In message <43F9D537.8000305@tadpole.com>, "Garrett D'Amore" writes:

>Highly technical users might have fun compiling the kernel, but as *one*
>such user, I can tell you that having worked with Solaris' LKM interface
>it is *very* nice.  It even has a binary DDI, so I can ship *one* binary
>module that works across a Solaris versions going back 5 years or more. 
>And I do just that *EVEN FOR MY OPEN SOURCE DRIVERS*.  Why?  Because my
>users want to pull down a binary and install it, they don't (usually)
>want to recompile the source, even though they can do that from the same
>location as the binaries.
>

I'm with you.  I've been hacking kernels (or the equivalent) since 1967.
I'd much rather have LKMs.  If I were king, I'd decree that *all* 
device drivers must be loadable, and *all* device drivers should be 
dynamically loaded except for those that are necessary to boot the 
system and read in new device drivers.

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb