Comment by ForHackernews
5 months ago
What an inefficient disaster to carry around all those drivers to run hardware that isn't on the device you're running on.
5 months ago
What an inefficient disaster to carry around all those drivers to run hardware that isn't on the device you're running on.
* The vast majority aren't compiled into any given kernel
* Those that are are only loaded when needed
It's not that bad
I sympathize, but the reality is that except for very specialized cases, (hyper) optimizing for CPU performance is unnecessary, even in the embedded space. A Cortex-M0 has roughly the same performance as a 486, and is cheap and power efficient enough to be bundled in disposable test kits, vapes, etc.
It's modular so you don't have to compile drivers you don't need.
Most of it is in modules that don't have to be compiled at all (and usually aren't)