On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 02:37:28PM +0200, guy keren wrote: > > - the capitalization of Kernel, Driver and Hardware is a bit > > jarring. Same thing for all other slides. > > i want the terms discussed in the lecture to Stand Out, in the > least-intrusive possible manner.
Then make them bold, or italic, or even _like this_. Capitalizing inappropriate Words Makes it Look silly. > if i get more ocmplaints about this, i'll > un-capitalize them next time. You can count my complaint as two, if you wish ;-) > > slide 2 > > > > - the kernel can be compiled entirely monolithic (no modules) > > ok, but this is not what people normally do (and there are features which, > as far as i know, can only be compiled as modules). In the core kernel? few if any. I would consider any such a feature a bug. Pointers? > i don't want to get > into that - this is not a lecture for people in the embedded systems area, > after all :) Compiling a monolithic kernel is the easiest thing to do when you compile on one machine and install on another - but it's your talk and your call. > > - explain why we have major and minors? > > hmmm... good idea. i did write what they stand for - just not why they > exist. however, this explanation matters more for kernel programmers, and > for users, so i'm not sure if it fits into this lecture. won't it be > better to leave this for your 'device drivers' lecture? :) Possibly. Your call. > > - mention that for the user, the distrinction between character and > > block devices is irrelevant? it's only the driver that cares > > (different kernel APIs) > > ok. thought this is not entirely correct. it reflects on the nature of > data tranasfer to/from the device. And the user cares because? > after all, passing data in blocks is > normally faster then passing it in serial (ofcourse, passing in blocks ot > a floppy is much much slower then passing serially to a firewire > device...). hmmm.. ok, i'll mention this, after all. For the user, /dev/kmem and /dev/sda are accessed exactly the same (cat, dd, tail, echo, whatever). It's only for the programmer that the distinction matters. > > slide 11 > > > > - 2.6 disables module unloading (by default?) > > i'm focusing on eisting kernels and existing distributions. Some distros already have 2.6 in their testing branches. Fedora "testing" already comes with a 2.6 kernel, AFAICR. Cheers, Muli -- Muli Ben-Yehuda http://www.mulix.org | http://mulix.livejournal.com/ "the nucleus of linux oscillates my world" - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
