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Update On Free Linux Driver Development

Posted by kdawson on Tue May 22, 2007 07:48 PM
from the i'll-have-one-with-sprinkles dept.
Slashback Programming Software IT Linux Technology
Remember the offer Greg Kroah-Hartman made earlier this year, to get Linux drivers written for free for any company that wanted them? Now an anonymous reader points us to an article up on linuxworld with an update to this program. Greg K-H, who leads the development of several kernel subsystems including USB and PCI, admits that the January offer was a bit of "marketing hype" — but says it has brought companies and developers together anyway. Twelve companies have said "yes please," one driver is already in the kernel, and five more are in the pipeline.
+ -
story

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[+] Linux: Linux Kernel Devs Offer Free Driver Development 348 comments
schwaang writes "Linux Kernel hacker Greg Kroah-Hartman, author of Linux Kernel in a Nutshell has posted an epic announcement on his blog. This could portend increased device compatibility for Linux users, higher-quality drivers, and fewer non-free binary blobs." From the announcement: "[T]he Linux kernel community is offering all companies free Linux driver development... All that is needed is some kind of specification that describes how your device works, or the email address of an engineer that is willing to answer questions every once in a while. If your company is worried about NDA issues surrounding your device's specifications, we have arranged a program... in order to properly assure that all needed NDA requirements are fulfilled. Now your developers will have more time to work on drivers for all of the other operating systems out there, and you can add 'supported on Linux' to your product's marketing material."
[+] Linux: Know Any Hardware Needing Better Linux Support? 518 comments
Dev Null writes "The Linux device driver project has hit something of a snag: they have lots of developers, but few devices to work on, so they're looking for input concerning which devices aren't well-supported in Linux. If any of you know of devices that could use better support, you can help out by listing them on the project's wiki."
[+] Linux: Linux Supports More Devices Than Any Other OS 272 comments
Linux Blog recommends an interview up on the O'Reilly site with Greg Kroah-Hartman, long-time Linux kernel hacker and the current Linux kernel maintainer for the USB driver core. He updates the free Linux driver program announced almost two years ago, which has really caught traction now with more than 300 developers volunteering. The interviewer begins by asking about Kroah-Hartman's claim that the Linux kernel now supports more devices than any other operating system ever has. "[One factor is] the ease of writing drivers; Linux drivers are at normally one-third smaller than Windows drivers or other operating system drivers. We have all the examples there, so it's trivial to write a new one if you have new hardware, usually because you can copy the code and go. We maintain them... forever, so the old ones don't disappear and we run on every single processor out there. I mean Linux is 80% of the world's top 500 super computers right now and we're also the number one embedded operating system today. We've got both sides of the market because it's — yeah it's pretty amazing. I don't know why, but we're doing something right."
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  • so did he write them for free or didn't he (Score:4, Insightful)

    by timmarhy (659436) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @07:51PM (#19230603)
    if he did, good for him, if he didn't he just like every other lieing software house out there.

  • List? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Constantine XVI (880691) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .todhsals+ythgie.hsart.> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @07:55PM (#19230635)
    A list of the twelve companies, please?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CasperIV (1013029)
      The list of primary hardware is relatively short when you consider what is making real penetration. If the 12 that asked for drivers are any of the larger companies in the market, it could be a big deal. It would be like if Broadcom were to come to their door and ask for real drivers that work... that right there would cover most newer laptops.

    • Re:List? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Zoxed (676559) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @02:28AM (#19232995) Homepage
      > A list of the twelve companies, please?

      Maybe this is covered by the NDA mentioned in the article :-)

      (Us, no not us: we are a god fearing capitalist company: we would never deal with those commy GPL peeps !)

      • Re:List? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rbanffy (584143) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @05:37AM (#19233935) Homepage
        It's easy to imagine a Microsoft exec saying "Nice driver they made for your hardware. But it would be a shame if the device didn't work under Windows anymore, wouldn't it?"

