Linux Archive

Interview with ELX Founder & Chief Architect, Abhi Datt

Eugenia Loli 2002-02-05 Linux 12 Comments

DesktopLinux.com founder and executive editor Rick Lehrbaum interviews Abhi Datt, Chief Software Architect and founder of Project ELX, a new project to create a uniquely easy-to-use Linux distribution. Abhi Datt describes his vision for Project ELX, lists the main features of the ELX Linux distribition, provides an update on the status of ELX, and shares his thoughts on how Linux can succeed on the desktop and elsewhere.

The Forest of the Linux Kernel Trees

Submitted by ramesh 2002-02-05 Linux No Comments

Ramesh writes: "I came upon this kernel Benchmark article at Byte, via Slashdot. Very good data on different kernels. The author has done testing on different kernels with input from Alan Cox and Andrea Arcangeli."

RPM-based Linux Optimization Tutorial

Eugenia Loli 2002-02-03 Linux 1 Comment

This PDF tutorial will teach you how to optimized i686 binaries that should run on Athlon, Duron, Pentium IV, PIII PII, Pentium or Celeron based PC. The tutorial also teaches how to specifically optimize QT and KDE and includes some interesting links to some more Linux optimization sites.

Breakthrough for Penguin-Heads

Submitted by John J. Karcher 2002-02-02 Linux 3 Comments

"Linux users' and developers' lives have just gotten a little easier. The Free Standards Group released two tools on Thursday intended to ensure that all Linux applications can run on any Linux Standard Base-compliant version of the open source operating system: LSB 1.1 and Li18nux 1.0. Some commercial application developers, including Microsoft, have slammed open source development, saying that it lacks the necessary controls to define the common programming standards that need to be used across different projects to ensure compatibility." Read the rest of the story at Wired.

Some Good Reasons Not to Use Linux

Eugenia Loli 2002-02-01 Linux 80 Comments

"Some people can use Linux, and some can't. No matter how many Linux zealots talk nasty about Windows or Mac users or say that Linux is wonderful, not everyone can do their work in Linux." A thoughtful editorial at NewsForge.

The Need for a Patch Penguin

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-31 Linux 9 Comments

"A proposal to help Linus Torvalds keep up with patches for Linux has sparked a controversy over whether the operating system has outgrown its creator. On Monday, Rob Landley, a computer programmer, writer and Linux evangelist, posted a proposal to the Linux kernel development list calling for a "Patch Penguin"--a person who would help integrate fixes for the myriad of small problems that plague the current development kernel, Linux 2.5." Read the rest of the story at C|Net News. In other Linux news, test kernel 2.5.3 was released yesterday.

Sony Signs up Linux for PlayStation 2

Submitted by Yves R. Crevecoeur 2002-01-30 Linux 26 Comments

"Sony says it will begin selling disks to install Linux on PlayStation 2 and tools to develop Linux applications. Kits will include a 40GB hard drive, keyboard and mouse." Read the rest of the story at ZDNews.

LinuxWorld: Services Aimed at Businesses

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-30 Linux No Comments

"Last year's LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in New York was a time for major vendors like IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co. to debut new hardware offerings running various flavors of the Linux open-source operating system. This year, with Linux-based server sales holding their own, the focus is on keeping those customers happy by giving them the kind of service and support that until now has mainly gone to customers running Unix and Windows. The Linux community is also looking for ways to broaden use of the operating system in business computing. About 150 vendors are expected at the show, which is down from about 200 at last year's LinuxWorld, said Rob Schescherareg, a vice president of sales, marketing and product development at Boston-based IDG, which runs the event. Some of the decrease is due to the economy, because some of pure-play Linux companies no longer exist, he said. IDG expects up to 19,000 visitors to the show, down from about 25,000 last year." Read the rest of the report at CNN.

Torvalds Looks Ahead

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-24 Linux 14 Comments

"As the Linux community prepares to congregate next week in New York for the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, the center of attention, as always, will be Linux creator Linus Torvalds. A little more than a year ago Torvalds released the 2.4 kernel and has spent much of the year working on numerous 2.4.x versions to further stabilize and strengthen Linux. After handing the 2.4 kernel over to Marcelo Tosatti to maintain late last year, he turned his attention to the 2.5 development tree. Torvalds took time out to exchange e-mail with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli about his work on and vision for 2.5." Read the interesting Q&A at eWeek.

Interview With Preemptible Kernel Patch Maintainer, Robert Love

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-18 Linux No Comments

"In this interview, LinuxDevices.com founder and executive editor Rick Lehrbaum chats with Robert Love, the principal maintainer of an increasingly popular kernel-preemption patch that improves the real-time responsiveness of the Linux kernel. Love describes his role in the project, explains why the preemption enhancement is important to a broad range of Linux applications beyond just embedded/real-time (including end-users' desktops), and shares his vision of the future of Linux in the embedded and desktop markets." Read the very interesting interview at LinuxDevices.

Real Time and Linux, Part 1

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-18 Linux No Comments

"What is real time? This article, first of a three-part series, introduces the benchmarks we'll run on real-time Linux version in the next two issues. Linux is well tuned for throughput-limited applications, but it is not well designed for deterministic response, though enhancements to the kernel are available to help or guarantee determinism. So-called real-time applications require, among other things, deterministic response. In this article I examine the nature of real-time applications and Linux's strengths and weaknesses in supporting such applications." Read the rest of the story at LinuxDevices.

