On Wed, 18 May 2011 03:15:50 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <[email protected]> wrote:
But the bottom line seems to be: Linux is in a bigger DLL hell than
windows
has ever been, and I don't think *anyone* actually knows how to do it.
This is one of the side effects of having open source software. Since
everything on linux is expected to be open source, it's expected that you
simply recompile everything for your system. In this respect, Windows has
Linux beat hands down. A hardware company that builds a driver needs only
to support one compiled driver that just keeps working no matter how many
times XP is updated.
I think reading some of the issues with MacOSX breaking dmd builds by
going through a *point* revision, it sounds like MacOSX is just as bad.
At my previous company, we integrated software from pure software
companies into their required OSes and hardware, and did all the
OS/hardware dirty work for them (i.e. we turned pure software into an
appliance). One of the *worst* problems was when the customer wanted some
version of Linux, and let's say they had a specific kernel build. Because
of the expectation from the Linux kernel that you just recompile all your
drivers, any RAID card (a very common requirement) which had proprietary
driver code would require us to contact the hardware vendor, and have them
rebuild the RAID driver on their specific kernel (for a not-so-nominal fee
of course, with very little support).
I fantasized about building my own linux kernel that had zero
configuration options, and would never break driver compatibility between
point revisions. Such a kernel would allow hardware companies to release
one driver and have it work for any system that used their hardware and
that kernel. I can't imagine hardware companies love supporting umpteen
driver versions multiplied by umpteen linux vendors (generally they only
pick one vendor and support that). Of course, that dream would be
impossible to realize without tremendous effort, which I don't have.
Ah well.
-Steve