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by ajs318 (655362)
          I've often wondered about this myself -- could Microsoft actively prevent hardware manufacturers from releasing Linux drivers, just by refusing to certify Windows drivers for any hardware which comes with a Linux driver? And for that matter, have they been doing exactly that?

          Now that Windows is moving towards a more locked-down kernel, it's certainly technically feasible. It's probably Anticompetitive Behaviour, but that doesn't seem to be illegal in the USA anymore.

          • Re:List? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by dpilot (134227) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @08:31AM (#19235175) Homepage Journal
            Let's rephrase this...

            There has been enough fuss recently over "Vista-Certified" graphics drivers that didn't really work well with Vista. So all you need is a driver certification plan that pretty much can't possibly be met in every detail. Then go ahead and be relaxed about the certification - most of the time. When you come across a recalcitrant hardware vendor who provides drivers and/or documentation to Linux, it's time to insist on dotting all I's and crossing all T's.

            I've suggested a similar possibility in the old 55MpH days on the New York State Thruway. The official speed limit was 55MpH, but the average speed on the road was somewhere above 65MpH. Nearly everyone on the road was a lawbreaker. So at that point, you can use whatever other criteria you wish, and know that whoever you choose to pull over is breaking at least the speed limit. I have no suspicion or evidence that this "selective law enforcement" was actually happening, but never liked the mere possibility.

                • Re:List? (Score:4, Interesting)

                  by ajs318 (655362) <<sd_resp2> <at> <earthshod.co.uk>> on Wednesday May 23 2007, @10:17AM (#19237489)
                  ..... a problem which only arises because the existing law which already obliges manufacturers to disclose details to hardware owners is not being enforced. Write to your MP and ask for a new law, obliging hardware manufacturers to release, generally and gratis (or at any rate, for no more than the cost of copying and delivery) sufficient documentation so that independent programmers can write drivers for their hardware as a precondition before it is allowed onto the market. Independent expert review of the documentation would be a requirement alongside electrical safety / EMC certification.

  • The more free drivers, the better (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BluSteel (910709) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @07:55PM (#19230639)
    Marketing hype or not, I'm always happy to see more hardware supported by free drivers. Thanks, Greg.

  • patents, usability (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bcrowell (177657) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:05PM (#19230727) Homepage

    To me, the issue isn't so much drivers as patents and usability.

    My daughter's mp3 player didn't need any special drivers, because it's simply a standard keychain drive that happens to be able to play mp3's. However, she totally couldn't figure out how to use it on her ubuntu box. There was one problem after another. Ubuntu tried to do the right thing by popping up a gui app when she connected it, but then we couldn't get the gui app to do what we wanted to do. Part of the problem was that getting the mp3 codec to work was a pain, and that springs directly from the fact that mp3 is patented.

    My Brother HL-1440 laser printer is 100% supported in Linux. Brother hired the CUPS developers to write GPL-licensed drivers for all their printers. Joy! Unfortunately, I've run into one usability problem after another, all of which are basically problems with the usability of CUPS. I know I'm not the only person in the world who thinks CUPS is a pain, because I've seen other people criticize it for problems that are the same ones I'm experiencing. For instance, CUPS remembers too much of its state, and when it freaks out (e.g., printer spewing page after page of garbage), it's difficult to get CUPS back into a known-good state.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by QuantumG (50515)
      Perhaps you could fund an effort to get the patent invalidated.. or to buy a blanket license for linux.. or to get the patent owner to publically waive their right to sue anyone who distributes the codec or something..

      As for CUPS, maybe you could narrow down the exact problem and submit a bug report.. or put together an effort to fund someone to work on it.

      It's community software.

        • Re:patents, usability (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cduffy (652) <charles+slashdot@dyfis.net> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:46PM (#19231031)
          who wants to fuck around doing all that just to play some mp3's or print a letter?

