From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757072Ab2BWVB6 (ORCPT ); Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:01:58 -0500 Received: from mail-wi0-f174.google.com ([209.85.212.174]:54831 "EHLO mail-wi0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756979Ab2BWVB5 (ORCPT ); Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:01:57 -0500 Authentication-Results: mr.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of jidong.xiao@gmail.com designates 10.181.13.113 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=jidong.xiao@gmail.com; dkim=pass header.i=jidong.xiao@gmail.com MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: References: <4F4661D6.7030809@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:01:56 -0500 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Can we move device drivers into user-space? From: Jidong Xiao To: david@lang.hm Cc: Cong Wang , Kernel development list Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:48 PM, wrote: > On Thu, 23 Feb 2012, Jidong Xiao wrote: > >>> >>> At least UIO drivers are already in Linux kernel, see drivers/uio/. >>> >> >> Oh, so does it make sense to move existing device drivers into user >> space? For example, move most of the stuff located under drivers/usb >> into user-space? > > > Why would you want to? What advantage are you looking to gain from all the > effort? > Since device drivers are a significant source of bugs in OS. Moving them to user space can reduce the impact of these bugs. Otherwise, why UIO, or drivers/uio, is accepted by mainstream Linux kernel. -Jidong