Re: [9fans] Crazy idea... or a new project?

[nemo@gsyc.escet.urjc.es]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 308 bytes --]

Another way could be to be able to link the kernel
with device drivers before loading it, and keep
the kernel just with devices used. I think that
could be done by making each driver provide a
(user) program to check if the device is there,
and linking a second kernel depending on what's
there. 



[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 4114 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #2.1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 580 bytes --]

That's a little simplistic.  The x86 is a lousy architecture,
and you're right about the compilers etc.  But all those
lousy drivers, VGAs, USB floppies, it goes on and on.
Are any two the same?  I doubt it.  That's the horror of
PCs, yet is a perhaps unavoidable consequence of the
history that made the PC dominant (c.f. the Mac).

The PC kernel for Plan 9 is huge because of all the drivers
it must have to run on all devices.  Sure we could have
(and perhaps should have) loadable device drivers,
but that is a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist.

-rob


[-- Attachment #2.1.2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 1463 bytes --]

From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Crazy idea... or a new project?
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 19:05:08 -0500
Message-ID: <20001124000509.EF643199EE@mail.cse.psu.edu>

I don't agree about the x86.
Sure it's an ugly chip.
Sure it and its PC hosts are complicated.
But the bootstrap code and the compiler
are written.  In Plan 9, it's no different
to write applications for the x86 than it
is to write them for any other architecture.

Russ