhaps slower processors to minimize power consumption).
For example, consider phones. Manufacturers are loading them up with MP3 players, cameras, web browsers, GPS chips etc. etc. The market still has to sort all this out, but feature bloat is alive and well even in the embedded space.
The embedded space does bring a different mentality to the party as you rightly point out. Gates et. al. don't care if Vista needs 2GB of RAM to laod but embedded manufacturers have always had to make do with less and this continues to be the case. They do have to keep their eye on the ball.
I bought my father a new computer with Vista preinstalled. It took me over a half hour to locate, download (DSL) and install the drivers for his all=in-one. They didn't even have drivers for his standalone printer which was a couple of years old.
At that point, I realized the driver issues for Linux were just FUD, and that Windows was no better.
I agree. XP and Vista don't bring anything new to the party except bloat, bells, whistles and eye-candy. I'm still on 2000, and will be until they drag me away, kicking and screaming.
IB4GE!!
I seriously doubt hell want in on this thread (though now that Ive said that hell probabally pop by) He has been saying for a good long while he doubs dell will sell a linux desktop..
...but as we all know, stranger things have happened
I expect Iggle to show up here eventually...
MS is ALWAYS being patched. The patches are always being patched. However, the kernel APIs remain consistent at least until they do a major rev of the OS and usually even then.
They may add new calls, but they don't just rename or remove existing calls.
Drivers I wrote for Windows 2000 still run on the latest version of Windows XP or 2003 server without even recompiling them. I haven't tried them under Vista yet. Our customer base isn't likely to car much about Vista until next year.
As long as users stick with mainstream, high volume devices that are supported in Red Hat, they should be fine, because those drivers get maintained as part of the kernel distribution.
If you try to diverge from the norm a bit, you will likely need to be a bit more adventurous to keep all your hardware functional.
Most linux versions provide a kernel upgrade packate (eg an rpm) which installs without problem.
That works great as long as the kernel devs are maintaining the drivers for the hardware you're using.
I have to disagree. There is a lot of good stuff under the hood in XP and Vista over their predecessors. The problem is whether suffering the extra bloat overrides these positives. In the case of Vista, which for example has very reworked I/O and networking, people with high-end machines are reporting that it still runs much slower than XP.
I have to agree...
Just started running a BeleniX (bases on OpenSolaris) live-CD in it. Holy crap, that's fast...
btw--if anyone gets the chance, be sure to check out the Project Blackbox...8^)
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