          Someone does. If I'm bored, I do. And only one person has to fuck around, come up with a fix, submit it upstream and get it merged for everyone else to have their problem solved.

          It's very liberating to be able to fix your own problems instead of being at the mercy of a vendor who doesn't care.

          • Re:patents, usability (Score:4, Insightful)

            by enos (627034) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:41PM (#19232173)
            The thing is, things don't stay fixed. The same old problems constantly get revisited when someone looks at something semi-widely accepted and decides the code is too ugly and makes a rewrite that doesn't add anything from the user's point of view but forces them to relearn another system.

            It's one thing to go through several days of Googling and HOWTOs when setting up a new OS for the first time. It's another to do that every single time there's a new version out because they decided to change/rewrite so many things for just some trivial improvements.

            • "It's one thing to go through several days of Googling and HOWTOs when setting up a new OS for the first time."

              That was true a while ago, but Linux has made enormous progress since then. Ubuntu is super easy to set up, as easy as windows is most of the time. My wife wrote her doctoral thesis with virtually no assistance from me on her laptop, which runs Ubuntu.

                • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                  by Hal_Porter (817932)
                  Did you read the original comment

                  The same old problems constantly get revisited when someone looks at something semi-widely accepted and decides the code is too ugly and makes a rewrite that doesn't add anything from the user's point of view but forces them to relearn another system.

                  Nemosoft wrote a GPL driver which called out to a binary decompressor module. All was OK for a couple of years. Then Greg decided to rip out the callback. So suddenly the camera would only work in 160*120. Nemosoft then asked fo

            • Re:patents, usability (Score:5, Insightful)

              by grcumb (781340) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @10:05PM (#19231621) Homepage Journal

              it's rediculous to suggest such a practise will be accepted by the masses, thats my point.

              Your point draws exactly the opposite conclusion to that of the GP, who says:

              And only one person has to fuck around, come up with a fix, submit it upstream and get it merged for everyone else to have their problem solved.

              [emphasis mine]

              FOSS has worked this way from day 1. And it continues not only to work, but to prove itself superior in many ways to proprietary software approaches. It particularly excels at dealing with software quality. In FOSS, code quality is one of the core metrics[*] of the value of a project, whereas security, debugging and testing are dealt with as externalities (i.e. cost centres to be minimised) by many proprietary software makers. Drivers are a perfect place to make significant investments in FOSS, because then hardware vendors won't be stuck owning the entire problem, and innovative uses of their products will allow them to sell into niches that they never could have afforded before.

              ----
              [*] This is not to say that all FOSS software is quality software. Just like everything else in the world, 95% of it is crap. But the best FOSS software is very high quality indeed in terms of stability, resource usage and suitability to the task.
              ----

              Is Linux ready for the desktop? In managed environments, the answer is an emphatic yes. Ease of administration is many times greater under Linux than under the other offerings, and this means that in-house support and developers can focus on making things better rather than simply fighting fires. A number of organisations have discovered this, and more will do so in the months and years to come. I think time will show that document formats are not nearly the bugbear that people currently think them to be.

              Is Linux ready for the desktop at home? It's ready in potentio, but it will take time for vendors to work out how to package it on new machines. This will be a tough slog, not for technical reasons, but because Microsoft will do its very best to ensure that they have every incentive not to move from a Windows-only sales model. Having open source drivers provides one more bit of leverage against this inertia.

              • Re:patents, usability (Score:4, Interesting)

                by the_womble (580291) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @03:32AM (#19233305) Homepage Journal
                You could say the same for Windows:

                Windows is fine in an office environment, with IT there to fix things.

                However:

                1) Making Windows secure requires work and knowledge
                2) When things go wrong they can be hard to fix, and even when fixed they have a tendency to mysteriously go wrong again.
                3) Software is hard to find, install and update. There are no repositories of software that is safe (not malware), will install with a click, and will all be auto updated.

                In short: there is no OS that is really suitable for the home, and there are at least some ways in which Linux is better than the competition.

