Re: Honest does not pay here ...

Pavel Machek
2003-01-17T19:54:49Z

Hi!

> > In very semplicistic words:
> > In 2.5/2.6 kernels, non GPL modules have a big
> > penalty, because they cannot create their own queue, but have to use a default
> > one.
>
> I may be showing my ignorance here (won't be the first time) but this makes
> me wonder if Linux could provide a way to do "user level drivers". I.e.,
> drivers which ran in kernel mode but in the context of a process and had
> to talk to the real kernel via pipes or whatever. It's a fair amount of
> plumbing but could have the advantage of being a more stable interface
> for the drivers.

You don't need kernel mode to touch hw.

> If you think about it, drivers are more or less open/close/read/write/ioctl.
> They need kernel privileges to do their thing but don't need (and shouldn't
> have) access to all the guts of the kernel.
>
> Can any well traveled driver people see this working or is it nuts?

Well, nbd was originally created just for that.

Pavel

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