Comment We already have a quite nice UDI, thankyou. (Score 1) 130
I disagree about the Linux device interface being clean and well documented.
This comment from netdevice.h (2.2.4) illustrates a problem with the network device interface:-
/*
* The DEVICE structure.
* Actually, this whole structure is a big mistake. It mixes I/O
* data with strictly "high-level" data, and it has to know about
* almost every data structure used in the INET module.
*
* FIXME: cleanup struct device such that network protocol info
* moves out.
*/
I have read the Linux Device Drivers book from OReilly which is a good start but it does not have any details about PCMCIA, CardBus and other newer hardware. It has only sketchy descriptions of functions and their return values and relies a lot on code examples which are readily available in the kernel source anyway.
Another problem I have with the Linux kernel interface is that it changes a lot between kernel versions.
There is nothing wrong with binary modules. Ok so it goes against the spirit of things but some hardware companies just will not release source code (mine included). With a single driver interface they only have to have one source tree and can compile the driver for all UNIXes. This I see as a benefit for Linux.
Linux will always have drivers for well documented hardware. It will never have drivers for propriety hardware unless the hardware vendor writes one. With a common driver interface this is much more likely.
From Tom
This comment from netdevice.h (2.2.4) illustrates a problem with the network device interface:-
/*
* The DEVICE structure.
* Actually, this whole structure is a big mistake. It mixes I/O
* data with strictly "high-level" data, and it has to know about
* almost every data structure used in the INET module.
*
* FIXME: cleanup struct device such that network protocol info
* moves out.
*/
I have read the Linux Device Drivers book from OReilly which is a good start but it does not have any details about PCMCIA, CardBus and other newer hardware. It has only sketchy descriptions of functions and their return values and relies a lot on code examples which are readily available in the kernel source anyway.
Another problem I have with the Linux kernel interface is that it changes a lot between kernel versions.
There is nothing wrong with binary modules. Ok so it goes against the spirit of things but some hardware companies just will not release source code (mine included). With a single driver interface they only have to have one source tree and can compile the driver for all UNIXes. This I see as a benefit for Linux.
Linux will always have drivers for well documented hardware. It will never have drivers for propriety hardware unless the hardware vendor writes one. With a common driver interface this is much more likely.
From Tom
