On Sun, Mar 13, 2005 at 04:53:36PM -0500, Bart Silverstrim wrote: > > On Mar 13, 2005, at 4:34 PM, Loren M. Lang wrote: > > >On Sun, Mar 13, 2005 at 01:24:42PM -0500, Bart Silverstrim wrote: > >> > >>On Mar 12, 2005, at 2:45 PM, Chris wrote: > >> > >>>Aperez wrote: > >>>>Hello everybdody > >>>> > >>>>I read an interview of Linus Torvald made by Linux Magazine. In that > >>>>interview Linus mentioned the following: > >>>> > >>>>"On the other hand, no, Linux does not have that stupid notion of > >>>>having totally separate kernel development for different issues. If > >>>>you want a secure BSD, you get OpenBSD; if you want a usable BSD, > >>>>you > >>>>get FreeBSD; and if you want BSD on other architectures, you get > >>>>NetBSD. That___s just idiotic, to have different teams worry about > >>>>different things." > >>> > >>>Here's irony posed as a question: > >>> > >>>... and how many distros of Linux are there? > >> > >>I think the difference is that Linus is working on the Linux kernel. > >>The distros, numerous as they are, all run the same kernel. Those > >>separate distros package the other applications and userland apps and > >>default configs. The kernel itself isn't under separate forks, > >>whereas > >>from what I understand the kernels for FBSD/NetBSD/OBSD are very > >>similar, share a lot of crossed-over code, but are not identical and > >>have separate "management" teams behind them. > > > >While each distros kernel is probably less different than a NetBSD vs. > >FreeBSD kernel, there still each different and a lot more of them. I > >had to download and install a very specific kernel from redhat to use > >on > >my debian system so I could use my wireless card. > > > >Also, some features can very wildly like IPSEC, some distros patch in > >FreeSWAN's stack, others the KAME stack. > > Some vendors may be directly patching certain features, for the most > part you shouldn't have to download a specific kernel for a feature to > work in Linux unless you wanted it pre-packaged. You should be able to > update it by downloading the latest features, running the config to > enable/disable what features you want compiled into the kernel (or as > modules), then compile it.
Well, the vendor for my wireless card provided a binary-only driver with a small open-source wrapper. The wrapper was just a piece of garbage though and compiling it for a different kernel didn't work. The driver was designed for redhat's 2.4.18-3 kernel. That kernel had a couple of issues and redhat issued an update, 2.4.18-10. The wireless card driver wouldn't even work on the -10 kernel, it would crash my system everytime, I had to use the -3 kernel to use it at all. This is one of the problems/features of the linux kernel, it doesn't work with binary device drivers like the *BSD kernel do. > > When everything else breaks because the kernel version changed and > something specific is linked to something that depends on something > from the previous kernel's config, then you get to delve into some real > fun. But still, there is one source kernel, and unless the vendors did > something proprietary (which I don't believe they're supposed to be > allowed to do), you can compile your own kernel with your own set of > enabled and disabled features from the Linux kernel source tree whether > you're running Red Hat or Debian; it may break if that particular > distro is depending on certain features as you have it configured and > you fubar the new kernel's config, but it is still a matter of tweaking > that configuration to get it working again. > > I can't download the sources for NetBSD's kernel, compile it on my > FreeBSD box, and have it work no matter how much tweaking I do to the > configuration...if I'm wrong, please someone correct me. > > I *think* (and I'm not following the story closely) what Linus was > saying is that it's stupid to have so many people working in parallel > on such similar cousins...NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD. They share > code, they share info, but optimize for certain goals and have a lot of > redundancy. Linux's kernel is Linux's kernel, modified by individuals > but still one big bulky source tree to work from. Is one way less > intelligent than others? I don't know. I never studied it :-) All I > know is that in general, for most end users, it doesn't matter...if > they stick with a particular distro and their sources and packages, > then things tend to work. Linux has fragmented so much that it's > difficult to get a package aimed at distro A and have it work on distro > B despite them both being Linux. For the BSD's, it's pretty much > always worked as if it's in the port tree, you have the package in > question work. Otherwise, work from sources. And instructions to get > a package working on *BSD pretty much always work whereas for Linux you > may run Debian but find instructions for what you're trying to do > written for an audience running Red Hat, so you need to translate > things as you go along. -- I sense much NT in you. NT leads to Bluescreen. Bluescreen leads to downtime. Downtime leads to suffering. NT is the path to the darkside. Powerful Unix is. Public Key: ftp://ftp.tallye.com/pub/lorenl_pubkey.asc Fingerprint: CEE1 AAE2 F66C 59B5 34CA C415 6D35 E847 0118 A3D2
pgpLjku682AHu.pgp
Description: PGP signature