> At least nokia N900 actually has "hardware acceleration" for LED > blinking. (Tiny CPU connected over i2c, able to control 3 LEDs, turing > complete with something like 20 _bits_ of storage and 30 program > steps). Apparently, it makes more stable patterns (timing is very hard > to guarantee from userspace) and better power consumption (no need to > wake the CPU to blink the LEDs). > > Now, wins from going userspace->kernel will not be too huge. But "If > the hardware can accelerate it, kernel should offer it even on > hardware that can not do it, for consistency". Why ? My x86-64 box can run with 8GB processes, perhaps we should emulate 64bit on a 32bit kernel for consistency ? It's another waste of resources - pages of memory that would cumulatively be vastly more efficiently used by user space. Yes the N800 might want a little driver but the rest belongs in a library and the library can use accelerators (of any kind) if available, or even things like lightbulbs via X10 so you can have the big red light in the control room flash if the machine dies 8) Alan -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
