Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932372AbVJ3Wfp (ORCPT ); Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:35:45 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932373AbVJ3Wfp (ORCPT ); Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:35:45 -0500 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:57539 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932372AbVJ3Wfo (ORCPT ); Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:35:44 -0500 Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 14:35:35 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: Deepak Saxena cc: Jeff Garzik , Andrew Morton , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, tony@atomide.com, "H. Peter Anvin" Subject: Re: [patch 0/5] HW RNG cleanup & new drivers In-Reply-To: <20051030200219.GB4794@plexity.net> Message-ID: References: <20051029191229.562454000@omelas> <4363F31F.2040303@pobox.com> <20051030200219.GB4794@plexity.net> 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: 909 Lines: 24 On Sun, 30 Oct 2005, Deepak Saxena wrote: > > I think moving it to user space will add more complexity for > the case where the HW unit is shared with an in in-kernel driver. Moving it to user space is just generally stupid. Often, the random stuff comes from chipsets, not the CPU itself. Not user-accessible at all, and even if it were, it would be a bad idea to have user space do things the kernel does normally ("what northbridge do I have"). There may be use for a user-level library that handles the native CPU instructions for high performance, but that in no way negates the reason why /dev/random and friends exist in the first place. Linus - 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/