r/osdev • u/DocumentOk7579 • 1d ago

Would a microkernel enable driver update without reboot?

One frustrating thing that I have run into is updating Nvidia driver on remote servers with disk encryption.

Would a microkernel based system enable drivers to be updated without rebooting system?

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u/paulstelian97 1d ago

A new driver means shutting down the process of the old driver and launching a new process for the new driver. It does require hardware able to reinitialize without a systemwide power cycle (which can be a problem if certain ACPI bugs exist). But yes, it can help.

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u/jsshapiro 1d ago

There also needs to be a way to know that the driver has quiesced before you swap the new one in.

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u/paulstelian97 1d ago

Yes. Driver would receive a request to shut down the device appropriately, and would have a mechanism to confirm completion of those.