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The 2000 Beanies

Category: Most Improved Kernel Module 35

Posted by CmdrTaco from the nominate-this dept.
So often the kernel gets all the credit. We decided to be a little pickier and have people vote for the most improved module in the Linux kernel. A driver you really like? Support for that really cool piece of hardware? Or maybe you just really think that bob.o has just some of the prettiest hacks your eyes have seen in it. Regardless, vote away.
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Category:Most Improved Kernel Module More

Category:Most Improved Kernel Module

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  • My nomination(s): (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    While nowhere near as glitzy as things like Alsa, USB, etc, I nominate any of the IP Masquerading modules! While masquerading itself isn't a module, it is the saviour of DSL/Cable users around the planet, giving Internet to a household at a cheap price. Some of the specific modules are truly sweet though.

    quake_masq: a savior for LAN parties, letting everyone get inside the network get in on the same internet server. makes for badass teamplay :-)

    icq_masq: I found this gem on Freshmeat. now, everything in icq (chats, file transfers, etc) work from behind the masq. and flawlessly too.

    portfw/autofw: let the old P133 take the beats as the masq box, forwarding the real server requests to the powerhouses on the other side of the firewall. a cheap load balancer and security measure.

    Ok, I'm done.
  • Yeah, I vote for these modules too. It's always nice to know that your server is running within spec.
    And it always annoyed me that Windows could do this but Linux couldn't. :)
  • LIDS struck me as a cool way to screw up your system.. :)

    no serious, i think what this chinese guy is doing is very interesting. he is basically sealing a box equipped with this patch so script kiddies won't mess with it.

    among its features (in the words of its author): mem/kmem lock, ptrace syscall lock, Allow some specified processes to access /dev/mem, Modules protection, Mounted filesystem protection, IP Firewall rules protection, Hide sensitive processes, Protects the Append-Only files, Protects MBR of the Boot Device from rewriting. It can prevent the LILO executes.

    and so on...

    get it at lids [webmotion.net]
  • This is a great one, but it will be close against usb.
  • The linux joystick modules have improved greatly over the last couple of years. Also, maybe if the author got some cash in pocket he would be persuaded to work on some of the new and cool joysticks that have been coming out.
  • Donald Becker's DEC Tulip driver - this driver is used by many, many, linux geeks. It's fast, reliable, sports features most drivers do not, and supports most any card for the digital chipset(s) in it's family. It also does pnp very nicely (read: autoprobe works).
  • The LNE100-TX version 2.0? Yeah.. there's actually three different LNE100-TX models. Been there... done that. :)
  • The emu10k1 driver went from buggy and binary-only for all of 2 kernel versions to supporting the full range of SBLive cards in just a few weeks. It definitely gets my nomination.
  • OK so it's not really _in_ the kernel yet (SIGN THE PETITION! :) ) but I love it and find it really useful - and I think its going to have to be integrated into the real kernel sometime soon if linux is really going to be successful in an enterprise environment. This implementation of LVM [msede.com] is really good imho. Check it out!
  • First of all, the emu10k1 driver. Though the framework was made by a creative employee, most of the fixes and linuxifying (new verb?) was done by alan cox and about 30 other unsung hero's.

    Second driver that got me to wet my self is the GeForce support for XFree. (http://www.s2.org/~jpaana/nv), which i think is now included in the XFree pre 4.0 snapshots (since 3.8.17).

    -- Chris Chabot
    "I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
  • Although it would be difficult to say who exactly would be responsible for this driver, it's pretty clear that the release of the emu10k1 (Sound Blaster Live!) driver has caused more of a splash this year than any other driver.

    Now, whether it has been the most useful, is up to debate. It certainly is nice having even stereo-mirrored 4-speaker sound in Linux - but I'd have to say that the driver that has saved me the most time and frustration is the framebuffer device driver - besides being able to have the high-res console, being able to support all the really crummy video cards they have at work here in X (when they don't have an X driver written for it) has been incredibly useful!

    MinaInerz
    Mina Inerz [N. Reinking]
  • where to start? Donald Becker is the god of drivers! His name is on soooooo many it is mind boggling! Give the guy some compensation!
  • I agree 100%. I wouldn't be able to write this post if it weren't for Dave Hind's great work. I would like to thank Dave and other folks working in Open Source for their high quality work and their dedication. One of the perceptions people have about Open Source is that it equates to less polished work. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's nice to see Slashdot put these awards in place because we really need to start recognizing and promoting the people who make it easy for us to do our thing.

  • OK, I'm one of the developers, but so what? :')


    Lm_sensors [lm-sensors.nu] is pretty cool and can be used to see how hot your CPU's are, how fast your CPU fans are spinning, what voltages your supplies are providing, drive that neat I2C display, etc., etc. Alan Cox thinks it's worthy of kernel integration, scheduling it for 2.5.x when it gets started. We've come a long way over the last year or so.... :')




    --Phil

  • Yes, we've built Lm_sensors as an extension to Simon Vogl's second-generation I2C stack (adapting it for SMBus and even some ISA devices), so I whole-heartedly agree w/ the props for I2C. I'd also like to mention that the new source-code home for I2C is w/ us, so update your bookmarks. :') And, btw, I think the bttv was just recently ported during the process of integrating the new I2C into the latest 2.3.x kernels.



    In the area of patting the backs of key developers, I'd like to give a shout out to the following:

    Simon Vogl for his amazing I2C work

    Frodo Looijaard for being the lead programmer and project leader

    Alex Larsson who originally started this project from which we began from (almost 2 years ago?)

    Kyösti Mälkki for some amazing coding

    Mark D. Studebaker for some great additions and important drivers

    Alan, Gerd, Will, etc., etc.

    Many, many testers, helpers, and midnight coders which have really made things work and the project interesting.




