<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> It is just my opinion, but I feel that the lack of stable binary interface between kernels is a HUGE limitation on the viability of linux for widespread uptake. MOST users are completely incapable of recompiling modules for their specific kernel, thus it is necessary for everything to be precompiled. That leaves either a standardized binary interface to kernels of different builds, or a standardized kernel for each generation of a product as the only options. Just look at what corporate america and pc support companies do, they provide identical hardware, identical software, and then they support it. It makes compatibility testing possible, and comprehensive support of not so knowledgeable users a possibility. Having near infinite variations in configuration is fun and good for a person like myself who customizes everything, but if I am working on a friends machine, or on a lab of machines, I want standardization. Even the number of kernels available in Ubuntu starts becoming rediculous 386/686/686smp/k7/k7smp. Ubuntu does a good job of providing everything for all flavors, but if you start playing with more exotic hardware you find more and more things that are compiled for only the 386 kernel with no facilities for recompiling. This doesnt help me when running k7smp! Just my 2 cents. Matt Colin Watson wrote: <blockquote cite="mid20050930002743.GG14384@riva.ucam.org" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 04:53:02PM -0400, Matt Patterson wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Ubuntu ships with a lot of precompiled kernel modules, this requires a standardized kernel. This is one of the MAJOR improvements that ubuntu introduces to linux. Why do you think it is so easy to have standardized drivers in windows? Because the kernel NEVER changes. Thus by running the default kernel you are guaranteed to have the same thing that the developer and tester had. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> With respect, I think you're rewriting history a fair bit here. The reason Ubuntu CDs only include (and therefore only install) the 386 kernel is because of CD space limitations, not because of standardisation. The distinction among kernel optimisation settings rarely makes a difference to third-party modules, but even if it does there are plenty of tools in Ubuntu to make it easy to rebuild them for any of the optimised kernels. Since the Linux kernel deliberately does not export a stable binary interface, any third party module vendor must either provide precompiled binaries for a single release of a single distribution (which is an ultimately doomed approach, although vendors have been doing it for years with Red Hat; Ubuntu is by no means the first distribution to ship precompiled kernel packages!), or else provide the user with the means to rebuild the module for their current kernel. For obvious reasons, we much prefer vendors to do the latter, although they certainly might want to certify particular releases. </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">I am very happy about the standardized kernel and was disappointed to find that the hoary install dvd seems to be smart enough to install different kernels. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> The install CD has the same smartness, but doesn't have any material to work with because we decided we'd rather do other things with the available CD space than include lots of kernel images on it. I really don't think the optimised kernel packages cause a real standardisation problem. Cheers, </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>