On Wed, Dec 26, 2007 at 12:48:52PM -0500, Bit wrote: > > Thanks to both of you for the reply. Good information, but that still > doesn't really answer my question. I'm more interested in the technical > side of things. What I really want to understand boils down to this: > > Why is it that in Windows I can install ATI drivers once and never worry > about it again, while in Linux I may have to *reinstall* the drivers at a > later date after a system update to get my card working with them again? > Experience has proven to me that in Windows I can install the ATI drivers > once, leave those same drivers on there for eternity, update the system over > and over with Automatic Updates, and never worry about it breaking my video > card. In Linux, every time I see a kernel update, I've learned to be braced > for impact and just be ready with my ATI drivers to reinstall to get my card > working again. I've never understood this. I'd like a technical > explanation for why this is so. > Linux doesn't have a stable ABI (for drivers, userland is a different thing), but Windows does. That means that drivers compiled for your kernel today may not install on newer (or older) kernels. You'll have to recompile it. Also, changes like support for more than 4GB, how the lower 4GB is split, architecture options, gcc version, function calling convections, etc., creates dependencies that have to be met by the binary driver. Windows guarantees that the exposed interface doesn't change, so there's no need to recompile things if something internal changes. But Linux doesn't even have a stable API, so the module may not compile on your newer kernels. Please see Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt, in the kernel sources, or online at: <http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2007/12/linux_stable_api_vs_not.php> Note that without a stable API, there is no change of a stable ABI. -- lfr 0/0
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