On 9/16/07, PowerMan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 2007/9/16, PowerMan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > dear sir or madam, > > My first language is not English, please forgive me if I > > made some bad words or sentences. > > I am an embedded system engineer writing device drivers > > for arm-linux based system and I intend to learn OS kernel, but > > I find that the 2.6 linux kernel is too large and complex, so I intend to > > change to > > others. > > How about openbsd kernel? How many lines does it have? > > Or how many mega bytes does it have ? Is it less complex to learn? > > I arm only familiar with the arm architecture. > > Thanks. >
Welcome! First, I'm moving this to misc@ because arm@ is meant for discussing the zaurus port of OpenBSD, but your question is more general than that. The source code the the 4.1-RELEASE kernel (du -h /usr/src/sys) on my device comes to 87.6MB. The actual kernel then is 2.9MB. But knowing this or knowing the number of lines of code is not useful, because writing device drivers is tricky anywhere and most of your work will go into fighting with the hardware, not learning the software interfaces you have to conform to. That said, in general OpenBSD is *all* about simplicity and standardization and elegance, so you will have an easier time picking it up. May I ask, what device are you developing? Is your company making a router appliance? We are all very positively in favour of getting more OpenBSD routers in the world, because OpenBSD's secure-by-default security features make the internet a safer place to be. If you are working for a company, the BSD license is probably more favourable to you because it pushes less burden on your company (unlike the GPL, which would have you running around making sure you managed providing all the source code to anyone who wanted it, or else didn't copy any code from any GPL base when making your additions). -Nick
