RPM maintainer Jeff Johnson publilshed a reply to Claudio Matsuoka's Top 10 Problems in RPM article, adding more interesting points to the discussion. If you value politeness, skip this discussion.
With all of the attention on dual core processors lately, it has been real easy to overlook the one application that might benefit more from multiple cores than any other; Linux. OK, so technically Linux isn't an application, but the kernel has supported SMP for nine years almost to the date. But does any of this translate to great desktop performance for dual core processors?
Despite the constant predictions of "This year will be the year of the Linux desktop", such predictions have yet to become reality. While the reasons for this are numerous, they all tend to boil down to Linux being built as a server and workstation OS rather than a home system. This article will focus on how a distribution might be designed to not only make Linux a competitive desktop solution, but to propel it into a leader in the Desktop market.
If you've heard about Linux and feel like giving it a go or if you want to try Linux but you're too afraid it'll shew up your computer, this article is for you. Read it, feel free to take what you need and ignore the rest. This is not a tutorial, it's a README-FIRST-like article. It should help you to take that first dive.
"We've all had this nightmare. You turn on your functioning Windows/Linux PC, and all you get is a blank screen, or a message telling you that certain files are missing, or the kernel has panicked for some obscure reason. Nothing works, and you need the data on your machine." A Linux rescue-cd is the solution.
IBM, Sony and Toshiba have jointly ported Linux to the Cell processor, the 4GHz multi-core PowerPC chip they co-developed. The Cell CPU is slated to ship in Sony's Playstation 3 next spring, but is likely to appear before that in workstations, embedded computing devices, and supercomputers. The Cell's Linux port includes a 64-bit PowerPC Linux kernel, along with a filesystem that abstracts the Cell's independent vector processing units so that the Linux kernel can make use of them. The companies hope their Cell Linux port will be merged into the next mainstream Linux kernel release, 2.6.13.
Rexx is a scripting language that was invented at IBM years ago. The Linux community has largely ignored Rexx, but I believe it could play an important role in Linux's challenge to the Windows desktop. How can a language many in the Linux community have never even heard of be valuable in Linux's fight for the desktop?
The Software Revolution, Inc. (TSRI) announced web publication of the most comprehensive and detailed design documentation ever available for the Linux Operating System. Linux Open Design 2.6 is a richly hyper-linked graphic and textual blueprint for the entire Linux Kernel, Security, Memory Management, File System, Cryptography, Initialization, Drivers, and Architecture and Inter-Process Communications (IPC) Subsystems.
June saw new releases of two of the world's most significant Linux distributions—Red Hat Inc.'s Fedora Core and Software in the Public Interest Inc.'s Debian—both of which are popular, freely available and capable of serving well in roles from the server room to the desktop.
"Sometimes System Administrators need to determine where applications spend most of their time, in order to tune their systems better. The traditional method, when the source code for the application and gcc are available, is just to recompile the application with the – pg flag and to use gprof to profile it. Other than the inconvenience of the recompilation process, the solution is pretty straightforward. But what happens when you don’t have the source code for the application? And what if you’d like to profile the system as a whole? That’s when oprofile comes in handy."
The Sun Times has published an article discussing Linux and its viability as a desktop operating system. Be warned: this article can safely be filed under "flamebait."
In a follow-up to last week's Linux distro roundup, TipMonkies has published an article introducing users to partitioning and filesystems, and explains how to set up a dual-boot environment.
Andrew Morton, maintainer of "mm" patchset of the Linux Kernel which acts as a development tree has posted a long list of features for potential inclusion in the 2.6.13 version of the Linux kernel.
Extended attributes are name/value pairs that can be assigned to any file and directory. They allow for more infomation to be embedded in the filesystem when file and directory names aren't enough, like ID3 tags on mp3s. Most Linux distributions and filesystems support it, and you just need to turn it on. Linux.com has more.
TipMonkies has an article highlighting some of the major distros and their derivatives. The article discusses some history and the advantages and disadvantages of each distro. If you have not been keeping up with Linux developments, or have yet to try a distro, it may be a good place to start.
Imagine using your iPod and a regular old microphone to record studio-quality audio. Or sitting on a commuter train and playing Othello, Pong, Tetris, or Asteroids. All this and more is possible when you install Linux on your third-generation or earlier iPod. Best of all, one soft reset, and you’re back in Apple’s iPod operating system, listening to your tunes.
Performance analysis and bottleneck determination in Linux is not rocket science. It requires some basic knowledge of the hardware and kernel architecture and the use of some standard tools. Using a hands-on approach they’ll walk readers through the different subsystems and the key indicators, to understand which component constitutes the current bottleneck of a system.
You can talk all you want about how Mactels aren't going to be that wonderful, but if you want to see many enterprise Linux desktops around in 2007, start making it happen says Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
