Re: [linuxsh-dev] Preparing for 2.5

[Greg B. <gn...@al...>]

Stuart Menefy wrote:
> 
> There were two main objectives I had when writing the mach_vec stuff:
> 
>  - to better separate the board, chip and CPU specific details

  A very worthy goal, and the result is a definite improvement, but
it can be done entirely at compiletime.

>  - to allow a single kernel to be run on several boards.

  This is where I have the problem.  I don't think it's useful.

  The performance penalty is not my main concern, although it's
certainly not helpful.  I'm worried about the maintenance overhead of
doing everything two ways and having a monotonically expanding mach_vec
which gets hit all the time at runtime.

> Personally I think we need to do another purge of the board specific
> #ifdef's from C code (some of which I admit to being responsable for),
> and if some other #ifdef's could be removed at the same time, so much the
> better.

  Yep.

> [...] if nobody is going to use it we should
> probably move to a static system, more like ARM,

  Yeah, I quite like the ARM way of doing things.  It seems more
appropriate for an embedded system.


Greg.
-- 
the price of civilisation today is a courageous willingness to prevail,
with force, if necessary, against whatever vicious and uncomprehending
enemies try to strike it down.	   - Roger Sandall, The Age, 28Sep2001.