Linux Archive

New Kernel Scheduler Proposal & Patch For Linux

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.
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Ximian & theKompany: Converging Doctrines

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.
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The Future of Linux Discussed Once More

Linux 35 Comments
The 2002 is here and everyone's seems busy writing editorials as to what it might bring to Linux. Some are optimistic, others are not so much. Judging from the amount of the... almanac Linux articles on the web, one thing is for sure: people are worried about its further success. Newsforge says (wisely) that Linux doesn't have to beat with Windows while ZDNews has three articles already: "Is it time for Linux on the desktop?", "2002 prediction: Linux won't make it this year" and "Will Linux survive the dot-com crash?"
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Kernel Hacker Interview: Dave Jones

Linux No Comments
Kerneltrap interviewed Dave Jones who currently lives in London, employed by SuSE as a Linux kernel hacker. In the past six months since he graduated from the University of Glamorgan he has gotten involved in an impressive range of kernel related projects, including Powertweak, x86info, OProfile and the Kernel Janitors Project. Additionally, he maintains a -dj patch for the 2.5 development kernel, helping to sync it with the stable 2.4 kernel as well as offering increased stability.
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Compiling the Linux Kernel

Linux 8 Comments
At the time I was writing this article, the Linux kernel 2.4.17 was released only 3 days ago and these holly days you may find some more time to experiement with it. The following article includes step-by-step instructions on how to compile a Linux 2.4.X kernel, an article mostly targetting people who have never dared to compile their own kernel yet. Read on and we promise, it is not that hard to do so.
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ExtremeTech Says the Time is Now for Linux

Linux 46 Comments
"If you have ever considered Linux as an alternative operating system, but were not willing to invest the time for any of the following reasons, now is the time to reconsider. If you have been concerned about the steep learning curve, potential glitches, or the possible loss of valuable data, these concerns have been addressed. For the first time, Linux is accessible to the uninitiated user with the recent releases of the best, most refined, easy to install, and more user-friendly versions." ExtremeTech reviews RedHat 7.2, Mandrake 8.1, SuSE 7.3 and the Debian-based Libranet 1.9.1.
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All’s Quiet on the Linux Front

Linux 3 Comments
"It wasn’t so long ago: 1999 and 2000 saw a great deal of innovation and interest, not to mention hype, about the Linux open-source operating system, and by extension, open-source software in general. This year the focus has been more on other technologies, such as application servers, portals, distributed component models and Web services. Does anyone still care about Linux? And if so, why the seemingly deafening silence? It seems that the open-source system moves past hype to serious implementation." Read the rest of the interesting editorial at SDTimes.
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TimeSys Announces Availability Of TimeSys Linux GPL

Linux No Comments
TimeSys Linux GPL is a full Linux distribution for all supported embedded boards that includes everything needed to develop, deploy, and maintain an embedded platform, including not only (according to the company) the world's lowest-latency Linux kernel, but also all the libraries, tool chains, utilities, drivers, scripts, and documentation, all distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). TimeSys Linux GPL consists of a powerful, fully featured, preemptible Linux kernel and all other components needed to extend a standard Linux distribution to support predictable, extremely low-latency response. The fully preemptible capabilities mean the kernel has bounded, mutex-based kernel locking with a new fixed priority scheduler, schedulable (meaning the developer sets the priorities) interrupt handlers, and schedulable extended interrupt handlers, including the IP stack.
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Linux on your Desktop – Again

Linux 43 Comments
"I recently got my test copy of Elx (Everyone's Linux), which made it almost certain to me that Linux is going to be on everybody's desktop much sooner than I ever expected. The complete system is so well crafted for users of Windows that it took my friend, who is a hardcore Windowsian, quite a while to figure out that its not just "another" version of his favorite Windows." Is it some XP or something" came the reply before he could find out that it was Elx." Read the rest of the editorial at DesktopLinux.com. However, NewsForge reviews a 29-pages .pdf file (228 KB) published at DeveloperWorks, written by an IBM Technical Writter. Mr Chapman says that "desktop Linux is good but not for everyone".
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Can Yellow Dog Learn New Tricks?

Linux 3 Comments
Last week RedHat entered into the PowerPC market, leaving Yellow Dog Linux, the distribution that is a port of RedHat to the PowerPC, in a precarious position. When SuSE and Mandrake also entered the PPC market, LinuxPPC was the first of the PPC-only Linux companies that put a break into their further development. As PPC-only Linux company, where is YDL will be standing in the near future? Read the editorial at TuxPPC.
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Torvalds: Linux Was Not Designed

  Submitted by J Linux 14 Comments
A thread on the Linux Kernel mailing list started innocently enough about proper spacing in source code, then grew and grew into a somewhat philosophical debate about evolution and code design. The subject of the thread was "Coding style - a non-issue". However, before long a debate was sparked, leading to some interesting comments by Linus and some others, perhaps best summarized by Alan Cox's comment: "Engineering does not require science. Science helps a lot but people built perfectly good brick walls long before they knew why cement works." and Linus Torvalds: "And I know better than most that what I envisioned 10 years ago has _nothing_ in common with what Linux is today. There was certainly no premeditated design there."
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ComputerWorld on the Future of Linux

Linux 16 Comments
"I predict that Linux will eventually be at the foundation of nearly every enterprise system and that the whole issue of which server operating system to choose will then disappear into ambient background noise. It's not often that I make predictions about predictions, but because the above prophecy is so bold, I'll make an exception: I predict that this will turn out to be one of the easiest predictions I've ever made." Nicholas Petreley predicts the future of Linux for ComputerWorld.
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Linux Kernel 2.4.15 Released

Linux 8 Comments
Linux kernel version 2.4.15 has been released and it is available from Kernel.org and its mirrors. Patch here, Changelog here, while the development, unstable, 2.5 source tree opened by Linus Torvalds. Update: A serious bug has been discovered on both 2.4.15 & 2.5 kernels and it can corrupt your filesystem. Please use an older version of the kernel until 2.4.16 comes out. Update 2: Linux kernel 2.4.16 has been released. Patch here, source here.
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ext3 fs Makes it to the Kernel Source Tree

Linux 7 Comments
The journaling file system ext3 made it to the test version of 2.4.15 Linux kernel and it seems that it will be as standard of the final version of the kernel. ext3 has pretty much the same design and capabilities of ext2, but it adds journaling. Our Take: Can't wait for the day that SGI's next generation, truly advanced file system, XFS, will make it to the main source tree. Update: In a related note, the NTFS driver for Linux was updated today with support for WindowsXP's NTFS 5 among other new features.
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Turbolinux 7 Server to Hit the Market

Linux 1 Comment
Based on Linux Kernel 2.4, Turbolinux 7 Server supports 64 GB of memory, a journal file system, a 128-bit SSL library, and 32 SMP support. It is scheduled to begin shipping on December 7. Turbolinux is focusing on enterprise business needs with this release, as it tried to design this version of the server with extreme flexibility and functionality in mind. "Turbolinux 7 Server offers businesses a highly secure, high-performance operating system," Pete Beckman, vice president of engineering for Turbolinux said in a prepared statement.
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Companies Reluctant to Take on Linux

Linux 4 Comments
"Linux penguins are braying louder, but companies don't plan to adopt many of them in the near future. Almost every large company has at least thought about Linux, and some of them are running pilot projects or even day-to-day (albeit nonessential) systems on the open-source operating system. And because the economy is still weak, many tech observers believe that Linux--and its price tag of "free"--will attract more businesses looking to cut costs. At least that's the theory. Practice indicates something else." Read the rest of the editorial at ZDNews.
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