8 to 9: Kernel modularization -- did it change?

[Alex Goncharov]

,--- You/Alexander (Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:36:53 +0200) ----*
| On 02/17/12 18:20, Alex Goncharov wrote:
| > How do I find the correct hint if I can't reload the sound module in
| > the new kernel environment and explore 'dmesg', '/dev/sndstat' and the
| > physical headphones with the new hint without a reboot?
| >
| > Stick something in a file (/boot/device.hints or /boot/loader.conf),
| > reboot and see if it works... if it doesn't put a different
| > combination of 'cad', 'nid' and 'seq' and reboot?... And again and
| > again, till it works?..
| 
| Improved HDA driver in HEAD allows to change CODEC configuration via 
| sysctls on fly without unloading. I am going to merge it to 9/8-STABLE 
| in few weeks. If somebody wants to write nice GUI for it -- welcome! ;)

Being mostly a FreeBSD freeloader (or a marginal contributor), I
shouldn't be complaining, and I am not, but permit me to make a
personal biased judgment: losing the ability to do a practically
important thing (a dynamic sound card tuning) which was available in
8, makes 9 a "not ready to be released" OS (GUI isn't relevant here.)

OK, I'll put my upgrades to 9 on hold... Thanks all for clarifying the
situation!

P.S. As an aside and IMHO:

Over the last year, I've been asking myself why I keep bothering with
FreeBSD when several Linux distros do everything painlessly out of box.

Obviously, I like FreeBSD general structure a lot, that's why.
FreeBSD won't miss me going back to Linux, but I may miss FreeBSD, so
I am still sticking on, but I see a lot of dangers to FreeBSD being a
meaningfully used platform, for various reasons (some of them have
been mentioned in several discussions on freebsd-stable.)  Breaking
POLA in a released OS, which I see with this sound card tuning issue,
doesn't add FreeBSD friends...

-- Alex -- alex-goncharov at comcast.net --