Linux Virtual Machines For All

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-17 Linux No Comments

""The Heist." A panicking manager type leads police detectives into what appears to be an empty server room. "It's the crime of the century!" the balding, middle-aged, middle manger exclaims over cheesy adventure-movie background music. "Everything's gone!" "What was stolen?" asks one of the cops. "Everything," the pointy-haired boss answers, "payroll, R&D, customer records ..." Of course, our hero, a scruffy-looking geek boy, saves the day. He points to a mainframe in the back of the room, and says, "We moved everything onto that one. It's going to save us a bundle. I sent out an email ... " The music swells, and the announcer says something about IBM servers running Linux saving you a bundle. What the commercial doesn't tell you is that the spendy IBM server in the commercial is running multiple copies of Linux at one time as virtual machines." Read the rest of the interesting article regarding virtualization at NewsForge.

USB 2 Arrives in Linux’s Unstable Kernel

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-17 Linux 11 Comments

The faster version 2.0 of the Universal Serial Bus connection technology, the center of some controversy with Windows, has been incorporated into the latest test version of Linux. Linus Torvalds, founder and leader of the Linux operating-system project, released version 2.5.2 of the "kernel," or core software, Monday, including initial support for USB 2.0. Linux may have lost its allure as a get-rich-quick scheme for would-be entrepreneurs, but the largely volunteer programming community that advances the core software is still functioning." Read the rest of the story at C|Net News.com. The unstable kernel 2.5.x also includes the new VM, scheduler and we hope to see the preemptible and XFS patches rolling in that source tree. In the USB 2 matter, Windows2k/XP's USB 2 stack is also not ready yet, but it has already leaked on the web.

The 2.4.x Kernel of Pain

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-17 Linux 11 Comments

"For desktops, the 2.4 version of the kernel is just fine. If you have heavy-duty processing needs, 2.4 has been a series of disappointments. Sysadmins of big iron have two choices -- go back in time or play upgrade hopscotch. Both have problems. Let's start from the beginning. In July 2001, I was responsible for upgrading a customer's server from Red Hat 6.2 to Mandrake 8.0. The machine was built from scratch, and Mandrake was installed onto a freshly formatted RAID 5 array. We then migrated the Red Hat 6.2 applications to the new machine." Read the rest of the story at InfoWorld.

Interview with Rik van Riel

Jon Jensen 2002-01-15 Linux No Comments

Slashdot mentions a new interview with Linux kernel hacker Rik van Riel by Andrew Scrimieri, available in Italian and English. Rik currently works for Conectiva and wrote the kernel virtual memory subsystem used in Linux 2.4 until recent versions, when Linus Torvalds replaced it. He talks about friction regarding the VM, VM specifics, kernel politics and multiple kernel trees, the kernelnewbies project, and the DMCA.

KernelTrap Interview with Alan Cox

Guest post by Jeremy Andrews 2002-01-15 Linux 3 Comments

KernelTrap has spoken with Linux guru Alan Cox. He is perhaps the second most influental Linux kernel hacker, next only to Linus. In this interview he talks about himself, his history with computers and Linux, working for Red Hat, Marcello and the 2.4 kernel, the DMCA, the future of Linux and much more.

CodingStyle.com Interviews wxWindows Developers

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-10 Linux 1 Comment

wxWindows is a cross-platform applications framework available under a free license. Early this year marks wxWindows 10th birthday, and to mark this event codingstyle.com has an exclusive interview with several key developers of the project.

Interview With TheKompany CEO Shawn Gordon

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-08 Linux No Comments

From NewsForge: "According to its website, the goal of theKompany is "to provide developers with powerful, easy-to-use tools for creating equally powerful and useful software for the world's leading open-source operating system, Linux -- and thereby ensure the long-term success of Linux." To find out more about theKompany and its plans for supporting Linux on the corporate and home desktop, DesktopLinux.com spoke with theKompany President and Founder, Shawn Gordon."

New Kernel Scheduler Proposal & Patch For Linux

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-06 Linux 3 Comments

"Ingo Molnar recently posted a patch to the Linux Kernel mailing list that, in his own words, is "a pretty radical rewrite of the Linux scheduler". He includes links to the patch for 2.5.2-pre6 and 2.4.17. The stated goals are to retain the good things from existing scheduler, fully O(1) scheduling, 'perfect' SMP scalability, better SMP affinity." Read the rest of the story, and the whole email Ingo sent to the mailing list, at KernelTrap.org. The article includes information regarding the gain in performance, new features etc that the new Kernel Scheduler brings. This is indeed great news for the Linux users, developers and performance hungry admins.

Ximian & theKompany: Converging Doctrines

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-04 Linux 2 Comments

"If KDE and GNOME are the Hatfield and McCoy of Open Source graphical desktop environments, then theKompany.com and Ximian are not exactly kissing cousins. But the philosophical beliefs of the two businesses are converging, and the community is settling down to a broader acceptance of commercial software. Assuming computer users choose their desktops before they choose their desktop applications, ostensibly theKompany's and Ximian's target markets are non-intersecting sets. But their business practices and philosophies on Open Source have been scrutinized, discussed and compared at length in public." Read the editorial at NewsForge.