From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 11 22:08:27 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE6411065673 for ; Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:08:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cpghost@cordula.ws) Received: from mail-qw0-f54.google.com (mail-qw0-f54.google.com [209.85.216.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B374D8FC0C for ; Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:08:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: by qwj9 with SMTP id 9so20609085qwj.13 for ; Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:08:27 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.229.184.7 with SMTP id ci7mr116706qcb.241.1294783706849; Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:08:26 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.229.102.19 with HTTP; Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:08:26 -0800 (PST) X-Originating-IP: [93.221.179.70] In-Reply-To: References: Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:08:26 +0100 Message-ID: From: "C. P. Ghost" To: Chuck Swiger Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: David DEMELIER , freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: why panic(9) ? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:08:28 -0000 On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:43 PM, Chuck Swiger wrote: > On Jan 11, 2011, at 1:11 PM, David DEMELIER wrote: >> 2011/1/11 Chuck Swiger : >>> [ ... ] >>>> Yes, why this function exists? There is no way to solve a problem >>>> without panic'ing? Is panic really needed? >>>> Seriously, I really hate when I play some music that suddenly the >>>> music get stucked in a infinite loop, why ? >>> >>> Probably a bug in the sound card driver. >> >> No no, it was a panic that didn't core dump so I needed to do a hard reb= oot. > > Frankly, audio isn't (or doesn't seem to be) a core goal of FreeBSD. =A0M= acs are probably the best reference platform available for pro A/V work. = =A0[1] But the point here is still that a bug in a driver causes the whole system to hang or panic(). This is precisely the problem with monolithic systems. I know, I know, that's an old and tired discussion, but it is (still) a part of the problem. As far as I know, Windows NT is a microkernel arch, and faulty drivers, often provided by external vendors would not bring that system (as much as we hate or despise its Windows OS personality that runs on top of it) to a complete halt. Maybe we should also think about this in the context of BSD... especially considering the ever increasing amount of hardware and drivers. Something like a microkernelized and compartimentalized BSD on top of, say, L4Ka::Pistachio (which is itself BSD-licensed and which provides super-fast IPC, so performance won't take a major hit as it did with BSD on top of Mach, a.k.a. Mac OS X) would be a lot more robust w.r.t. to faults. Sure, not every error would be harmless, even on such a system, but it would be a long way towards a more robust and fault-tolerant OS. But again, this is a major undertaking, and talk about it is cheap... ;) -cpghost. --=20 Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/