[gentoo-amd64] Re: Re: modules

[Duncan]

Nuitari posted <Pine.LNX.4.64.0511041904550.4212@××××××××××××××××.net>,
excerpted below,  on Fri, 04 Nov 2005 19:05:39 -0500:

>> Absence of autounloading is not a property of gentoo, but of recent kernels.
>> Somewhere along Linux people decided that unloading unused modules is not
>> that useful :(
>>
>> Am I right, actually ?
>
> I really don't see the point of going to that much trouble to save a few
> Kbs of RAM

Ian described the kernel hackers' achieved conclusion quite accurately in
the other subthread -- module unloading wasn't seen as the route to the
most stable kernel possible, so it was deemphasized and made optional.

However, to directly comment on your reply...  yes, those few KB of RAM
/do/ matter, to many.  Consider that kernel memory is by definition
/locked/ memory -- it can never be swapped out.  On a system with uptime
into the weeks and months, not unusual at all for Linux, if you only fire
up the CD/DVD drive every couple weeks (to use a personal example that I
mentioned earlier in the thread), and that driver remains loaded all the
REST of the time as well, that's expensive space in non-swappable physical
memory that /could/ be used for (most likely) cache memory, otherwise. 
Memory is expensive, and I prefer mine doesn't sit around doing nothing,
when it can be put to better use, increasing the performance of even a
couple lookups a day that might otherwise have been flushed out of
physical memory.  It's not much, but I'd rather have it than not, since
I've paid for the memory and otherwise it's just sitting there inactive.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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