Re: kmsg --- get the boot messages
> I have thought a bit about the microkernel idea. When I read about
> microkernels (such as L4), it seemed the idea is to have drivers in
> userspace, not in kernelspace. However, there seem to be a lot of drivers
> in Mach (IDE, NIC, ...). Wouldn't it give a more modular and more robust
> design if these drivers were moved into translators like the file systems
> have been. Is there any disadvantages that I don't see?
My thought on this, which may be different from others, is that we remove
the ``software'' drivers from kernel space and move them to userspace.
For example: nfs, tcp/ip etc. Hardware drivers, on the other hand, remain
in the kernel as they are quite intimate with the hardware and this is, thus,
where they belong. In essence: a microkernel exports resources and a medium
by which to access and use them. What you are suggesting sounds a bit like an
exokernel where the devices themselves are also exported. (Versus a
monolithic kernel which is a Microkernel plus the ``software drivers'')
-Neal
--
Neal H Walfield
University of Massachusetts at Lowell
neal@walfield.org or neal@cs.uml.edu
Reply to: