From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Mar 7 17:43: 6 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6263737B401 for ; Fri, 7 Mar 2003 17:43:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from pa-plum1b-166.pit.adelphia.net (pa-plum1b-13.pit.adelphia.net [24.53.161.13]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E20343F85 for ; Fri, 7 Mar 2003 17:43:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from potentialtech.com (working [172.16.0.95]) by pa-plum1b-166.pit.adelphia.net (8.12.7/8.12.7) with ESMTP id h281gtTb003190; Fri, 7 Mar 2003 20:43:01 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Message-ID: <3E694AAB.9020108@potentialtech.com> Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 20:43:07 -0500 From: Bill Moran User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20030301 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Matthias Buelow Cc: Damien Tougas , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A question about kernel modules References: <200303071155.43785.damien@tougas.net> <3E68FBD4.2090401@potentialtech.com> <20030308001111.GB7867@moghedien.mukappabeta.net> In-Reply-To: <20030308001111.GB7867@moghedien.mukappabeta.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Matthias Buelow wrote: > Bill Moran writes: > >>First would be historical. BSD is historically a monolithic kernel. The >>more >>you rely on modules, the more the kernel acts like a microkernel. I suspect > > The kernel will still not be a microkernel.. it doesn't really matter > at what time the stuff is linked; a microkernel generally uses message > passing between mostly independent server processes, which is not what > the BSD kernel does. I made two seperate comments here, and you stretched them into something I didn't mean. Comment 1: KLDs are more microkernlish than compiled-in modules Comment 2: Looking into my crystal ball, I think that one day the FreeBSD kernel will be a microkernel. This doesn't mean that I think making things into KLDs makes the kernel a microkernel. I understand that there are other characteristics of microkernels that are seperate from the simple idea of loadable kernel modules. All I'm saying is that KLDs are a move away from the traditional compiled-in monolithic kernel. That move is in the direction of microkernel. It's a long ways away yet, but it's pointing that direction. Whether comment #2 ever becomes reality or not remains to be seen. Besides, Windows claims to be a microkernel and it doesn't act like one at all ... hell, any change you make requires a reboot. And they get away with calling it a microkernel. -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message