From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: presotto@closedmind.org To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] OT: linux complexity trends MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <20011126190131.7FE4319A0F@mail.cse.psu.edu> Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 14:01:23 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 2a1a896e-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 I had been against locadable drivers for a while, mostly on the grounds of added complexity. However, I never compiled all devices into my kernels because probing for some devices often hung my system or interfered with other devices although that's getting better. Size still matters since we run on a lot of little devices. The Ipaq's, for example, have very limited memory but can have a panoply of cards that can be plugged in on the fly. Compileing in all devices is a bit of a pain since they can easily surpass the flash. For release purposes, its less resources to waste on our side just copying drivers onto a floppy than building a new kernel. However, that's not a very strong argument.