On Wed, Mar 21, 2007 at 08:54:24PM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Wed, Mar 21, 2007 at 09:01:35PM +0200, Constantine Kousoulos wrote: > > > Your observation is correct. All of Mach's drivers currently reside > > inside the kernel. AFAIK, Mach's IPC is too slow to support user > > space drivers. > > Phew. Don't they have that in Minix? I think I remember starting the > Realtek network driver in user space. What a delighting experience. > > > > However, processors have gotten *a lot* faster the last ten years > > since Mach's creation, so i have a few reservations if the current IPC > > system is completely unusable with user space drivers. Once again, the > > senior members of this project can shed more light on the subject. > > The only reason for me that would make me start helping with GNU/Hurd > would be device drivers (and most of the other stuff) in user space, > since Linux crashes too often when faulty hardware or drivers are at > play... > > I'd appreciate more input on this, and why I would want a microkernel > architecture that isn't really one (IMHO)...
Mach is old, and hasn't been actively maintained for a long time. I guess writing a glue code for in kernel device drivers was just the solution that required the least work. I don't know how much work it would require to design an interface and write a glue code that would allow unmodified Linux or BSD drivers to run in user space, but I guess it's not that simple. Concerning L4, there is a l4-hurd mailing list, but the Hurd on L4 project is stalled because of design issues. L4 is actually a second generation microkernel, while Mach is a first generation, which can explain why you feel Mach isn't really a microkernel. -- Richard Braun
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