Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

Bruce Harada
2002-01-15T02:23:17Z

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:39:25 -0500
Rob Landley <landley@trommello.org> wrote:

> On Monday 14 January 2002 06:02 pm, Bruce Harada wrote:
> > On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 17:34:23 -0500
> >
> > Aunt Tillie just DOESN'T CARE, OK? She can talk to her vendor if she gets
> > worried about whether her kernel supports the Flangelistic2000
SuperDoodad.
>
> I think what Eric's REALLY going for is converting some of the Minesweeper
> Certified Solitaire Experts down at the corner store (and yes there are still
> corner computer stores in mini-malls around the country) over to The Penguin.

Er... if Eric were REALLY going for that, why didn't he use it as an example?
That might actually be a possible real-world situation, whereas all the ones
I've seen so far are so far removed from reality as to be pointless.

Let me put it this way: Requiring Aunt Tillie to configure/compile her kernel
is a *failure* on the part of the vendor. It doesn't matter whether Aunt
Tillie is really Aunt Tillie or your local MSCE. They should not have to do it.

As for adding a driver that's not included in the vendor's kernel, do you
mean that having a Microsoft-trained drone rebuild a kernel specifically for a
certain PC (thus requiring further compilation for any hardware added later)
and including a no-doubt beta driver and then giving it to Aunt Tillie without
any testing beyond the MCSE's PC is a *good* idea?

(I've trimmed the cc line a bit, BTW.)