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0 pointsvalarauca18y ago0 comments

No, you generally should.

Those Linus tirades about We Dont Break Userland are why. The only way application interact with the kernel is via SystemCalls, which once they go public are -never- retracted, and never significantly change.

This is why the kernel has system calls like 'mlock' and 'mlock2', because the first call ended up being incorrect but YOU CANT TURN BACK NOW! Or a better example `stat`, `stat64`, and `statx`

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3 comments · 3 top-level

daurnimator8y ago

> The only way application interact with the kernel is via SystemCalls

Well yes, but more than the syscall contracts are e.g. the layout of /proc and /sys. Which have broken userspace before.

johnbellone8y ago

I hear what you are saying but I wouldn't say that stat vs stat64 is incorrect or wrong. It is due to 32 vs 64 bit fields inside of the stat struct. But yeah, it all comes down to maintaining ABI and not breaking userland.

legulere8y ago

Drivers might break though.

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