Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 1 Jul 2002 13:51:17 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 1 Jul 2002 13:51:17 -0400 Received: from tmr-02.dsl.thebiz.net ([216.238.38.204]:55311 "EHLO gatekeeper.tmr.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 1 Jul 2002 13:51:15 -0400 Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 13:48:55 -0400 (EDT) From: Bill Davidsen To: Linux-Kernel Mailing List Subject: [OKS] Module removal 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: 1326 Lines: 29 Having read some notes on the Ottawa Kernel Summit, I'd like to offer some comments on points raied. The suggestion was made that kernel module removal be depreciated or removed. I'd like to note that there are two common uses for this capability, and the problems addressed by module removal should be kept in mind. These are in addition to the PCMCIA issue raised. 1 - conversion between IDE-CD and IDE-SCSI. Some applications just work better (or usefully at all) with one or the other driver used to read CDs. I've noted that several programs for reading the image from an ISO CD (readcd and sdd) have end of data problems with the SCSI interface. 2 - restarting NICs when total reinitialization is needed. In server applications it's sometimes necessary to move or clear a NIC connection, force renegotiation because the blade on the switch was set wrong, etc. It's preferable to take down one NIC for a moment than suffer a full outage via reboot. -- bill davidsen CTO, TMR Associates, Inc Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979. - 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/