Re:Minix 3.3.0
by jude- on Tuesday September 16, 2014 @02:59PM
(#8326335)
Out of curiosity, why shouldn't some level of device I/O be handled by the kernel? If the alternative is putting all device I/O responsibility in userspace processes, then wouldn't the kernel still need to do basic driver-related tasks like programming the IOMMU and DMA engine? Even if that's outsource-able to userspace, then wouldn't the kernel still need to run some sort of security-preserving outsourcing logic (e.g. only letting a trusted process access a hardware device)?
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Re:Minix 3.3.0
by justincormack on Tuesday September 16, 2014 @03:31PM
(#8326587)
Sure, minimal amount needed for safety should be in the kernel. That can also be somewhat federated if you like. Much of a kernel is not hardware access though, it is things like filesystems and sockets way on top of hardware.
Re:Minix 3.3.0
by imanaccount247 on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @03:27AM
(#8328913)
>Sure, minimal amount needed for safety should be in the kernel
Which is exactly how it is. So the question remains, what's the problem?