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| Devices in /dev are user-facing interfaces, yet you can compile them out or make them modular. Virtual filesystems like sysfs and proc are user-facing interfaces, yet you can compile part or all of them out. Filesystem names passed to mount are user-facing interfaces, yet you can compile them out. (Not just things like ext4; think FUSE or overlayfs, which some applications will build upon and require.) Some prctls are optional, new syscalls like BPF or inotify or process_vm_readv are optional, hardware interfaces are optional, control groups are optional, containers and namespaces are optional, checkpoint/restart is optional, KVM is | Devices in /dev are user-facing interfaces, yet you can compile them out or make them modular. Virtual filesystems like sysfs and proc are user-facing interfaces, yet you can compile part or all of them out. Filesystem names passed to mount are user-facing interfaces, yet you can compile them out. (Not just things like ext4; think FUSE or overlayfs, which some applications will build upon and require.) Some prctls are optional, new syscalls like BPF or inotify or process_vm_readv are optional, hardware interfaces are optional, control groups are optional, containers and namespaces are optional, checkpoint/restart is optional, KVM is | ||
| optional, kprobes are optional, kmsg is optional, /dev/port is optional, ACL support is optional, USB support (as used by libusb) is optional, sound interfaces are optional, GPU interfaces are optional, even futexes are optional. | optional, kprobes are optional, kmsg is optional, /dev/port is optional, ACL support is optional, USB support (as used by libusb) is optional, sound interfaces are optional, GPU interfaces are optional, even futexes are optional. | ||
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| + | We guarantee that you can run old userspace on a new kernel, but not necessarily on a kernel built with allnoconfig. | ||
| **This change only saves a few kilobytes; is that really worth it?** | **This change only saves a few kilobytes; is that really worth it?** | ||
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| Linux has a lot more longevity and generality than most embedded OSes. Most such OSes are proprietary. All of them lack the range of capabilities, drivers, and general level of code quality and review found in Linux. Most have far smaller communities (or no communities at all). | Linux has a lot more longevity and generality than most embedded OSes. Most such OSes are proprietary. All of them lack the range of capabilities, drivers, and general level of code quality and review found in Linux. Most have far smaller communities (or no communities at all). | ||
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| + | **Why not run an older version of Linux, like Linux 2.0/2.2?** | ||
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| + | Do you really want to see more systems in the world running ancient and almost unsupportable kernels? Running an old kernel gives up much of the value of running Linux. Many systems will want to take advantage of some of the latest functionality, while omitting other functionality they don't need. People who approach the kernel community and ask questions about ancient kernels typically get told to run a newer kernel; let's not admonish them for wanting to follow that advice. | ||
faq.txt · Last modified: 2015-01-30 22:08 by joshtriplett
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