4 ms·
No, you generally should. Those Linus tirades about We Dont Break Userland are why. The only way application interact with the kernel is via SystemCalls, which
by valarauca1 9y ago
No, you generally should.
Those Linus tirades about We Dont Break Userland are why. The only way application interact with the kernel is via SystemCalls, which once they go public are -never- retracted, and never significantly change.
This is why the kernel has system calls like 'mlock' and 'mlock2', because the first call ended up being incorrect but YOU CANT TURN BACK NOW! Or a better example `stat`, `stat64`, and `statx`
- legulere 9y agoDrivers might break though.
- johnbellone 9y agoI hear what you are saying but I wouldn't say that stat vs stat64 is incorrect or wrong. It is due to 32 vs 64 bit fields inside of the stat struct. But yeah, it all comes down to maintaining ABI and not breaking userland.
- daurnimator 9y ago> The only way application interact with the kernel is via SystemCalls Well yes, but more than the syscall contracts are e.g. the layout of /proc and /sys. Which have broken userspace before.