    --Phil

  • Looks like the fbcom-* modules are what you're looking for. You may want to have a look at /usr/src/linux/include/linux/fb.h.
    -jeffy
  • My vote will have to go for the emu10k1 (SB Live!) Driver, it has made a lot of progress, and when I download the new snapshot everydayi just gets better and better.
  • How about extending this category to include the best driver or module for any OS, such as FreeBSD?
  • I don't really have a favorite module out of these (since I use a mix of DEC Tulip and various 3com cards in my boxen), but I'd have to say that the tulip code is blahdi excellent.
  • The original PCMCIA by David Hinds has continually improved since support was introduced for Linux (and FreeBSD). Bu this was nominated elsewhere.

    As a second nominee, BTTV support specifically, or more generally Video for Linux - things like radio and tuners and G200 overlays are now working a lot better. So I can watch both TV and DVD now.
  • Working like crazy on USB, and also providing awesome joystick [www.suse.cz] drivers that support all major game consoles joysticks (except dreamcast)... and the new input layer [www.suse.cz] that will clean up the whole input layer once and for all.
  • Not only has this allowed Linux to be ported to other platforms more easily, but it has allowed me to get X working on a number of Intel machines with poorly supported video cards.

    Does anyone know the module name? Is it technically a "kernel module"?

  • Urk! (Score:2)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    This is almost as hard as saying who the best advocate is. There are just -so many- good, improved modules.

    If it counts as a module, I'd have to say my #1 favourite is Reiserfs. It's the most elegent filing system I've seen, it's efficient on the disk and it's fast!

    Coming joint second, IMHO, are FreeS/WAN and the International Patch, which offer phenominal security at the kernel level.

    The silliest kernel patch, though, I think should go do PPS. A -nanosecond- clock? If you can find a source stable enough outside of a few research labs or the military, I'm not sure the hardware Linux will run on is stable enough to be able to make use of the accuracy.

  • Not just for tulip, but for all his plethora of ethernet drivers.

    But tulip is the one I use, not my "almost a tulip chip" linksys card. I wrote to Becker (instead of testing out beta drivers like I should have..) when my card didn't work with the in-kernel driver at the time - he helpfully pointed me to a newer version that works flawlessly.
  • Lots of stability, lots of cards, extremely open, limited MIDI yet, but designed and being implemented.

    ALSA has definately come a long way...

  • Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
    http://www.alsa-project.org

    Lots of stability, lots of cards, extremely open, limited MIDI yet, but designed and being implemented.

    ALSA has definately come a long way...

  • While the sensors are cool, and I think Phil et. al. have done a great job, I'd probably put the I2C modules you guys did right up there as well - it seems to have emerged as the de facto I2C stack. The bttv driver is porting over to it....
    ----
  • No other kernel project deserves a reward than the ALSA project. They have brought advanced sound to a millions of Linux users.

    Am truly gradeful for the boys and girls who code for the project. Enjoy, and thank you for giving a voice to my linux box.
    --
  • Thank parport for the improved Zip drive functionality. Note that you can now use a Zip drive and a printer now without juggling your modules.

    This is a big improvement over the old functionality and deserves credit.

    Besides, I wasn't going to nominate something I don't actually use...

  • How's about USB support? (Score:3)

    by Jerky McNaughty ( 1391 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @03:54AM (#1412383)
    The USB support seems to really be coming along these days. You can see it in action (to some extent) in the 2.3.x series. It sounds like it's going to definitely be included in 2.4.

  • Journaled File Systems (Score:3)

    by JamesKPolk ( 13313 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @10:27PM (#1412384) Homepage
    OK, technically Journaled File Systems technically aren't one particular module, and we'll be lucky if we even see a journaled ReiserFS make it into the early 2.4 tree, but...

    1) Those of us (probably the majority) who shut down our Linux boxes daily, suffer an occasional power failure, or even reboot to Windows sometimes, sit through countless centuries of fscking delays. A JFS eliminates this, with untold possiblities for the world, since that much mroe time will be available for productive work.

    2) SuSE includes ReiserFS in its kernels, no? Linux is GPL'd after all; the rules don't say that the module has to be in a Linus Torvalds or Alan Cox maintained tree!

    3) On the server front, the more Linux has to offer for high availability, and protection from data loss, the better. Being able to claim 3 journaled file systems (XFS, ext3, and ReiserFS), Linux advocates have that much more firepower.

  • The PCMCIA driver modules. (Score:4)

    by Hanno ( 11981 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @12:34PM (#1412385) Homepage
    I think this is the only logical vote.

    I am a long-time Linux user with different laptops and so I experienced first hand how much work David Hinds and a number of helpers have put into them.


    Just look at it:

    - From its early beginnings, the modules were a more and more *complete* set of hot-swap drivers long before similar hardware (usb) existed.

    - David & Co. have created drivers for most every PCMCIA card on the market (I know what I talk about, I have used a number of very strange cards, a PCMCIA-connected floppy drive for the Toshiba Libretto among them). Of course, there will always be cards missing. But still, the sheer number of drivers in the PCMCIA modules are incredible.

    - They have done so even for those PCMCIA cards without proper developer documentation.

    - David's work was not included with the kernel for a very long time becaus of design decisions by the core kernel developers. Nevertheless, he has kept on supporting this *external* set of sources for many years and made it compatible to most kernel versions at any given time (the same source distribution was compatible with 2.0.x, 2.2.x and 2.3.x for some time).

    - Also, the source's Makefile is compatible with every distribution I know of - out of the box. (The PCMCIA modules require some modified init-scripts).


    So yes, the PCMCIA modules are an incredible effort that have come a long way over a long time and are very solid piece of software. I possibly wouldn't use Linux without them.


    ------------------

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