Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 15:10:47 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 15:10:46 -0400 Received: from chaos.analogic.com ([204.178.40.224]:14977 "EHLO chaos.analogic.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 15:10:45 -0400 Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 15:13:24 -0400 (EDT) From: "Richard B. Johnson" Reply-To: root@chaos.analogic.com To: Myrddin Ambrosius cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Drivers, Hardware, and their relationship to Bagels. In-Reply-To: <20020618183515.13963.qmail@web12302.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 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: 1209 Lines: 31 On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Myrddin Ambrosius wrote: > > I guess that my understanding for having kernels the > size and complexity of Linux, as opposed to, say, > CP/M, is that the kernel can reduce the need for > userspace apps to have dangerous powers. Users need to have 'dangerous' things done, like reading and writing to hard-disks, etc. To keep things organized, like writing and reading files they control, there is some code called the kernel, that performs these 'dangerous' things on behalf of the callers. Since the callers can't modify the kernel to make it do "bad" things like writing outside "files", everything works out just fine. The exact same things can usually be done by "user-mode" programs. You just need to keep them from being hacked and everything works out just fine, just like in the kernel. Cheers, Dick Johnson Penguin : Linux version 2.4.18 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips). Windows-2000/Professional isn't. - 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/