From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263942AbTLJUrK (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:47:10 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263945AbTLJUrK (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:47:10 -0500 Received: from mx2.it.wmich.edu ([141.218.1.94]:42954 "EHLO mx2.it.wmich.edu") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263942AbTLJUrD (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:47:03 -0500 Message-ID: <3FD78645.9090300@wmich.edu> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:47:01 -0500 From: Ed Sweetman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031107 Debian/1.5-3 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Witukind CC: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?M=E5ns_Rullg=E5rd?= , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: udev sysfs docs Re: State of devfs in 2.6? References: <200312081536.26022.andrew@walrond.org> <20031208154256.GV19856@holomorphy.com> <3FD4CC7B.8050107@nishanet.com> <20031208233755.GC31370@kroah.com> <20031209061728.28bfaf0f.witukind@nsbm.kicks-ass.org> <20031209075619.GA1698@kroah.com> <1070960433.869.77.camel@nomade> <20031209090815.GA2681@kroah.com> <20031210202354.7a3c429a.witukind@nsbm.kicks-ass.org> <20031210212209.7fce7dae.witukind@nsbm.kicks-ass.org> In-Reply-To: <20031210212209.7fce7dae.witukind@nsbm.kicks-ass.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Witukind wrote: > On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:33:24 +0100 > mru@kth.se (Måns Rullgård) wrote: > > >>Witukind writes: >> >> >>>On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 10:39:32 +0100 mru@kth.se (Måns Rullgård) wrote: >>> >>> >>>>>Is there a specific case for which people want this feature? >>>>>Offhand it seems like a slightly odd thing to ask for... >>>> >>>>I believe the original motivation for module autoloading was to >>> >>>save> memory by unloading modules when their devices were unused. >>>Loading> them automatically on demand made for less trouble for >>>users, who> didn't have to run modprobe manually to use the sound >>>card, or> whatever. This could still be a good thing in embedded >>>systems.> >>> the biggest advantage from modules is the ability to enable/disable devices with different initialization configurations without rebooting, including the use of devices that aren't present during boot or may be added to a system that cant be put down to reboot. Embedded systems usually do not change, that's just part of being embedded, modules dont really make sense there unless things like filesystems and non-device modules never get used at the same time and memory is limited such that 100KB actually matters. >>>I don't see why it wouldn't be a good thing for regular systems >>>also. Saving memory is usually a good idea. True, but how about we start being good memory users where it counts the most, like gui's/userspace land and then worry about the sub 1MB usage that kernels exist in. >>The biggest modules are about 100k. Saving 100k of 1 GB doesn't >>really seem worth any effort. > > > I don't have 1 Gb of memory. On my laptop with 16 mb RAM saving 100k is worth > the effort. Then why do you use a sylpheed, which is gtk instead of something in a terminal that uses much less memory (doesn't require xfree86, which you're probably also using instead of tinyX) and toolkits, pixmaps etc. Obviously, 100k is not worth _your_ effort. I'm not saying module use is more memory efficient than not or vice versa, but if memory usage in the 100K range is going to be the only argument for autoloading/unloading of modules then it's really _not_ worth the effort unless someone can give that kind of support without trying. Your fight for memory efficiency should start where the inefficiency is the largest, and work it's way down, not the other way around.