On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Wolfgang Solfrank wrote:

: > : Is /dev/ksyms the best place for this?  Why not /kern/ksyns?
: > 
: > Probably so that you can get at ksyms without having to have kernfs.  :)
: 
: I knew that someone was going to say this.  But can anyone tell me what's
: so bad about kernfs?  Especially if we are now going to bloat the kernel
: with a linker anyway...

Well, I never said that kernfs was Bad; I just said that there are people
who are likely to want symbol table access without adding kernfs.

:  And while being here, what's good
: about having the linker in the kernel?

Using LKMs without having /usr available; building LKMs as
position-independent code ("shared objects" in the kernel).  Two uses I can
think of...

What a /dev/ksyms woud be useful for, of course, is the ability to find
kernel symbols when the kernel file is not available, and to find kernel
symbols located inside LKMs.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Bus. todd_vierling@xn.xerox.com)