Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > in the case of Linux it's really part of the OS because device drivers
> > are compiled into the kernel,

> Is that still true, tho? I thought the "modules" stuff took care of 
> that? Like loading the encryption loopback device makes something new in 
> /dev (/dev/loop0) yes?

> Or am I just confused?

  Driver modules can be dynamically linked to the kernel at runtime.
They are still part of the kernel, though. Once linked they are part
of the kernel code, have all the same rights and all the same access.
Moreover, there's no standard stable binary interface between the modules
and the rest of the kernel. A module compiled for one version of the
kernel may well not work with the next version. In other words, all the
device driver modules must always be provided with each new version of
the kernel. Closed source binary-only driver modules are not feasible
(because they would only work for a very limited range of kernels).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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