We didn't have a Week in Review last week, and I'm sorry for that - I was swamped with other things (hence no podcast either last week, we did record one today). This past week saw news items on a wide variety of topics, ranging from Google fixing Internet Explorer to Linus calling Linux bloated.
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Member since:2005-12-02
Who at this time and day needs 386 support built in the kernel?
if that attidute doesnt change, linux kernel will go past 1gb compiled in next five years
The kernel devs actually get rid of stuff they deem not necessary all the time. Look at Intel Software raid, which the support was removed from the kernel since the devs did not think it was important to have. Convince the kernel team no one uses something, they will remove it whether it is in use or not. Then you run into the problem of course of people no longer using the kernel as the support that was ripped out was in use, forcing the people to go back to windows or find yet another system to use. Can you say with certainty that no one still uses i386 for anything?
Member since:2009-04-23
Nobody is forcing you to support i386 and doesn't and the support in the source code doesn't cost you either.
And as far as that goes many if not most distros are compiling for i686 these days. And as far as supporting old hardware what is the problem people if you aren't using the driver it isn't getting loaded in as a module and so doesn't matter it isn't affecting your system at all. Old code gets culled because nobody is around to support it and it gets crufty as they say if somebody knows how it works cleans it up and gets it working they have no reason to throw it out.
The real bloat I think he is complaining about is lack of code reuse and inefficient/poor coding. Sure you keep adding features to your kernel it will get a bit bigger that is expected however it shouldn't be getting slower.
Member since:
2006-02-16
Bloat is mostly caused by Linux developers "Nothing ever gets thrown away" attitude.
Who at this time and day needs 386 support built in the kernel?
if that attidute doesnt change, linux kernel will go past 1gb compiled in next five years