Re: Please read if you use x86 -current

["matthew sporleder" <msporleder%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc.
<woods%planix.ca@localhost> wrote:
>
> On 12-Nov-2008, at 9:57 AM, Andrew Doran wrote:
>>
>> The x86 GENERIC kernels have become bloated. The plan is to start moving
>> much functionality out of the main binary and into kernel modules (new
>> style
>> modules, not LKMs).
>
> I hope you mean "NetBSD GENERIC kernels" and that you don't have blinders on
> to ignore all the other platforms!  x86 perhaps suffers more due to the
> abundance of x86-specific hardware & drivers, but this is a far more
> "generic" problem.  If we are to have this kind of capability and tool then
> I would welcome seeing it ported to all NetBSD ports uniformly.  :-)
>
>
>> The first component to be moved is POSIX semaphores. The GENERIC kernel no
>> longer has the P1003_1B_SEMAPHORE option. If POSIX semaphores are used,
>> the
>> ksem kernel module will be automatically loaded. The same will happen for
>> compat code and other facilities as time goes by.
>
> I too am concerned about bloat -- it would be ideal to be able to unload or
> not ever load drivers and other facilities for which there will never be a
> runtime use for and to do so without having to compile a complete kernel
> every time from scratch.
>
> I am concerned however about the runtime loading of such modules -- I would
> much prefer to have some kind of option for this to be locked into a
> procedure that can only ever work at boot time.
>
> Perhaps a compromise would be some security level / kauth flag which would
> disable further loading of modules in a reliable, sure and secure way.
>
> On the other hand of course there are interesting possibilities here for
> runtime unloading and reloading of modules in order to achieve availability
> and reliability standards well beyond anything ever possible with
> traditional systems.
>
>
>>  To build and install modules:
>>
>>        cd src/sys/modules
>>        make
>>        make install
>>
>> I am open to ideas about how this can be automated either via the kernel
>> makefile, or build.sh.
>
> This is one of the not-so-nice parts of how it all works on FreeBSD too.
>  The more files that need to be updated and installed the more chance for
> mistakes and bad interactions.
>
>> Note that if you are configuring your own kernels you can do what you
>> wish.
>> Specifically, you don't need to use modules. Also note that modules do not
>> need to match basic kernel compile options like
>> DIAGNOSTIC/DEBUG/LOCKDEBUG.
>> If those options cause problems with modules it is a bug so please file a
>> PR.
>


I thought I was having deja vu. :)
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2003/12/18/0004.html