In the subdirectories,
you??™ll find text files with detailed information about all the various drivers for
peripherals, file systems, and networking tasks patched into the kernel. These documents
are written for programmers, but the advanced user can often glean much useful information
as well.
Types of Kernels
There was a time when Linux kernels were monolithic??”a single block of code containing
all the instructions for the processor, motherboard, and other hardware.
When changing hardware, you had to recompile the kernel to include the drivers for the
new piece and remove the old drivers. This was important because unnecessary kernel
modules took up memory, which was at a premium.
As the kernel code grew larger and the number of devices that you could add to a
computer increased, recompiling became a nearly unbearable chore. So kernel hackers
developed a new building method to solve the problem. Device drivers became modules
that could be loaded and unloaded into the kernel when you needed them. With this
CHAPTER 24 Kernel and Module Management 494
modular approach, all the kernel code could be compiled at once, with most of the code
compiled into modules.
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