[Linux-streams] LiS-2.16

[David Grothe]

Now on the ftp site.  This would ordinarily just be 2.15.4, consisting of little compatibility fixes except for the following highly significant change --

LiS no longer uses kernel system calls for getpmsg and putpmsg!

By overloading the read/write functions (special invalid value of the count parameter), LiS can now do getpmsg/putpmsg without hooking any Linux kernel system calls.  This will work for any version of the Linux kernel.

If your user level utilities are using the LiS shared object library, all you have to do is stop any running LiS, ensure that your user level programs terminate, install LiS-2.16, start LiS, and away you go.  In particular, you don't need to recompile anything in your drivers or user level programs.  The user space magic is all hidden in the LiS library routines for getpmsg and putpmsg.

You may notice that the archive for LiS-2.16 is smaller than the archive for 2.15.  This is because I have now removed from the distribution ALL of the kernel patches that have been tagging along with the distribution for years.

I finally just got tired of trying to push on the string, otherwise known as Linus and Marcelo, to get our syscall registration patch into the kernel.  I don't think these guys even open my e-mails.  Anyway, now we no longer need it.  Hooray!

-- Dave