On Wed, 15 Feb 2006, Marcus Meissner wrote:
The stable kernel ABI won't happen (soon), the changing ABI is used to make it difficult to provide binary only kernel modules and it's getting more difficult every time.
The goal of the changing ABI is however not to break binary only drivers, but to make the Linux kernel stay fast, clean, and innovating.
That's correct, it's not the goal but a wanted side effect that is promoted actively in the last months (I'm reading the kernel mailing list since 1993 and these issues get overheated once in a while).
I'm personally searching for a laptop with GPL only drivers and that's not easy, it used to be GPL only drivers in the past when you bought a laptop which supported Linux but this is not always the case these days. And I don't want to be stuck with an older or specific distribution just because then all my hardware will work. Any tips are appreciated!
Especially WLAN and graphics card requirements have crept in... yes. Previously it was just winmodems...
And I don't care about a modem but do care about WLAN and graphics. Card readers are also an issue, as is working suspend. Leaves my question: which laptops are/will be SUSE certified who only need open source drivers? Especially with 10.1 on the horizon without binary modules out of the box this will become a FAQ.
Ciao, Marcus
Best regards, Aschwin Marsman -- aschwin@marsman.org http://www.marsman.org