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> The monolithic Linux kernel is just too big. What is it now, 20,000,000 lines? There's no hope of debugging that. It shows. That makes no sense. Most of that
by xorblurb 11y ago
> The monolithic Linux kernel is just too big. What is it now, 20,000,000 lines? There's no hope of debugging that. It shows.
That makes no sense. Most of that are drivers and platforms you won't ever use. And some forms of symbolic checkers exists for Linux (maybe not that advanced as for the Windows kernelspace, though, I don't know -- although even simple local heuristic checks are quite useful to check automatically in their ability to find real bugs -- sometimes even more than very complex solvers)
- kbart 11y ago"Most of that are drivers and platforms you won't ever use" That's the point -- developers can't test all possible hardware configurations and resulting driver mixes. Some of the most often used architectures and configurations usually work pretty well out of a box, but if you had something a little more exotic, prepare to get your hands dirty. Honestly, I don't see a solution to this problem, unless some "openness" is sacrificed by signing drivers (Microsoft style).
- eschaton 11y agoDrivers and support for platforms should be separate from the kernel and work via a stable and well-designed API & ABI. The lack of this has been Linux's single biggest design flaw from the beginning.