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Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

dmitrybrant.com

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Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#21

Post by firesteelrain »

yeasku wrote: post #18
rvz wrote: post #16

No tests whatsoever. This isn't getting close to being merged into mainline and it will stay out-of-tree for a long time. That's even before taking on the brutal linux kernel mailing lists for code review explaining what that C code does which could be riddled with bugs that Claude generated. No thanks and no deal.

[flagged]

Upvoted you however it did solve the author’s problem and if he decides to post to GitHub then it could help someone later. Plenty of people working on retro architectures that wish they had things like this

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#22

Post by frumplestlatz »

unethical_ban wrote: post #2

Neat stuff. I just got Claude code and am training myself on Rails, I'm excited to have assistance working through some ideas I have and seeing it handle this kind of iterative testing is great. One note: I think the author could have modified sudoers file to allow loading and unloading the module* without password prompt.

> One note: I think the author could have modified sudoers file to allow loading and unloading the module* without password prompt.

Even a minor typo in kernel code can cause a panic; that’s not a reasonable level of power to hand directly to Claude Code unless you’re targeting a separate development system where you can afford repeated crashes.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#23

Post by geor9e »

yeasku wrote: post #18
rvz wrote: post #16

No tests whatsoever. This isn't getting close to being merged into mainline and it will stay out-of-tree for a long time. That's even before taking on the brutal linux kernel mailing lists for code review explaining what that C code does which could be riddled with bugs that Claude generated. No thanks and no deal.

[flagged]

The authors using it. You're implying software created solely to fulfill one persons desires is a bad thing.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#24

Post by BowBun »

theptip wrote: post #3

A good case study. I have found these two to be good categories of win: > Use these tools as a massive force multiplier of your own skills. Claude definitely makes me more productive in frameworks I know well, where I can scan and pattern-match quickly on the boilerplate parts. > Use these tools for rapid onboarding onto new frameworks. I’m also more productive here, this is an enabler to explore new areas, and is al…

> Use these tools as a massive force multiplier of your own skills.

I've felt this learning just this week - it's taken me having to create a small project with 10 clear repetitions, messily made from AI input. But then the magic is making 'consolidation' tasks where you can just guide it into unifying markup, styles/JS, whatever you may have on your hands.

I think it was less obvious to me in my day job because in a startup with a lack of strong coding conventions, it's harder to apply these pattern-matching requests since there are fewer patterns. I can imagine in a strict, mature codebase this would be way more effective.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#26

Post by anonymousiam »

I hope Dmitry did a good job. I've got a box of 2120 tapes with old backups from > 20 years ago, and I'm in the process of resurrecting the old (486) computer with both of my tape drives (floppy T-1000 and SCSI DDS-4). It would be nice to run a modern kernel on it.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#28

Post by rvz »

tedk-42 wrote: post #17

Really is an exciting future ahead. So many lost arts that don't need a dedicated human to relearn deep knowledge required to make an update. A reminder though these LLM calls cost energy and we need reliable power generation to iterate through this next tech cycle. Hopefully all that useless crypto wasted clock cycle burn is going to LLM clock cycle burn :)

> Really is an exciting future ahead. So many lost arts that don't need a dedicated human to relearn deep knowledge required to make an update.

You would certainly need an expert to make sure your air traffic control software is working correctly and not 'vibe coded' the next time you decide to travel abroad safely.

We don't need a new generation who can't read code and are heavily reliant on whatever a chat bot said because: "you're absolutely right!".

> Hopefully all that useless crypto wasted clock cycle burn is going to LLM clock cycle burn :)

Useful enough for Stripe to building their own blockchain and even that and the rest of them are more energy efficient than a typical LLM cycle.

But the LLM grift (or even the AGI grift) will not only cost even more than crypto, but the whole purpose of its 'usefulness' is the mass displacement of jobs with no realistic economic alternative other than achieving >10% global unemployment by 2030.

That's a hundred times more disastrous than crypto.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#29

Post by squeakywhite »

yeasku wrote: post #25
geor9e wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The authors using it. You're implying software created solely to fulfill one persons desires is a bad thing.

[flagged]

The post was created to show how AI helped this person solve their particular problem - which it appeared to do successfully.

Other people commenting about AI hype on the post isn't an indication that the post itself was created to hype AI, or that that the post itself is "bad".

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#30

Post by kccqzy »

bicx wrote: post #11
theptip wrote: post #3

A good case study. I have found these two to be good categories of win: > Use these tools as a massive force multiplier of your own skills. Claude definitely makes me more productive in frameworks I know well, where I can scan and pattern-match quickly on the boilerplate parts. > Use these tools for rapid onboarding onto new frameworks. I’m also more productive here, this is an enabler to explore new areas, and is al…

This is a good takeaway. I use Claude Code as my main approach for making changes to a codebase, and I’ve been doing so every day for months. I have a solid system I follow through trial and error, and overall it’s been a massive boon to my productivity and willingness to attempt larger experiments. One thing I love doing is developing a strong underlying data structure, schema, and internal API, then essentially hav…

This is more of a reflection of how our profession has not meaningfully advanced. OP talks about boilerplate. You talk about grunt work. We now have AI to do these things for us. But why do such things need to exist in the first place? Why hasn't there been a minimal-boilerplate language and framework and programming environment? Why haven't we collectively emphasized the creation of new tools to reduce boilerplate and grunt work?
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