Hey Guys,

Don't throw old 3310's down my neck if this is irrelevant, i am only trying to help & i know little about Linux etc. but am trying hard to understand SDK and Java etc etc. etc.. to develop a web site and cross platform mobile applications

I found this company called 'KSplice' [won a 100k award on Forbes] and they ensure that you don't have to re-boot to update on Linux systems.

Does this help you guys at all ? Is it relevant to N900 in any way?
I'm a total noob, apolagies if this is not helpful.

[I did do a search, noone has mentioned KSplice before..]

It's not a bad idea to use Ksplice's method or some other binary patching mthod to provide the enhanced kernel functionality, but I guess a one-off reboot isn't so painful anyway.

The main usefulness on Maemo devices, imho, would be to allow different kernel enhancements to coexist independently. Packages needing a specific kernel feature, such as NAT, could perhaps use it to patch in what they need, as part of their own package, instead of requiring a wholesale switch to a particular enhanced kernel with lots of other changes.

Note that Ksplice is only implemented for x86 at present so it'd need a bit of work to use it on the N900.

I've done binary patching of much older Linux kernels (replacing the main memory allocator with a different one at runtime to reduce fragmentation and speed up I/O, as the target's kernel couldn't be upgraded). It's quite fun :-)

Im currently trying to decipher your post !

made me feel good to know it was not totally useless though!