A Stable Linux Kernel API/ABI? "The Most Insane Proposal" For Linux Development

[SystemCrasher]

NT is a horrible kernel. I was a windows device driver developer when NT came to our projects. In windows 95 the os was usable after kernel driver crash, but NT did show only the famous blue screen.

It depends what one wants, actually. In embedded designs I prefer to escalate all kernel-level issues to panic and autoreboot. Just to avoid running with potentially damaged kernel, eventually causing damage to the rest of system. So there could be some point in this behavior. Sometimes. Somewhere. And it is really nice Linux kernel is very configurable, so I can get desirable default behavior evrywhere I need. Somehow, NT stands no chance to afford it. Being proprietary, with no sensible kernel community around, anything related to kernel or drivers issues is a nightmare. Nobody would be able to help, and it could easily halt even most sound plan.

[c117152]

NT is a horrible kernel. I was a windows device driver developer when NT came to our projects. In windows 95 the os was usable after kernel driver crash, but NT did show only the famous blue screen.

Showing blue screen means the kernel is running. Being able to dump the stack means the FS server is running. What screws up NT is having no resurrection server so they need a system reboot every time a driver crushes. In some ways, it was a decision to develop the kernel that way. It was made with servers in mind and rebooting when a driver faults is preferable to data corruption.

Regardless, in recent years, as Windows shed all it's server wannabe aspirations and became a consumer toy, they've implemented a hybrid resurrection mechanism for sound and video drivers which helps a lot. I'd often see the video driver crush and resolutions change without killing my off running gui programs. In linux, where correct data retention is still valued over ui uptime, x server dies with the driver taking all my running applications with it. Wayland would supposedly address these issues one day... But for running poorly written toy programs that don't separate the front end and back end, Windows is still superior.