Several unrelated beginner questions.

[Gaurav Jain]

Specifically regarding (3) and (4), please refer to this:
http://unixtravails.blogspot.ch/2012/07/linux-versioning-system-and-development.html

Best Regards
Gaurav Jain



On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 12:19 AM, Konstantin Kowalski <kostya-kow at mail.ru>wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I am interested in Linux kernel programming (and OS kernels and
> general), and I am currently reading several books about Linux kernel. I
> have a few questions about it:
>
>
> 1.) Currently, I am reading 2 books about Linux kernel: Linux Device
> Drivers (3rd edition) and Linux Kernel Development (3rd edition).
>
> I like both books and I am learning a lot from them.
>
> I heard that both of this books are outdated, but so far all the
> information in this books seems valid and applicable. Is there better
> books you would recommend?
>
> 2.) In Linux Device Drivers, it states that module_exit(function) is
> discarded if module is built directly into kernel or if kernel is
> compiled with option to disallow loadable modules. But what if the
> module still has to do something during shutdown? Releasing memory is
> unimportant since it does not persist over reboot, but what if the
> module has to write something to a disk file, or do some other action?
>
> 3.) What's the deal with different kernel versions? I heard back in the
> 2.x days, even kernels were stable and odd versions were experimental,
> but with 2.6 it changed.
>
> So with 3.x kernels, are all of them experimental in the beginning and
> stable in the end? Also, with 3.x new versions seem to be released more
> often than in 2.1-2.5 days. Did the release cycle get smaller or is it
> just my imagination? Also, what does rc number mean?
>
> 4.) Currently, I am running linux-next, and it works great. Am I correct
> to assume that linux-next is supposed to have newest, shiniest and most
> unstable features? `uname -a` says that I am still running 3.8-next, but
> there is already 3.9 out. So which version is more experimental and
> least stable? Which one is the newest?
>
> 5.) How exactly does make/.config work? When I run `make oldconfig`,
> does it use the everything from the previous .config and only ask how to
> configure new features? And when I run `make` does it re-use old object
> files if nothing was changed in the specific file, or does it re-compile
> everything from scratch?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Kostyantyn Kovalskyy (Konstantin Kowalski)
>
>
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>



-- 
Gaurav Jain
Associate Software Engineer
VxVM Escalations Team, SAMG
Symantec Software India Pvt. Ltd.
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