            • Re:patents, usability (Score:5, Insightful)

              by AJWM (19027) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @01:04AM (#19232595) Homepage
              until basic basic shit like this works without a problem, pushing the linux desktop is a wasted effort.

              This stuff nearly all works without a problem on my Linux desktop -- Suse, which is quite a nice distro regardless of what you think of their parent Novell. I've certainly had a hell of a lot fewer problems with plugging and playing stuff into a Linux box than with Windows (got driver disks for that? that support your particular version? and don't require you to download something from Microsoft's web site that ends up requiring you to register for Windows Genuine Advantage?). By that measure, Windows isn't ready for the desktop.

              • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                by timmarhy (659436)
                "stuff nearly all works"

                and what happens with the stuff that doesn't? can you request your money back or ask for technical support because your trying to use linux? checkmate, i win. the distro that can focus 100% on getting everyday useage right will win IMHO

                • Re:patents, usability (Score:4, Insightful)

                  by Russellkhan (570824) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @05:33AM (#19233909)
                  Yeah right. You can request your money back and ask for technical support all you want, but when exactly was the last time you actually received your money back or useful technical support from Microsoft?
                   
                  ...And do you have some delusion that Microsoft is focused 100% on getting everyday usage right? Then why is it that nearly every home user's Windows box that I see is constantly alerting about the security updates they haven't downloaded? And why do these users complain about the problems their computers give them instead of rejoicing with the ease and perfection of having a 100% everyday usage oriented OS?

                  As a simple example, a couple weeks ago, when I was visiting a realtor, she tried for 5 or 10 minutes to get her computer to bring up some MLS site, and was about to give up before I had to step in and get her connected to the office's wireless network. If Windows is such an ideal, usable operating system, why would the user have such a problem? Should she have called Microsoft, would they have walked her through getting the system on the network?

          • Re:patents, usability (Score:5, Interesting)

            by QuantumG (50515) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @09:34PM (#19231407) Homepage Journal
            I wasn't able to get a printer working under Windows XP 64 bit Edition for about 9 months. Only last week did I figure out how to force windows not to try to use the drivers from the print server (which is 32 bit XP) and to stop it from overwriting the 64 bit drivers with the 32 bit ones. I guarentee it is because the date-time stamps on the drivers were out of wack.. in 3 weeks time they'll probably magically stop working again.

    • Re:patents, usability (Score:4, Interesting)

      by arodland (127775) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:58PM (#19231145)
      Maybe I'm a bit simple but I don't see where CUPS even has "usability" to complain about. You install it (if, oddly, it isn't already), you tell it what and where your printer are (preferably using the KDE print config thing because it's amazingly simple, but the CUPS web jigger isn't bad either), and then from then on you print, and you forget that CUPS exists. Where's the hangup?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by bcrowell (177657)
        Maybe I'm a bit simple but I don't see where CUPS even has "usability" to complain about.[...] Where's the hangup?
        Problems I've had:
        1. the problem I described in my original post
        2. Upgrading ubuntu to a new version made cups stop working.
        3. The web interface says administrative functions are disabled. Because of that, I tried editing the config file to accomplish what I wanted. I also downloaded drivers directly from Brother, because that was what people on the ubuntu wiki suggested, but that actually didn'

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by ajs318 (655362)
          You shouldn't need to reboot just to make it detect the printer -- that's Windows thinking! Linux allows you to stop and restart misbehaving subsystems on an individual basis. Just

          # /etc/init.d/cups restart

          which will stop and restart CUPS, thereby forcing it to reread its configuration files and check for connected devices. (On Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives, it's cupsys not cups). If that doesn't work, try

