[6068] in linux-scsi channel archive
Re: SCSI generic interface addition
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric Youngdale)
Thu Mar 11 04:52:13 1999
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 00:25:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Eric Youngdale <eric@andante.jic.com>
To: Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au>
Cc: Douglas Gilbert <dgilbert@interlog.com>,
Bernard Hatt <bmh@arkady.demon.co.uk>, linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <199903110417.PAA30642@vindaloo.atnf.CSIRO.AU>
On Thu, 11 Mar 1999, Richard Gooch wrote:
> Eric Youngdale writes:
> > My main objection to this was that it never seemed obvious
> > that this is something that really had to be in the kernel. There
> > has got to be a user-space solution to this issue that wouldn't
> > bloat the kernel.
>
> It's a pity so much FUD has been spread about devfs. I have raised
> points that show that there are certain things you simply can't do
> without devfs, and I have *NEVER* heard from the anti-devfs crowd how
> you could do *all* these things in user space.
It doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition. OK, you do
the things in the kernel that can't be done in user space, and do the rest
in user space. Just because you can't do the whole thing in user space
doesn't mean the whole thing absolutely must be in the kernel.
> Maybe it's because I'm down under and I'm too far away to come over
> and meet in person with the inner circle, so people don't feel I'm a
> real person with something to contribute.
No that's not it :-). There is nothing personal here, at least
from me.
My major point is that in general we want to keep the kernel as
small and lightweight as possible. People who want a heavyweight kernel
can run Windows-NT :-). Honestly - how much does memory usage increase
when you turn on devfs (both code and data)?
I believe that the NFS filesystem used to be handled by a
userspace process - it only got brought into the kernel for performance
reasons. There should be any number of creative ways of balancing the
requirements with no loss in functionality.
I think the main problem is that the thread just isn't sexy. It
is actually quite boring, most people don't care, and above all most
people don't want to be inconvenienced by whatever solution is adopted.
A gross generalization would be that the level of interest that any given
person has would be proportional to the number of devices they have on
their machines :-). Anyways, the fact that most people are indifferent
suggests to me that a lightweight solution is called for.
-Eric
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