Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:03:06 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> 
>> Yeah, well... why bother supporting a platform that hardly anybody uses?
>> *Clearly* it's more profitable to support only the most popular
>> platforms. ;-)
>>
>> That's why no Linux drivers, no Linux games, no Linux apps...
>>
>> (Yes, I realise there are a few of these now, but still not that many.
>> Yet.)
> 
> This is not an accurate portrayal by any stretch.
> 
> "no linux drivers" - as someone pointed out, especially as regards legacy 
> hardware support, Linux kicks Windows' ass.  The time it becomes a 
> problem is when the manufacturer won't release specifications for the 
> hardware so drivers can be created.
> 
> "a few" is a poor characterization at best.

I meant there are no Linux drivers for high-end hardware like expensive 
graphics cards. Clearly there *are* Linux drivers for lots of other things.

And by "a few" I meant more games and applications rather than drivers.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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scott wrote:
> 
> In Windows you just install a driver, why do you need to recompile the
> kernel?
> 

You don't need to, if you have module support on, you can compile only
the module (or if you have it already compiled, just load it).

-Aero

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> In Windows you just install a driver, why do you need to recompile the 
> kernel?

  It's the classical monolithic kernel vs. microkernel war. There are
advantages and disadvantages in both methods.

  For example, one disadvantage of Windows is that each new version of
Windows always breaks a bunch of old drivers, so when you upgrade Windows
you may find out that your old peripheral just doesn't work anymore.

  When the driver is integrated into the kernel, like in linux, it will
obviously always work even if the kernel is seriously updated (because
all the embedded drivers will be updated for the new kernel design as
well).

  OTOH linux does support kernel modules. For example, if you want to
install, let's say, the ATI binary driver, you don't need to recompile
the kernel.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Invisible wrote:
>> Yes, it is a mammoth.
>> 
>> grunka ~ # du -hs /var/tmp/portage/app-office/openoffice-3.0.0/work/ooo/
>> 2.6G    /var/tmp/portage/app-office/openoffice-3.0.0/work/ooo/
> 
> Please tell me that isn't 2.6 GB just for the source code...

Probably not. There is probably also some... icons?

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:36:13 -0500, Tom Austin wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:18:25 -0500, Tom Austin wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Try LFS, that'll really teach you a lot about linux, even if you
>>>>> don't get a bootable system.
>>>>>
>>>>> Jim
>>>> It's not too hard to get a bootable LFS system - and if it is hard and
>>>> you get it to boot, then you've learned a lot!
>>> Maybe now it is, I remember it used to be an incredible way to install
>>> because you had to do *everything*.  I've seen some newer releases that
>>> script some things, though.
>>>
>>> Jim
>>
>> Even with the scripting/automation it takes a bit of work to get it to
>> boot - you still have to get GRUB on the HD and the like.
>>
>> I usually run jhalfs to do all the legwork on the base system - up to,
>> but not including, compiling the kernel.  Up to that point it's mostly
>> following what the book tells you to do.  From the kernel on you have to
>> make some decisions and customize the steps for your particular setup.
>>
>> Just about any Linux stuff I do now is via LFS - I like knowing what I
>> am working with.
> 
> That is one of the best things about using Linux - and I mean *really* 
> using it.  You can dig in as deep as you want, and there's always 
> something new to learn.
> 
> Jim


You can say that again - I'm working on some embedded junk and the 
amount of stuff that's there is incredible.

After fiddling around a bit I found initrd - something that a lot of 
linux systems use.  Pretty cool, especially if you are trying to set up 
an embedded system.

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Warp wrote:
> scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
>> In Windows you just install a driver, why do you need to recompile the 
>> kernel?
> 
>   It's the classical monolithic kernel vs. microkernel war. There are
> advantages and disadvantages in both methods.

I don't think Windows is anywhere near what you'd call a "microkernel", 
altho it looks like MS is trying to push everything they can out of kernel 
space for their own protection.

Generally a "microkernel" runs as little as possible in kernel space, 
deferring all device drivers and such to user-space code, providing only 
things like scheduling and IPC.  (MS's Singularity, Amiga's original OS 
(except that was *all* kernel mode), Mach (about which I know almost 
nothing), etc.)

