4 ms·

It's 2016 and we're still doing drivers in kernel mode :( Andrew Tanenbaum's arguments for microkernels still ring just as true today as they always did.

tobias3 10y ago
For USB devices it would be theoretically possible: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/drivers/wdf/overview-of-the-umdf https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/drivers/wd... A kindle is just a USB drive, though. And that driver is probably kernel mode for performance reasons.
cm3 10y ago
Given the new crash-proof video driver architecture since Windows 8 and the variety of USB devices and their associated complexity, I had assumed the USB stack would be equally crash-proof by now. Isn't that the case? I recall they did a major overhaul like that for audio drivers too.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  It's generally pretty "easy" to overhaul the graphics driver layer and get everyone to rewrite their drivers - the graphics card vendors work closely with Microsoft in the first place, and there's only a very small handful of them. USB, not so much.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    USB is also a very ambiguous protocol. Observe the amount of problems device suspend on Linux was until someone noticed that the one minute mentioned in the spec was a recommendation rather than a rule.
pjmlp 10y ago
Windows is probably the desktop OS with better support for user mode drivers, still many developers still make them kernel mode, even if not needed. As for micro-kernels, at least they have won in the embedded and real time space, with the likes of QNX, L4 and a few others.
jschwartzi 10y ago
I have had QNX drivers crash in such a way as to bring down the entire microkernel before. Address space separation doesn't completely resolve the problem, but it does make it much rarer.
nly 10y ago
Portable USB driver development options exist. http://libusb.info/ http://libusb.info/
wslh 10y ago
It's 2016 and Microsoft doesn't know how to test an operating system used by the majority. BTW, beyond the exciting development stuff that they are releasing there are a lot of issues inside the company. For example, they made it almost impossible to renew my company MSDN Premium account after talking with support guys for weeks.
userbinator 10y ago
IMHO microkernels - and isolation in general - are just workarounds for sub-par processes elsewhere that leads to barely-working code. Fix the root cause, not the symptoms.
digi_owl 10y ago
Funny thing is that NT is micro-kernel (to some degree at least), but Microsoft keep moving things in and out of kernel space with each release as they are weighing performance vs stability.

tobias3 10y ago

For USB devices it would be theoretically possible: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/drivers/wdf/overview-of-the-umdf https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/drivers/wd... A kindle is just a USB drive, though. And that driver is probably kernel mode for performance reasons.

cm3 10y ago

Given the new crash-proof video driver architecture since Windows 8 and the variety of USB devices and their associated complexity, I had assumed the USB stack would be equally crash-proof by now. Isn't that the case? I recall they did a major overhaul like that for audio drivers too.

vertex-four 10y ago
It's generally pretty "easy" to overhaul the graphics driver layer and get everyone to rewrite their drivers - the graphics card vendors work closely with Microsoft in the first place, and there's only a very small handful of them. USB, not so much.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  USB is also a very ambiguous protocol. Observe the amount of problems device suspend on Linux was until someone noticed that the one minute mentioned in the spec was a recommendation rather than a rule.

pjmlp 10y ago

Windows is probably the desktop OS with better support for user mode drivers, still many developers still make them kernel mode, even if not needed. As for micro-kernels, at least they have won in the embedded and real time space, with the likes of QNX, L4 and a few others.

jschwartzi 10y ago

I have had QNX drivers crash in such a way as to bring down the entire microkernel before. Address space separation doesn't completely resolve the problem, but it does make it much rarer.

nly 10y ago

Portable USB driver development options exist. http://libusb.info/ http://libusb.info/

wslh 10y ago

It's 2016 and Microsoft doesn't know how to test an operating system used by the majority. BTW, beyond the exciting development stuff that they are releasing there are a lot of issues inside the company. For example, they made it almost impossible to renew my company MSDN Premium account after talking with support guys for weeks.

userbinator 10y ago

IMHO microkernels - and isolation in general - are just workarounds for sub-par processes elsewhere that leads to barely-working code. Fix the root cause, not the symptoms.

digi_owl 10y ago

Funny thing is that NT is micro-kernel (to some degree at least), but Microsoft keep moving things in and out of kernel space with each release as they are weighing performance vs stability.