          # modprobe printer

          and restart CUPS again. If that makes it work, then

          # [ -z `egrep ^[[

  • Mad Propz to van Doorn, Wu and Realtek (Score:4, Informative)

    by smitty_one_each (243267) * on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:07PM (#19230743) Homepage Journal
    This post brought to you by these two patches, against 2.6.22-rc2:
    http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireles s.general/2368 [gmane.org]
    http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireles s.general/2369 [gmane.org]
    The little WG11v2 [netgear.com] is a happy interface. Figure I'll need to stockpile a couple them critters.
    Now, how is it that I'm off the hook for managing any of that bad, bad firmware with this wee beastie?
    Ivo or Michael, though I'm nowhere near as cool as you dudes, I'll buy you a beverage if I see you in Ottawa next month.
    Dunno if GKH's driver program actually helped in this matter, but the general trend in hardware is positive, and I feel Realtek and Netgear deserve a free shill.
    Best,
    Chris

  • Criticism from the peanut gallery (Score:4, Funny)

    by tyler_larson (558763) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:29PM (#19230885) Homepage
    FTA:

    While one developer of a competing open source operating system has criticized the NDA approach...
    While no mention was made of the identity of the criticizing developer, 10:1 says that the "competing" operating system has the letters *BS* right there in the name.

      • Re:Criticism from the peanut gallery (Score:4, Informative)

        by QuantumG (50515) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @09:39PM (#19231455) Homepage Journal
        The purpose of the OEM getting the driver developer to sign an NDA is so they can just give the developer all their documentation, including stuff they would prefer their competitors never see. If they don't do this, they have to get someone to sit there and go through everything that is being released and censor it. You can't just expect a company to hand over their product secrets so you can write a driver without any assurance that you're not going to immediately sell their documentation to their competitors.

        A[n] NDA would be acceptable if it allows you to release fully commented code, i.e. sufficient for anyone to rewrite the driver for any OS or in any language.
        And that's exactly what the Software Freedom Law Centre will be requiring from OEMs.. poorly commented code doesn't live long in the kernel tree.

  • Can't copy GPL code? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Skapare (16644) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:32PM (#19230925) Homepage

    From TFA:

    While one developer of a competing open source operating system has criticized the NDA approach, developers are free under the GPL to use the Linux driver as the documentation for a new one as long as they don't copy the actual code. "The drivers are generally better written than the specs," Kroah-Hartman says.

    What? If the driver code is GPL, why can't I copy it?

    I suspect he means "copy" as in "make a derived work" that would have chunks of code taken from the original. But still, this is what GPL is about ... being able to take an existing source and make a derived work from it (that presumably would be better), and redistribute that derived work also under GPL (so someone else can derive from that later on ... and on ... and on).

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Wonko the Sane (25252) *

      What? If the driver code is GPL, why can't I copy it?
      Presumably, the people he is talking about want to release code in under a GPL-incompatible license. So they can't just copy the code.

    • Re:Can't copy GPL code? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by QuantumG (50515) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:49PM (#19231061) Homepage Journal
      Yes, you are absolutely right. This statement:

      While one developer of a competing open source operating system has criticized the NDA approach, developers are free under the GPL to use the Linux driver as the documentation for a new one as long as they don't copy the actual code.
      in attempt to be diplomatic has just added confusion. Allow me to clarify:

            one developer = Theo de Raadt.
            competing open source operating system = OpenBSD
            criticized = profanity

      So to rewrite the sentence so it actually make sense:

      While Theo de Raadt, has slung profanities at the NDA approach, he is free to write a driver for OpenBSD if he wants by using the Linux driver as documentation, but he best not copy any of the code from the Linux driver if he wants to avoid having to GPL it (which he almost certainly does).

      Which makes this comment:

      "The drivers are generally better written than the specs," Kroah-Hartman says.
      make a lot more sense. But what the hell, I'll translate that too:

      Theo, stop moaning about specs.. these companies are not going to give us blueprints to the damn hardware.. and whatever they do give us is going to be confidential. That's the reality. Deal with it. If you refuse to enter into a non-disclosure agreement with these companies then don't complain when the only documentation you have is a Linux kernel driver. The specs aint that great anyway.

