Garrett D'Amore wrote: > Brian Nitz wrote: > >> In case anyone missed it, Linus Torvald's recently accepted patches >> which implement a stable userspace driver API into the Linux kernel: >> >> http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/07/21/linux-kernel-2623-to-have-stable-userspace-driver-api >> >> The stable driver API was designed to make life easier for driver >> developers. Will this also allow more cooperation between Linux driver >> developers and OpenSolaris/BSD/OSX? >> >> > > For certain kinds of drivers it might. Userspace is fine for > implementation of drivers that are not performance critical. > > But for devices where you really care about performance, such as NICs, > HBAs, and Video adapters, its hard to see how a userspace API will be > all that helpful. > > -- Garrett > I agree with Garrett about performance issues. But I would really like to see documentation for the API. Or is the source code the documentation??? As for allowing more cooperation between linux driver developers and OpenSolaris, assuming OpenSolaris implements the API's needed, sure, I think this should allow user space drivers written for Linux (or Opensolaris) to work with Opensolaris (or Linux).
What I really don't understand is how a user space driver is going to be easier for developers. You still have to deal with the hardware. The only advantages to user space drivers is that when they crash, the entire system probably doesn't crash, and, I guess, licensing issues. A userspace driver on linux does not have to be open source, but a kernel driver does? Let me know when I can do "man UIO" and get an overview of the API and man pages for the routines and data structures provided... Oh, and I know the documentation is there, but how do I look at docbook documents? max _______________________________________________ driver-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/driver-discuss
