On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:41:22 -0500 Paul Cartwright <a...@pcartwright.com> wrote:
> On Mon December 21 2009, Celejar wrote: > > 1) Faster booting, since irrelevant drivers aren't loaded and won't > > spend time probing. > just faster booting, or doesn't it also run faster, since it isn't loaded > with > a bunch of PORK? My understanding is that most modules, such as drivers, won't cause any ongoing performance penalty if they aren't in use. There are some kernel options that do. and they're sometimes (though not, alas, consistently, like much of the kernel documentation) noted as such in the kernel docs. > > 2) Security - one of these null pointer dereferences that they keep > > discovering can't hurt you if it's in code that hasn't been included. > > > not sure I understand. Are you saying if there is a reference to hardware > that > doesn't exist on your platform? No. A NPD is a very serious type of coding error with potentially catastrophic security consequences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointer_%28computing%29#Null_pointer If the code in which the bug occurs isn't being build, though, you're quite safe ;) Celejar -- foffl.sourceforge.net - Feeds OFFLine, an offline RSS/Atom aggregator mailmin.sourceforge.net - remote access via secure (OpenPGP) email ssuds.sourceforge.net - A Simple Sudoku Solver and Generator -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
