Re: [Alsa-devel] 2.6.15-rc6: boot failure in saa7134-alsa.c

[Steve deRosier <derosier@pianodisc.com>]

Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> I thought more people knew about all this. Forcing (or even just 
> encouraging) people to use loadable modules is just horrible. I personally 
> run a kernel with no modules at all: it makes for a simpler bootup, and in 
> some situations (embedded) it has both security and size advantages.
> 

Linus,

I'm glad you said that and I have to second that opinion.  

On our current product, we compile everything we need into the kernel; we don't use Alsa as modules at all.  Our system is "embedded" as far as the user is concerned (though in many ways is just a general purpose computer running a custom stripped down distribution), and the monolithic kernel is critical to our boot speed (under 1 minute till all services are running) and filesystem size.  

In addition, it makes maintenance and porting much easier: Step 1 - reconfigure and recompile the kernel; Step 2 - put bzImage in our update tarball.  Easy.  I can't imagine what a pain it would be to have to "install" the modules in our filesystem image.

Thankfully, we've never had to deal with this sort of failure; all of our Alsa drivers and services have been well behaved (mostly).

- Steve