Comment: Linus is right (Score 4, Informative) 365
Having spent all week analyzing (and debugging) the mentor graphics usb driver (musb) for the omap processor, I can categorically say that there are some seriously weak drivers in linux.
I cannot see how introducing something like C++ will improve the situation. Changing the langauge doesn't get rid of evolutionary code, nor does it fix people's thinking. I can't fault the guys who evolved the musb driver into a working piece of code - the crux of the problems originate with the original Mentor documentation: Unavailable, poorly coverage of errata, poor detail on what the hardware block is doing.
What is required for good drivers are:
I cannot see how introducing something like C++ will improve the situation. Changing the langauge doesn't get rid of evolutionary code, nor does it fix people's thinking. I can't fault the guys who evolved the musb driver into a working piece of code - the crux of the problems originate with the original Mentor documentation: Unavailable, poorly coverage of errata, poor detail on what the hardware block is doing.
What is required for good drivers are:
- *Careful programming
- *Open driver review
- *Open test suites
- -For example, the ability to run a verification test to verify that the omap (beagle board) can perform reliable control channel transfers over usb when acting as a peripheral would have saved me a lot of pain.
- -How about: "Does your RS232 interface work" - hook it to an open test rig, and verify that it can run reliably at 115200 baud for a week. You'd be surprised, but the omap will most likely fail this.
If hardware vendors wish to compete for embedded linux systems, then they should promote their performance on how well they do on the open test suite with their linux drivers - not just on their arm core's performance.
-bms
