Why does FreeBSD not use the Linux kernel?
Polytropon
freebsd at edvax.de
Wed Jun 17 18:37:56 UTC 2020
On Wed, 17 Jun 2020 10:55:14 -0700, Michael Sierchio wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 5:19 AM Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 17 Jun 2020 11:33:25 +0800, kindu smith wrote:
> > > Why does FreeBSD not use the Linux kernel? The structure of FreeBSD is
> > > very good, such as the startup and directory structure, and the user
> > > island program. The only shortcoming is poor hardware support. This is
> > > mainly due to the lack of drivers provided by the kernel.
> >
> > While there are certain basic drivers in the kernel, the
> > majority of drivers is provided by loadable kernel modules,
> > either developed by the FreeBSD team itself, or available
> > from the ports collection. They use interfaces provided by
> > the kernel.
> >
> >
> The chief difference from my perspective is that it is possible in FreeBSD
> to create a monolithic kernel and prohibit the loading of kernel modules,
> foiling one step in the chain of a rootkit. It's especially convenient for
> embedded devices, security appliances, etc.
Before the KLD infrastructure became that universal,
it was quite common to create your kernel configuration
file specifically for the hardware you wanted to run
the system on, and add kernel features as needed, so
everything and _only_ the needed components would be
in the resulting kernel.
Another option was to create a very minimalistic kernel,
then build and load only the modules needed.
Today the GENERIC kernel supports a lot of hardware
out of the box, and required modules can often be
loaded automatically, initiated by userland processes,
if you want (like from a rc.conf setting or even
dynamically via devd).
You can still choose what fits your needs best. :-)
--
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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