Re: [9fans] OT: linux complexity trends

["Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+usenet@becket.net>]

cross@math.psu.edu (Dan Cross) writes:

> I guess I'm having a hard time understanding the point.  Memory being
> as cheap as it is [*], why not just keep the drivers loaded all the time?
> Is this to avoid inter-driver conflicts or to better support PCMCIA
> devices or something?

The usual reason for dynamically loadable device drivers is for:

Systems with easily pluggable hardware (USB, PCMCIA)
Systems where it's beneficial to run one kernel for a bunch of
  machines with divergent hardware.

Such systems need all the drivers available, in principle, all the
time, but only a minority will be needed at any one point in time.  If
all the supported hardware drivers are loaded at once, you do get
considerable bloat.  There are a *lot* of hardware devices out there;
a kernel with device drivers compiled in for all of them would be
insanely huge.