When a device driver can't crash the system any harder than user code can, 
it's a microkernel. :-)

>   When the driver is integrated into the kernel, like in linux, it will
> obviously always work even if the kernel is seriously updated (because
> all the embedded drivers will be updated for the new kernel design as
> well).

I don't think that obviously follows. If nobody updates the driver, it'll 
break (or more likely just not be present) in newer kernels. Having the 
sources available of course lets you fix it, if it's worthwhile to whoever 
is competent to fix it. I.e., it's not that the kernel is monolithic, but 
that the sources are available to do the fixing, that keeps drivers running 
under Linux. (Actually, I've seen many complaints that the kernel doesn't 
provide a stable platform for drivers, and it slows development to have to 
fix every driver with repeated kernel changes that break them.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The NFL should go international. I'd pay to
   see the Detroit Lions vs the Roman Catholics.

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On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:54:46 -0500, Tom Austin wrote:

> You can say that again - I'm working on some embedded junk and the
> amount of stuff that's there is incredible.
> 
> After fiddling around a bit I found initrd - something that a lot of
> linux systems use.  Pretty cool, especially if you are trying to set up
> an embedded system.

Yeah, it's quite handy.  I always thought it was kinda ironic, though, 
that you could load initrd in order to load a required disk driver.  
Kinda like on NetWare being able to start the system up but then needing 
to load a disk driver to read the disk once the NW kernel is up and 
running (but not exactly the same).

Jim

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On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:05:30 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:03:06 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>> 
>>> Yeah, well... why bother supporting a platform that hardly anybody
>>> uses? *Clearly* it's more profitable to support only the most popular
>>> platforms. ;-)
>>>
>>> That's why no Linux drivers, no Linux games, no Linux apps...
>>>
>>> (Yes, I realise there are a few of these now, but still not that many.
>>> Yet.)
>> 
>> This is not an accurate portrayal by any stretch.
>> 
>> "no linux drivers" - as someone pointed out, especially as regards
>> legacy hardware support, Linux kicks Windows' ass.  The time it becomes
>> a problem is when the manufacturer won't release specifications for the
>> hardware so drivers can be created.
>> 
>> "a few" is a poor characterization at best.
> 
> I meant there are no Linux drivers for high-end hardware like expensive
> graphics cards. Clearly there *are* Linux drivers for lots of other
> things.

No Linux drivers for what high-end expensive graphics cards, exactly?  
Most of those are now Nvidia or ATI IIRC, and there are Linux drivers 
that support the majority of those cards, even with 3D (though you often 
have to go to a proprietary kernel module for it).  I use both the ATI 
and Nvidia drivers, so it's not exactly accurate to say that those cards 
don't work well with Linux.

> And by "a few" I meant more games and applications rather than drivers.

There's quite a large selection of software.  It may not be WoW, but it's 
out there.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:54:46 -0500, Tom Austin wrote:
> 
>> You can say that again - I'm working on some embedded junk and the
>> amount of stuff that's there is incredible.
>>
>> After fiddling around a bit I found initrd - something that a lot of
>> linux systems use.  Pretty cool, especially if you are trying to set up
>> an embedded system.
> 
> Yeah, it's quite handy.  I always thought it was kinda ironic, though, 
> that you could load initrd in order to load a required disk driver.  
> Kinda like on NetWare being able to start the system up but then needing 
> to load a disk driver to read the disk once the NW kernel is up and 
> running (but not exactly the same).
> 
> Jim


It came in handy when I was still trying to figure out how to make it 
boot.  I could boot into a full environment without having to worry 
about how to access the CF card and mount it.  I could actually get it 
up and running, then play with things until I figured it out.

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On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:29:48 -0500, Tom Austin wrote:

> It came in handy when I was still trying to figure out how to make it
> boot.  I could boot into a full environment without having to worry
> about how to access the CF card and mount it.  I could actually get it
> up and running, then play with things until I figured it out.

Oh yeah, very much so.  The thing to remember is if you rebuild your 
kernel, you also need to rebuild your initrd with 'mkinitrd' or you'll 
find the system won't boot.

Jim

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