RFC: Kernel changes that may affect desktops

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:56:44 +0100
Matthew Garrett <mjg at redhat.com> wrote:

> ACPI docking stations are mildly complicated creatures that require
> the OS to handle part of the undocking process. We're currently doing
> this entirely within the kernel, but this has the significant
> downside that there's no way to handle cleanly unmounting any block
> devices that are contained within the dock - they'll simply vanish.
> 
> I've been working with David Zeuthen to flesh out proper desktop
> support for this, and we're now at the point where there's not a
> great deal of code to write to get this working cleanly.
> Unfortunately this requires a certain level of integration between
> the kernel and the desktop - something has to prompt the user about
> unmounting the device and then trigger the completion of the undock.
> The kernel still handles the actual ACPI execution, but policy now
> lives in the desktop.
> 
> Once this code is ready I'd like to change the kernel defaults to
> allow this. The problem is that this will cause a reduction in
> functionality for desktops that don't have this integration. How
> should this kind of situation be handled?
> 

how common are docking stations in practice?
(as opposed to port extenders)

-- 
Arjan van de Ven 	Intel Open Source Technology Centre
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