Re: The Core and the Kernel

[George Bonser <grep@oriole.sbay.org>]

On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Erik Walthinsen wrote:

> Back to the kernel for a little while: I don't think we should ship one 
> kernel and require that everyone use it.  I think we should describe a 
> *minimum* kernel, and a *minimum* set of extra patches (if we decide to do 
> so) or equivalent functionality if said patches are later incorporated.  
> That allows distributions to incorporate new kernels if they so choose.

Ok, I can buy that but I was hoping to avoid having to do that my simply
compiling as little as possible into the kernel itself and selecting
nearly everything else as modules. For example, we would enable
IP-Forwarding and firewalling and make the default policy not to forward
anything. The user can always use ipfwadm to change these defaults.

For more esoteric functions like IP-Tunneling or IPv6 support, heck, they
can just tell us what options they want, we build them a kernel and check
it through our version control mechanism and give them a COAS certified
kernel.

I *>REALLY<* want to avoid different kernels floating around the planet
and then people saying that SEUL is crap because their phones ring off the
hook from dissatisfied SEUL users.

Adding only the patches from Mama's Best Child gives us a lot of
functionality.  

There are fixes for rebooting, the A20 Lilo fix, Microsoft PPtP support,
and more.

George Bonser 
If NT is the answer, you didn't understand the question. (NOTE: Stolen sig)
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