Received: from mailout.easymail.ca (mailout.easymail.ca [64.68.200.34]) by gbr-app-1.alpinelinux.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 278AD225BB1 for <~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org>; Wed, 21 Feb 2024 22:33:26 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mailout.easymail.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id E59246C031 for <~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org>; Wed, 21 Feb 2024 22:32:52 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple; d=swiley.net; s=easymail; t=1708554772; bh=guz+4tIOzj/MlX4IOpp9qvOsKWHUDXIN6r8jonrdy6c=; h=Date:From:To:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=nBgfu4L+Xl4hRsEzozF8Fpw41PnbI5uTlEkHNSUrgByB+zFQiOQEALxPeldVRbmrr HjQZf7i+gA3PDb2Qp8588QiSQmFXuFPsmzydd1Jixx19A4u+wKFeYiP4nHdqOgSah3 uZnV82AIAH3D3GVVfAPHNuO+jTiptEHY4XTM4xzBGiRr4wLFAcNRlVgNvxPBWu5qLl rDk4ZZJY39ZrfviNaYGpTF1d5XBX/iQNLHjlqvRoO/kbaEVYPdc/61jh2IIjF75NSA FO5nZ86sV6Gc8/0CniJkDgTMXt3bWKfCg8MYby8qeUQGI12tuXSWztR0yAqcOWl2+X jXO5BuqWjXGKA== X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at emo09-pco.easydns.vpn Received: from mailout.easymail.ca ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (emo09-pco.easydns.vpn [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id ub6fX-cmBG0t for <~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org>; Wed, 21 Feb 2024 22:32:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from thinkpade (unknown [98.97.21.80]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) key-exchange X25519 server-signature RSA-PSS (2048 bits) server-digest SHA256) (No client certificate requested) by mailout.easymail.ca (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 631DD6C02E for <~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org>; Wed, 21 Feb 2024 22:32:52 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple; d=swiley.net; s=easymail; t=1708554772; bh=guz+4tIOzj/MlX4IOpp9qvOsKWHUDXIN6r8jonrdy6c=; h=Date:From:To:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=nBgfu4L+Xl4hRsEzozF8Fpw41PnbI5uTlEkHNSUrgByB+zFQiOQEALxPeldVRbmrr HjQZf7i+gA3PDb2Qp8588QiSQmFXuFPsmzydd1Jixx19A4u+wKFeYiP4nHdqOgSah3 uZnV82AIAH3D3GVVfAPHNuO+jTiptEHY4XTM4xzBGiRr4wLFAcNRlVgNvxPBWu5qLl rDk4ZZJY39ZrfviNaYGpTF1d5XBX/iQNLHjlqvRoO/kbaEVYPdc/61jh2IIjF75NSA FO5nZ86sV6Gc8/0CniJkDgTMXt3bWKfCg8MYby8qeUQGI12tuXSWztR0yAqcOWl2+X jXO5BuqWjXGKA== Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:32:51 -0500 From: Stephen Wiley To: ~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org Subject: Re: Any type of HAL for Alpine? Message-ID: <20240221223251.GF3488@thinkpade.swiley.net> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: For drivers: Linux's built in hardware probing is already pretty good at this, You could build custom kernels for your devices but IME there's not a ton of performance to be gained doing that. Maybe if you shrink the kernel down you might save a few seconds loading/decompressing it. I suppose if you're *very* short on RAM this could be a big deal. You can see which drivers you're actually using by booting a generic kernel on your hardware and checking the symlinks in sysfs. For firmware (which is probably what you were thinking about W.R.T. wireless): Alpine's firmware package is pretty large last I checked. If you know what hardware you have ahead of time you could build your own pruned version to replace it. You can also statically link this into the kernel (although distributing that might be legally complicated) if you're building your own. I used to build custom kernels for odd hardware as part of a consulting service I ran. If you'd like me to take a closer look feel free to send me an email with more details. --Stephen On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 05:19:38PM -0500, Dr. Lonnie Cumberland, PhD wrote: > Hi All, > > The current project that I am working on will be a small footprint RAM based > system based upon Alpine Xen and will generally boot from a either a small > sized ISO or PXE booting. > > As this system will be meant to run on many different desktop systems, I am > wondering if there is any type of HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) so that > upon booting the system can be analyzed quickly and any needed drivers could > be loaded and persisted for subsequent boots.� This all comes from the > concerns in that some systems are desktops with wireless adapters or some > particular graphics cards, for examples, that might be needed. > > I was thinking about how it might be best to try to be able to provide those > drives while at the same time keeping the total footprint and > ultra-lightweight as possible which is a key goal in this effort. > > Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. > > Thanks in advance, > Lonnie >