[ answers Steve's mail too ]
Richard Adams wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> When in dos how does one mount an ext2 partition.??
>
There exist tools for DOS and Win, albeit in alpha state when I last
heard about them.
<admittedly snipped too much, but due to laziness not re-inserting :->
> > machine is using far less resources than yours. And only has to chew up
> > those extra resources if and when I need them.
>
> As indeed i explained this in a earlier post to Marc, however he just did
> not see my point.
>
Give me benchmarks, please. Please prove to me that I will actually feel
a difference or measure it with setiathome or how long KDE needs to log
me in. Or that booting will be faster. I don't think that on my machine
I will see _any_ difference, so I avoid the filling with
yet-another-config-file and the thing I explain below.
<snip>
>
> I explained to Marc about how much memory is used by the kernel at bootime,
> also about the "speed" thing which started this thread, the smaler the
> kernel the faster it is and the less memory it uses, he just could not see
> what i meant, i can understand why i included an example.
>
What I don't understand and believe is that the kernel operates faster
if it has more free RAM. The apps do if they hit the swap later, but
then I have almost always 80M of filebuffers that are used by the kernel
prior to crying for swap.
<snip>
> > Could you please explain how on earth this could be a problem. I,
> > too, run more than one kernel version (2.2.10 & 2.3.12). The modules are
> > kept in separate directories so there is no problem.
> > /lib/modules/2.2.10/
> > /lib/modules/2.3.12/
> > Or am I not understanding what you are trying to say?
>
> I have had upto 15 different kernels here, not one module has ever gotten in
> my way, i agree with Steve, you will need to explain what you mean here.
>
I meant that I use not only different kernel versions in the sense of
differing version numbers, but also different kernels with the same
version number. When I added md support intomy 2.2.9 kernel I had 2.2.9
(plain) 2.2.9-fb (with framebuffer), 2.2.9-md (with fb+md). I guess
there are ways to cope with this situation and still use modules, but
maybe I'm too accustomed to setting up university workstations, which
use all of their functionality all the time, so that I don't think
'module' when someone says 'ISDN'.
Adding new hardware and making the kernel take notice of that, like I
did the last months with my machine, is not something where modules
would be of much use, I reckon. That's because I _think_ that the basic
support for e.g. networking has to be compiled in or at least as a
module. So I had the option of either tailor the kernel to my needs or
compile everything I might want to use in future as modules. I chose the
first.
Maybe I'm a little unexperienced with using modules as for some years
now I have done scientific workstations (i.e. kernel with SCSI and
(ether-)networking support - done) where you cannot use modules and only
now begin to enhance _my_ system in the 'multimedia' direction. And as
one stays with what he knows, I'm very reluctant to using modules. I
simply don't see the advantages _for my box_ and unless I'm forced to
use mod's I'll aviod them...
> >
> > MM> > When you are home alone at night, do you have all the lights on, the TV in
> > MM> > the living room on, TV in the bedroom on? And when you go to bed do you
> > MM> > leave all the lights etc on or do you turn things on and off as the need
> > MM> > arises? Why should your kernel be any different? If it will save on
> > MM> > resources and RAM, why not use modules?
> > MM> >
> > MM> That's not a comparison that makes sense.
> > MM> If I switch off all the lights and entertainmaent electronics, I reduce
> > MM> my power comsumption to around 10 to 20%. If I did everything I could as
> > MM> modules and compared the unloaded with the fully (module-)loaded kernel,
> > MM> I would gain perhaps 20% difference. That's not worth writing a new init
> > MM> script for... and it becomes even less so if you consider the maximum
> > MM> amount of power/RAM you could theoretically use. Also saving power saves
> > MM> me money, saving 100K of RAM saves me not a single swapped page :-)
> >
> > You've missed the point. Look at the analogy again. But this
> > time try not to complicate it with useless numbers and percentages. The
> > moral to the story is: "Why should I make my computer work harder and use
> > up valuable resources just in case I might want to use something today?"
>
> I wonder what uptime would say for system load averages when he is working
> with his machine.
>
You would notice no difference, trust me...
But for the curious:
# uptime
11:45pm up 4 days, 4:50, 3 users, load average: 1.24, 1.05, 1.02
This is with an instance of rc5des running together with essentially
KDE, netscape and isdnmon.
Notice the uptime stems from the fact that I have ISDN for 5 days now
:-)
> >
> > MM> Bottomline: You have your philosophy, that many others share with you
> > MM> (mostly "end users" for want of a better term), I have mine that also
> > MM> many people share (mostly "kernel hackers" FWOABT).
> >
<snip>
> would think that a self proclamed "kernel hacker" (after all said and done
> thats the way Marc describes himself) would know about things like that.
>
No, I'm not a kernel hacker (although I have posted one patch). I just
remembered reading that 'the big ones' are not using modules. Now I
can't remember where and frankly I don't know anymore why I wrote the
texts in parantheses. Maybe too late in the night...
As I said before in my previous mail, no-one of us will change the other
one's mind, so let's stop wasting bandwidth. If you want to reply, feel
free but please do so only after removing the list's Cc. We're heavily
OT now.
Cheers,
Marc
--
Marc Mutz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://marc.mutz.com/
University of Bielefeld, Dep. of Mathematics / Dep. of Physics
PGP-keyID's: 0xd46ce9ab (RSA), 0x7ae55b9e (DSS/DH)
