Re: [ATMSAR] Request for review - update #1

[Alistair John Strachan <s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk>]

On Monday 05 September 2005 10:36, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-09-04 at 17:20 +0100, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> > Just out of curiosity, is there ANY reason why this has to be done in the
> > kernel? The PPPoATM module for pppd implements (via linux-atm) a
> > completely userspace ATM decoder.. if anything, now redundant ATM stack
> > code should be REMOVED from Linux!
>
> No. The pppoatm module for pppd uses the kernel ATM stack and kernel
> PPPoATM functionality. I suspect you're thinking of the pseudo-tty hack
> used by the userspace code.

I'm not sure which module you're referring to, but the patch recommended by 
the speedtouch people links to linux-atm, and does not require kernel ATM or 
kernel pppoatm functionality, or use any kernel modules. I do notice it does 
a system ("/sbin/modprobe pppoatm"); but this is definitely not required; I'm 
speaking to you from a speedtouch DSL connection, no module loaded or 
compiled in, no ATM support in the kernel.

http://devzero.co.uk/~alistair/linuxmisc/ppp-2.4.3-atm.diff

>
> > Most distributions (to my knowledge) supporting the speedtouch modem do
> > so using the method prescribed on speedtouch.sf.net; an entirely
> > userspace procedure. pppd does all the ATM magic.
>
> Fedora doesn't; it uses the kernel driver.

I stand corrected.

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

'No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway.'
Third year Computer Science undergraduate.
1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.