Re: [tlug] BSD and Linux (was:Linux and Windows {2k|Xp|Vista} Comparison)

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

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On Sat, Oct 21, 2006 at 11:42:19PM +0900, stephen@example.com wrote:
> Scott Robbins writes:


>  > On the other hand, there will be other updates that involve the
>  > entire rebuilding of world.
> 
> Hrm.  I still wonder what would trigger that.


Sigh, I really am not watching my words.  I just took a look at the last
several security updates.  A few involved patching the kernel, and that
might be what I was remembering, one of those where I had to rebuild
world because of my custom kernel.


> 
>  > In that case, one has to rebuild the entire world before rebuilding the
>  > kernel.  After doing that, the patched kernel has always successfully
>  > built for me. 
> 
> I doubt you *have to*, in some theoretical sense.  But I'll concede
> that if you remember doing that more than once, but less than 10
> times, it's probably a lot easier to just rebuild world when the
> kernel build chokes than to learn enough to build only the tools you
> need to rebuild.

Exactly.  I'm sure there are workarounds.  If I knew more about
internals I might be able to do it, or google it.  However, building
world doesn't stop me from doing other things in the in interim, and I
can just let it bustle along and it's less effort than trying to fix it,
then waiting to see if the fix will work or if the kernel build will die
again--when I rebuild world, I'm pretty sure that it can go along
unattended.

> 
> 
>  > This happens with FreeBSD as well.  Some upgrades break other things.
>  > In practice, these are ~usually~ quickly fixed.   (Perhaps because of
>  > that integration?)  :)  
> 
> This is generally true with Linuces, too.  


Agreed, at least with ArchLinux, the only one I follow at all these
days.

[As I had nothing intelligent to add to Stephen's excellent summation,
the rest is snipped.  I'll just leave in his final paragraph.


> So from a technical standpoint kernel and userland are presumably less
> integrated, being separated by a well-marked API.  While from an
> organizational standpoint, they're more integrated, because the kernel
> people and the userland people have to interact actively to define the
> API.



- -- 

Scott Robbins

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