So far there have been a number of arguments put forth for and against PnP
in the kernel. The main pro is ease of use - very significant when showing
off Linux vs 95/NT when 95/NT can find things automatically and Linux
sometimes has to be recompiled to fix things (I've had such instances - and
yes, the kernel *had* to be recompiled, there were no other solutions). The
sound modularisation is a huge step in the right direction, thanks Alan et
al. The main con is that when things can be done in user-space, they
shouldn't be moved to kernel-space; isapnp does the job, doesn't it?
Well, it doesn't always. First of all, in all cases it's a pain to set up -
would your boss know how? Or for that matter, your IT director? Or even tech
support? Hmm... Second, in some instances there is simply not enough time
before PnP causes problems for isapnp to step in and fix things.
The only PnP device in my system (apart from the motherboard stuff, which is
always - well, nearly - configured properly) is my ESS 1868 sound card. The
sound works fine under Linux, without special isapnp configuration. But
getting the IDE interface to work (so I can move my CD there and give an
interface each to my hard drives, to speed things up further) is an absolute
nightmare. It works if I boot DOS, which has a program to set things up,
then use Loadlin to boot Linux, but that's a pain and I'd like to delete DOS
at some point. If I boot straight to Linux, it finds the interface, probes
the CD successfully, mounts root, starts init and a few seconds later locks
up completely. Nothing appears in the logs, even if syslogd/klogd have had
time to start. Now, the time the kernel lasts is variable, and when an fsck
is needed on the hard disks, it never makes it through; so isapnp doesn't
always have time to set things up properly... I haven't tried initrd; that
might fix things, but it's too complicated (with isapnp) for Joe Average
User.
PnP in the kernel would, I think, work...
Stephen
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Kitt - steve@tardis.ed.ac.uk - http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~steve
The views expressed here are mine only, unless otherwise stated
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible" -- Walt Disney