On Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 03:31:11PM -0700, Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > So the question becomes: How strongly do we believe that "if the
> > kernel can the kernel must"? How much of hardwaremain.c should be
> > moved into the kernel?
>
> that's a question for the list. I would like to hear some other comments.
In a general sense, whenever I've disagreed with the "if the kernel
can..." guideline, it's been because I believe more strongly in the
benefits of economy of scale.
That means that I love using embedded x86 linux because I get the benefit
of millions of person-hours and billions of machine-hours using the same
stuff as me. When questions arise such as "should linuxbios configure the
PCI bus, even if the kernel can handle it?" I say yes, not because it's
technically better but because that's how all those millions of desktop
PCs are behaving. So I prefer that linuxbios simulate as closely as
possible the state a PC would be in as the kernel is launched under
factory-BIOS conditions.
Obviously there's exceptions- 16-bit real mode is obviously stupid and
useless. Most BIOS conventions are stupid and deserve to be tossed. But
when linuxbios boots a machine that's set up fundamentally different than
most PCs, I get scared because we're setting out on a path that is
different from the rest of the linux world. On this path bugs can only
be solved using the twenty or a hundred linuxbios project brains instead
of the thousands or millions of linux-using brains.
Just my two cents...
Eric
