[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 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??? The only documentation of the ABI I've found so far is the code and that appears to be GPL. I hope this doesn't end up being a blocker because a standard ABI would be good for the Linux community as well as the OpenSolaris community.
> 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? This post: http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/new-driver-interface-for-linux-kernel mentions the expected advantages of the new ABI: "The result is that closed source drivers can legally run on top of Linux, avoiding the heavy debated problem about linking non-GPL drivers into the Linux kernel. This would also make it easier to maintain drivers since the userspace API is normally stable which is in contrast to the usual kernel APIs which change quite often." From a Solaris standpoint, it sounds weird that Linux's kernel APIs change so often, but that appears to be the case. > > 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? yelp? Otherwise I think staroffice can import docbook. > > max > _______________________________________________ driver-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/driver-discuss