      Or, at least, that's what I read.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by jZnat (793348)
        Only the American companies who confuse being hardware manufacturers with being software developers force these NDAs which result in drivers which are basically decompiled blobs. Projects like OpenBSD (and Linux even) have had better experience with Asian companies for example on getting documentation regarding hardware. Blueprints to the hardware are not needed to write a driver; just the op codes and messages you can send to the hardware to control it. For example, CPU architectures are quite documente

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kjella (173770)
        I guess it boils down to "How complete can a driver be documented and still comply with an NDA?". I mean, if the code is full of setting magic memory addresses to magic values then it's not really open source because you can't make a clue of it without NDA'd docs. On the other hand, if the bit registers and opcodes are all clearly laid out and documented in the source, isn't that exactly what's covered by the NDA? Software developers don't need any circuit layouts in the first place, they just need the inte

        • Re:Can't copy GPL code? (Score:4, Informative)

          by QuantumG (50515) <qg@biodome.org> on Wednesday May 23 2007, @12:06AM (#19232305) Homepage Journal
          The point of the NDA is so that the OEM can just hand over all their documentation without having to sit down and censor it all so they're not handing over anything that might give their competitors an advantage. They clear the developer to disclose as much information as needed to make a device driver that is well documented and works. They don't clear the developer to turn over the secret algorithms that might be used in the hardware or the production methods that may be of interest to the OEM's competitors.. but they might give that stuff to the developer because it was in the same filing cabinet.

          If the driver isn't well written, commented and documented, it will not be accepted into the tree. The NDAs are being drafted by the Software Freedom Law Centre.. you don't think they're going to get the best possible deal?

          Otherwise, what would you prefer? Would you prefer the OEM hired a developer to make a binary-only driver? Which they'll stop supporting as soon as it is economically justifiable? Would you prefer they just don't release any drivers for Linux? Don't say you would prefer if they just sat down and wrote perfect developer documentation cause there's no such thing.

          Software developers don't need any circuit layouts in the first place, they just need the interface.
          Sometimes you do.. sometimes "the interface" just isn't defined and you need to sit there with an osciloscope to figure out what the hell this piece of hardware is doing.. and knowing what line is what kinda helps.

        • Re:Can't copy GPL code? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Darby (84953) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:30PM (#19232125)
          didn't know Theo was the party involved.

          Heck, the OP might not "know" that (maybe he does) but I barely even noticed that I read the summary more or less how he translated it ;-)

          That's very relevant to why, while I use Linux for my web, file and database servers, when it comes to my firewalls it's OpenBSD. *Every* *fucking* *time*.

          Yes, Theo can be abrasive. Yes, he's an absolutist on a lot of topics. Absolutely yes, that's the type of person I'll trust for the security of my network and my business. I'll install a binary blob driver for my desktop so I can run games, but security is not a game.

          Given that the primary focus of his distribution is security, he's 100% absolutely *right* to refuse to allow binaries which he and his team can not audit to the extent that they do every other part of their releases.

          So, they might be behind on support for some hardware, but when it's done, your confidence in its security is rightfully higher.

          So, it's not just that he doesn't want it GPL. He doesn't trust people whose goal isn't security to write his code for him. He sure as shit isn't going to put his reputation and the security of the people who trust his OS in large part because of that reputation in the hands of some third party. So, maybe a lot of people think he has a reputation as a dick, but let's see them go up against him purely in a security context. They've had issues, but vulnerability for vulnerability he wins against damn near anything else. In the context of anything a normal person could get ahold of, I don't think anything else is even in the same league as OpenBSD. Not Linux, sure as hell not Windows.

          Security and useability are in an inverse relationship. Some people are willing to adjust their balance on that scale and that's fine. A lot of good things can come out of that. It is absolutely a great thing that there is somebody out there who refuses to shift it away from security too.

