Linux Archive

IBM has been chanting Linux for a long time now but the company has never clearly explained why it prefers Linux to Windows. I have written an opinion piece which gives the motives behind commercial backing Linux is receiving. The article also details the impact commercial interests are likely to have on the future development of Linux. The URL of the article is here.

This article documents the test results and analysis of the Linux kernel and other core OS components, including everything from libraries and device drivers to file systems and networking, all under some fairly adverse conditions, and over lengthy durations. The IBM Linux Technology Center has just finished this comprehensive testing over a period of more than three months and shares the results of their LTP (Linux Test Project) testing with developerWorks readers.

A recent posting to the lkml suggested that the udev project has unfairly hijacked the devfs project, leading into yet another lengthy discussion comparing udev to devfs, and questioning why the latter has been deprecated. Linux devfs was written by Richard Gooch and merged into the 2.3.46 kernel in February of 2000.

Lorma linux 4.0 is the first distribution to be based on Fedora Core, outside of Redhat, that is. It is one of those new breed of single-CD distros that try to include only the best-of-breed applications.

Slashdot reports on Linus' replies to SCO's allegations that 65 header files were copied from UNIX.

The religious wars over open-source software—especially Linux—are over. What lies ahead is a steely-eyed pragmatism about the software's pros and cons. Read the article at CIOInsight.

A couple of weeks ago TerraSoft released preliminary 64-bit ISO's of their flagship product, Yellow Dog Linux 3.0.1 (YDL), especially for owners of Apple's new G5 machines. I was pining for a chance to get an open source OS running in 64-bit mode so I quickly downloaded the three ISO's.

Top programmers hope to release on Wednesday a major update to Linux, version 2.6.0, a change that's expected to help carry the open-source operating system into new markets. Linux 2.6 might get released tonight, C|Net says. UPDATE: The kernel 2.6.0 is out. Get it while it's hot. Changelog here.

Debian and KDE developers have announced an ambitious initiative to provide an enterprise Linux desktop operating system based on the KDE interface. Perens, an important open-source community leader, though, sees this move as pulling effort away from his similar GNOME-based plan, UserLinux.

This is the second installment of the "Linux on the Opteron, are we ready?" article. Basically, it is a "where are we now?" article, noting that what once did work now does not, and others that did not work now do. The first article was published on OSNews almost three months ago. Since that time not too much has happened publicly in regards to the amd64 Linux situation, but a lot of people mailed to tell me that I should have checked out SuSE or the new Mandrake which was "about to be released" at that time. Also since that time I have upgraded the RAM and acquired a larger hard disk for the machine. I will give a brief rundown of the system as it stands now, what I tried to install on it, and what works.

KernelTrap posted an interview with William Lee Irwin III, aka 'wli', and a step-by-step guide to installing his performance improving -wli patchset.

IBM e-business architect Chris Walden is your guide through a nine-part developerWorks series on moving your operational skills from a Windows to a Linux environment. He covers everything from logging to networking, and from the command-line to help systems etc.

A debate has started in the Linux kernel mailing list about the ide-scsi module. The cdrecord guys want it up while Linus points out that the module is "bad" and it imposes a number of problems to users. Our take: I've been hit by most of Linus' points: from the 'silly CD numbering' confusion, to the need to have two LILO entries to load ide-scsi or not in order to either burn a CD or be able to watch DVD.

Linux news is getting more and more exciting, and somehow, managing to get less and less interesting. Why? Because the speed of development is getting so rapid that it's hard to get excited for each upcoming release, keep your system completely up to date, and even remember what the current version of your favorite distributions are. This breakneck pace of development means good and bad things, but I have a few ideas about how I expect it to turn out.