Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264850AbUFTM4H (ORCPT ); Sun, 20 Jun 2004 08:56:07 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264965AbUFTM4H (ORCPT ); Sun, 20 Jun 2004 08:56:07 -0400 Received: from [195.255.196.126] ([195.255.196.126]:4318 "EHLO gw.compusonic.fi") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264850AbUFTM4C (ORCPT ); Sun, 20 Jun 2004 08:56:02 -0400 Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 15:56:01 +0300 (EEST) From: Hannu Savolainen X-X-Sender: hannu@zeus.compusonic.fi To: David Lang Cc: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, 4Front Technologies , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Stop the Linux kernel madness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <40D232AD.4020708@opensound.com> <3217460000.1087518092@flay> <40D23701.1030302@opensound.com> <1087573691.19400.116.camel@winden.suse.de> <40D32C1D.80309@opensound.com> <20040618190257.GN14915@schnapps.adilger.int><40D34CB2.10900@opensound.com> <200406181940.i5IJeBDh032311@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2422 Lines: 49 On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, David Lang wrote: > by the way there's useually a *version file in /etc that tells you what > version of a particular distro you are running on (or at least what it was > before it got tweaked) It's usually possible to figure out the distribution and version by looking at /etc/issue. However it's impossible to figure out who has made the kernel image. It's possible to identify Mandrake kernels and few others. However in general all kernel versions look the same. There are about 10 major Linux distributions (for i386) and nobody knows how many minor ones. In addition each of them has multiple versions (still in use by potential customers). In addition it's possible that the system is running some different kernel than the distribution one (such as a kernel.org one or some special purpose one). The current situation is that every company who like to ship open source drivers with their hardware will have to automatically detect large amount of kernel and distribution combinations and try to decide which kind of installation approach is needed. After everything is settled then some distribution changes it's interfaces and the circus begins once again. Finally when a change is made to the installation procedure then how to test if it still works with all 100 or 200 different systems and kernel images that have already been tested during past years. I think many persons reading this list don't realize that a significant number of Linux installations are still using 7.x or even 6.x versions of whatever distribution they had originally installed in the system. Companies doing Linux software (be it open source or closed source) need to support them in addition to the state of the art distributions. So would it be too much to ask that kernels based on the same major version do certain things in the same way. Does anybody have ever tried to install any open source drivers that are not included in the kernel source tree yet? Best regards, Hannu ----- Hannu Savolainen (hannu@opensound.com) http://www.opensound.com (Open Sound System (OSS)) http://www.compusonic.fi (Finnish OSS pages) OH2GLH QTH: Karkkila, Finland LOC: KP20CM - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/