Re: The end of embedded Linux?

[Matt Porter <porter@cox.net>]

On Sat, Oct 05, 2002 at 09:28:32PM -0700, David S. Miller wrote:
> Embedded applications tend to have issues which are entirely specific
> to that embedded project.  As such, those are things that do not
> belong in a general purpose OS.

Exactly, every application wants some of the finer details of
kernel operation tuned to their task.

> The common areas, like smaller hashtables or whatever, sure put a
> CONFIG_SMALL_KERNEL option in there and start submitting the
> one-liners here and there that do it.

Ahhh, but you just defeated the ideal of being able to customize
to task.  This is where the hallowed "the user is dumb" theory
bites us in the ass.  A single option to control all these sizing
issues reduces flexibility and that is what the embedded system
designer is looking for.  The ideal situation is if as we work
on all these areas where we can reduce size, we provide fine
grained options to tweak them (with a default desktop/server value
and a default "tiny" value).  You can have this CONFIG_TINY or
whatever, but then we should also provide the ability to tweak
the values exactly how we want in a specific application.  The
tweaking options can be buried under advanced kernel options
with the appropriate disclaimers about shooting yourself in
the foot.

Regards,
-- 
Matt Porter
porter@cox.net
This is Linux Country. On a quiet night, you can hear Windows reboot.