  • Not NVIDIA (Score:3, Informative)

    by elronxenu (117773) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @03:51AM (#19233397) Homepage
    Unfortunately the openness doesn't extend to NVIDIA, who refuse to release specifications or other assistance to developers working on the ULi M920x chipset, which is used for receiving Digital Television.

    NVIDIA bought ULi and then cancelled development of the M920x, but you can (still) buy DVB receivers which use this chipset.

    Requests for assistance or interface specifications have been refused by NVIDIA.

    • Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by QuantumG (50515) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:38PM (#19230965) Homepage Journal
      1. They're loadable modules.
      2. You should maybe leave the kernel development to the kernel developers.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by pembo13 (770295)
              Then you need to learn how to ask questions better.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by jZnat (793348)
              I believe it's because you mentioned that they are "Two things that a reliable kernel should avoid?" That makes you sound like you know better, so that's the troll-like bit. Also, everyone on /. is assumed to know everything about everything when posting unless said otherwise...

                • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                  by jZnat (793348)
                  If you had said "I think" or "I thought", you wouldn't have sounded like a "knows-better-than-you" kind of person. Linguistics and all that.

            • Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Darby (84953) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @10:44PM (#19231863)
              Seriously, I don't know crap about kernel development, but:
              1) I knew the answer to your question since the first time I even tried to compile a kernel. By "compile a kernel", I mean run make menuconfig, flip through idiot proof menus and say yes when it tells me to.
              2) You proposed a bunch of dumb ideas implying that the people who actually do know how to develop one are idiots.
              3) asking questions in a dick way and then appending a question mark in no way indicates humility, or even politeness.

              Seriously, asking dumb questions is fine, but *you* need to actively treat them as dumb questions if you want them to be treated as legitimate questions in a problem space in which you're ignorant. Don't treat the people you want answers from as dumb preemptively.

    • Modules (Score:4, Informative)

      by Tharkban (877186) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @08:43PM (#19231005) Homepage Journal
      Modules. Pretty much all drivers are modules and not compiled directly into the kernel. They don't increase the kernel size unless you load them. Although they do increase the kernel source size (in their own files generally) so it is taking a little longer to compile all kernel modules, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for things just working.

          • Try researching before making outlandish statements
            Welcome to Slashdot. If there weren't any outlandish statements, there'd only be a couple of stories a day on the front page.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Chirs (87576)
      If you compile your own kernel you can choose to either leave out the functionality entirely, build it as a runtime-loadable module, or build it into the kernel.

      So the only permanent size increase is in the kernel source code. Assuming that the driver is part of a class of similar devices, there is basically no complexity increase as the driver will bind into the standard API for that class of devices.

      So generally there is very little downside to adding new drivers to the tree.

    • Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by QuantumG (50515) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @09:01PM (#19231171) Homepage Journal
      Uhhh.. no he wasn't. He wasn't lying at all.

      Why would you feel the need to post a "translation" when you have no idea what you are talking about?

      The fact that people are willing to write Open Source software without charging a fee for their services is hardly a new concept, but Greg did the smart thing of treating it like it is and, in doing so, attracted the attention of people who thought that it wasn't the case.

      This was one of the biggest problems with the Free Software movement before Open Source came along.. no-one talked about the benefits that businesses could get from the community. For a while, no-one talked about anything else, and then it went quiet again. RMS will tell you that we need to talk about freedom. I happen to agree, but we also need to talk about the practical advantages of open software development too.

      • Re:Driver Groups (Score:5, Insightful)

        by pandrijeczko (588093) on Wednesday May 23 2007, @02:49AM (#19233097)
        If your webcam isn't supported under Linux, stop whining, spend some of the money you saved by not buying Windows, and buy a supported webcam.

        Your attitude sucks, my friend.

        Sure, we more experienced Linux users know that we have to choose hardware very carefully sometimes in order to ensure that it's supported by Linux. But the poster has asked a perfectly reasonable question and you say that he's whining - this is hardly a good way of encouraging people to try Linux out, is it?

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