Jordan Gordeev wrote:
Matthew Dillon wrote:
We use vkernel's for development and debugging.
...
One interesting side-effect of having a vkernel so easily accessible
is that it opens up kernel development to normal programmers. More
DragonFly developers have been dipping their fingers into the kernel
code in the last 6 months then in all the time before then. That
alone
justifies the time spent doing it. Except for hardware device driver
development, the agonizing engineering cycle for kernel development
is completely gone now.
I have thought of the vkernel primarily as an aid to kernel development
(where performance is not a prime concern), not as a virtualisation
solution that will compete with Xen and VMWare. It's difficult to
compete with thousands of men-hours paid by corporate funding.
So far nobody has expressed interest in vkernels as a tool for kernel
development. And I got the general impression that I've proposed
something stupid and useless.
I can see this would be advantageous for lowering the barrier for kernel
development. The easier this is made, the better chance we have of
people having a go at fixing issues in some of the unmaintained bits and
pieces out there.
I recall trying to take the leap into kernel development some years back
to fix some issues in NWFS and SMBFS; even though I was using VMware for
testing, I still found the whole compile/install/reboot test cycle a bit
tedious. If it were a matter of just Ctrl-C'ing a kernel and then
waiting 5 seconds or a new one to boot up, while still having the rest
of the machine available "outside" to view/edit source at the same time,
it would be much simpler...
-- Antony
_______________________________________________
freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
