*BSD News Article 68268


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
Date: 10 May 1996 21:27:49 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@rahul.net> wrote:

> Given that the hardest thing about maintaining two parallel operating
> systems is the device support,
> 
>    How hard would it be for both Linux and FreeBSD teams to revise their
>    respective oeprating systems to accept virtually identical device
>    driver code?

Basically impossible.  The underlying concepts are simply too
different.  I've loosely followed a series in a German Unix magazine
about Linux kernel programming, and i must say they are simply
different.

I think if you care to design a driver for both systems from ground
up, it might be workable, but it's still hard to maintain.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)