Migrating Device Drivers to the 2.6 Kernel

An anonymous reader writes "While it's all well and good to find out how to upgrade your kernel to 2.6, as this recent /. story pointed out, developers, especially device driver developers, might be more interested in the kernel's new device driver model. Over at Linux Devices, there's a new article on Migrating device drivers to Linux kernel 2.6. The short version: That little ole Hello, World! kernel module is a heckuva lot more complicated than it used to be."

Comments

This may be impolitic, but...

[InterruptDescriptorT]

One of the good things about Microsoft Windows is that is you've written a driver for Windows 98's to the WDM standard, it's still pretty much supported under Windows 2000 and Windows XP. That is to say that there isn't a lot of retrofitting that needs to be done to get a legacy driver working under the latest Microsoft OS.

Linux, on the other hand, seems to think it's OK to make developers retrofit their code when they don't like the ad hoc design that the OS contributors came up with. This coupled with issues (questions?) of compatibility with things like the GNU C runtime libraries really must make it frustrating to do any serious development on Linux. (Feel free to rebut--it's been a long time since I've been active in Linux development.)

Still, I think it's a testament to Microsoft that an .EXE can run under Windows 95, 98, 2K and XP and most of the time, it's just going to work. You can't say the same about versions of Linux.

You people are all hypocrites

[ZuperDee]

Yeah, call me a troll if you wish, but I really do think it is amazing how so many people here are willing to beg and plead on their knees that the Linux kernel developers freeze the driver API so that closed, proprietary-source hardware companies can write closed-source drivers for their favorite wardware device.

So then, let's take it a step further: would you people also be willing to put up with a totally closed-source kernel, and a closed-source C compiler, if the hardware manufacturers demanded it? In that case, why not just use Windows?

Seriously, I fail to understand why you people want to use Linux, only to complain about the lack of hardware support, since the Linux world requires everything to be open source.

Tell me, would you people also be willing to jump off a bridge to get driver support if the hardware manufacturers demanded it?

I do believe Linux (or GNU Linux, if you prefer), as a platform (not just the kernel), would not be as open as it is today if the developers didn't insist on such openness. If you people don't care how open things are, then why bother with Linux?

Re:You people are all hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

Unstable driver API hurts everyone, not only hardware manufacturers, and helps nobody.

If a HW company considers Linux support, they will have to decide in terms of money earned vs money spent. If supporting Linux means supporting every kernel version out there + distribution-specific patches, their costs will be high. High costs - no Linux driver :):)

I know they could release it as GPL, but that is _their_ decisions. OSS & Free Software is not about forcing others to open-source their work (even if their decision sucks ;) but to give people a choice. And that is what it all boils down to. If there were a stable API, those _evil_ HW manufacturers could simply release their drivers as binary only and _we'd_ have a choice of tainting our kernel or not. The _good_ ones will work with Linux developers regardless of stable API or no stable API

Right now both ATI and NVIDIA use ugly hacks to get past the lack of stable API. And we still use binary-only code for the drivers, it is just not in the kernel. I understand that Linus is very .. protective ... of his work, teh kernel, and doesnat much care about the user-space, but to those using ATI or NVIDIA drivers and being happy about it: would you rather compile a generic piece of ugly hacks and add a binary-only driver or simply install a binary driver. The latter is a whole lot easier and the end result is _exactly_ the same in terms of stability, security and freedom.

I'd also like to mention that the lack of stable driver API also hurts OSS developers and users. Not every patch (read driver) gets accepted into the mainstream kernel from where it goes to distros. And not everyone knows how to patch, compile and install. And you know what - they shouldn't need to, if Linux is a serious desktop player. They _should_ have a _choice_ to do all that if they wanted to...

Enough of ranting, off to bed :)

Re:Linux 2.6...

[DAldredge]

You know that is a shock to all those that run high end OpenGL apps on linux, apps like 3D modelers and highend CAD/CAM apps.

And face it, x86/AMD64 are the main platforms that Linux is used on.

Re:Why the license macro?

[orthogonal]

Some kernel developers (me included) don't like the idea of making functions in the kernel available for use by closed source drivers. This way the module loader prevents certain modules from using certain functions.

I feel like getting flamed and losing some karma. It's the day after Valentine's anyway, so it's not like I was expecting to be happy anyway.

Why prevent closed source drivers from using certain kernel functions?

Sure, I realize it makes a political point to closed source developers: "your code will remain second-class code until you show us the source", but like a SPEWS blacklist, it does that by annoying innocent third parties in the hopes of getting the third parties to join you in your complaints.

In this case the innocent third parties are the people running linux. So linux users get punished by linux developers for "consorting" with the "enemy's" closed source drivers. Ironically, at the same time, linux is promoted as the OS that allows the user full control over his computer.

If you really believe in the user's right to run his PC as he wishes, let him decide whether or not to buy closed-source hardware.

If you don't, then say so: "I'm giving you the benefit of my code, and I'm not charging for it, but it's not really free, as I expect you to adopt my ideology to use it, and to let me dictate to some degree how you use your PC." That's a valid and defensible stance -- but it's a different stance than is usually professed.

And admit that it's a barrier to wider-spread adoption of linux, and factor it in when asked why more people are not using linux.