[RFC] shipping kernels with default modules?

[Ivan Voras]

On 11/06/2011 19:18, David Schultz wrote:

> OS X has an interesting solution, intended to preserve the
> flexibility of dynamic modules, while minimizing boot time.
> It provides a kextcache utility, which packages the kernel
> and all of the needed modules into a single binary for better
> locality on disk.  Unlike recompiling the kernel, running
> kextcache is fast, and the system runs it automatically when
> hardware or driver changes necessitate it.

This seems like the goldilocks solution, but also dangerously close to
the Linux's horrendeous initrd system where, if you change the disc
controller (which nowadays can mean simply switching it in BIOS from ATA
to AHCI to RAID modes) and you get a magically unbootable system.

I'd go for something like that only if there's a fallback mode acting
like "ok, the previous boot failed, now automagically load ALL the
modules and try again". You pretty much need to load all the drivers
because except for some obvious exceptions (like the sound drivers,
VESA, etc.) many can host devices for file systems ("normal"
controllers, network cards, iSCSI, GEOM, USB, Infiniband, etc.). Doing
it without this kind of fallback mode is a step backwards.