Linux Archive

"CrunchBang Linux, a lightweight, Ubuntu-based, thumb-drive-friendly operating system... is now available in 64-bit editions for version 9.04.01, which also adds support for the ext4 hard drive format and more wireless networking support. CrunchBang already booted pretty darned fast in our initial tests, but long-time users are reporting noticeable improvements with the newest version. On the look and feel side, there are more themes included, and support for more theming standards in general. Transmission becomes the default BitTorrent client, and a host of usability improvements were tossed in as well."

"The Linux 2.6.31 kernel is still under active development until it is released later this quarter, but the merge window is closed and most of the work going on is to address bugs and other regressions within this massive code-base. Some of the key additions to the Linux 2.6.31 kernel include many graphics-related advancements (merging of the TTM memory manager, Radeon kernel mode-setting, Intel DisplayPort, etc), an ALSA driver for the Creative X-Fi, initial USB 3.0 support, file-system improvements, and much more. To see how the general system performance has been impacted by the new Linux kernel that is in development, we have a few benchmarks today."

The FAT file system is the file system used by MS-DOS and earlier versions of Windows. It's a relatively simple and straightforward file system, supported by just about any operating system, making it the favoured file system on memory cards and the like. FAT is an ECMA and ISO standard, but these only apply for FAT12 and FAT16 without support for long file names, and therein lies a problem.

A couple of days ago kvm-87 was released featuring bug fixes, performance improvements, a preview of irqfd, new support for http protocol using curl version 6., and additional support for port redirection. The most notable of these from the end user perspective is the new http support. A good use case for this new feature is booting a livecd over http with a command like "qemu-kvm -cdrom http://www.sample.com/linux.iso". Awesome!

"As my colleague Michelle Menga is reporting, Amazon is now making new source code available for its Amazon Kindle. Basically what it represents is, Amazon's responsibility to make the GPL licenced source code that is used in the Kindle available to others. That's part of the GPL license and Amazon is doing its part. Digging into the code that Amazon is now making available, provides some really interesting insight into the underlying structure of the Kindle."

"Let's take a look at SquashFS. SquashFS is a read-only compressed file system that has a variable block size. The primary intent of the file system is for constrained block device/memory systems. The classic example targets SquashFS for embedded systems but there are other uses for it that fall outside of the embedded world, and could surprise you."

"CRUX PPC 2.5 is now available. Supports Apple 32bit "NewWorld" G3/G4 and Apple 64bit G5, Genesi PegasosII and Efika, Acube Sam440ep, IBM RS/6000 CHRP32 (604e), YDL Powerstation, IBM Intellistation POWER, and IBM pSeries RS64/POWERn. CRUX PPC 2.5 is released as two different installation ISO: 32bit and 64bit. The 32bit version is based on a single lib toolchain instead the 64bit one comes with a multilib toolchain. These two versions share the same ports tree. To increase CRUX PPC usability on pSeries, starting from 2.5 we do provide ports for some IBM utils."

The 2.6.30 kernel is chock full of next-gen file systems. One such example is NILFS, a new log-structured file system that dramatically improves write performance.

There are several ways to run Windows programs on Linux (virtualisation, WINE) and vice versa really isn't a problem either with Cygwin, or better yet, native ports thanks to the Windows variants of Gtk+ and Qt. Still, what if Windows support was built straight into the Linux kernel? Is something like that even possible? Sure it is, and the Chinese figured it'd be an interesting challenge, and called it the Linux Unified Kernel.

Eric Paris, a SELinux developer, has announced today a new SELinux feature: "Dan and I (mostly Dan) have started to play with using SELinux to confine random untrusted binaries. The program is called 'sandbox.' The idea is to allow administrators to lock down tightly untrusted applications in a sandbox where they can not use the network and open/create any file that is not handed to the process. Can be used to protect a system while allowing it to run some untrusted binary."

There is a crying demand among mobile phone vendors for talented ARM programmers, and there's plenty of work to be done. This article provides a starting point for understanding the software side of embedded systems development by describing one set of commonly used tools: the GNU ARM toolchain.

"We first got excited for Moblin 2.0 back in January when seeing how fast this Linux distribution had booted on Atom-powered netbooks. This Fedora-derived distribution booted even faster with a newer development release that came out this past March. While Moblin 2.0 final is not yet released, there is now more to get excited over than just amazing boot times. Moblin 2.0 will introduce a Clutter-based user interface and from our initial encounters with this release, it is very impressive! In this article we have more information on this new Moblin UI along with screenshots and videos."

Processes can be short-lived or long-lived. For this reason, the general management of processes and their scheduling is very important. See the kernel representation of processes and how they're managed in the kernel, then review the various means by which processes are created and scheduled on one or more processors, and finally, what happens if they die.

"Following up on our introductory article on Btrfs, Jeff Layton talked with Chris Mason, Director of Linux Kernel Engineering at Oracle and the founder and lead developer of Btrfs."