Slashdot Mirror

joabj writes "Following up on experiments of running Internet Protocol(IP)-based networks with carrier pigeons or bongos, UofC grad student R. Stuart Geiger has demonstrated that it is possible to transmit simple ping requests across two computers using people playing xylophones. Throughput is roughly 1 baud, when the participants don't make any mistakes, or get bored and wander off. The OSI encapsulated model of networking makes this project doable, allowing humans to be inserted at Layer 1, the physical layer. Vint Cerf wasn't kidding when he used to say, 'IP on Everything.'"

joabj writes "Following up on experiments of running Internet Protocol(IP)-based networks with carrier pigeons or bongos, UofC grad student R. Stuart Geiger has demonstrated that it is possible to transmit simple ping requests across two computers using people playing xylophones. Throughput is roughly 1 baud, when the participants don't make any mistakes, or get bored and wander off. The OSI encapsulated model of networking makes this project doable, allowing humans to be inserted at Layer 1, the physical layer. Vint Cerf wasn't kidding when he used to say, 'IP on Everything.'"

Marco Sanvido asks: "I often look at source code (especially C, but this question is valid for other languages as well) and I have a really hard time in understanding how it works. Documentation is often missing or quite outdated, and the only way to see how the program works is to try to understand the source code. Which tools do you prefer to use for browsing and studying source code? So far I have used LXR for Linux, Eclipse for java, and CScope, but I'm not sure that these tools are the best solution." It's tempting to flood this question with answers for your IDE, but the key thing here is _browsing_, not _development_. What decent, lightweight programs would work well as source code viewers?

hpavc asks: "I have played with watchdog daemons and hacks on and off for a while. I am wondering if there are any reccomendations out there for which real cards watchdog cards are of the best value. Or as some suggest is it all just a scam. From what I read the mechanisms of the cards differ greatly, both in their monitoring and their response. From simply watching an area of DMA to an embedded device with a os that monitors a large amount of things on the computer hardware and the environment. (tia)"

We've all heard plenty about IBM's investment in Linux, but we don't hear much from -- or about -- the actual Linux developers at IBM. This interview is not with one person, but with a number of IBM Linux people spearheaded by Dave Hansen, who volunteered to help us with this interview. Of the group responding to your questions, Dave says, "There are more people, but the majority of the group's skills are represented. No surprise that we'll have our responses reviewed before we send them back to you, but we'll try to expedite that. "A little background: The group's experience is pretty broad. Most members were Sequent employees who worked on Dynix/PTX before IBM acquired Sequent (we are still mostly based in Beaverton, OR). Not everyone was with Sequent; Matt Dobson and Dave Hansen came into the group last summer, right out of college. A few of our Austin colleagues are long time IBM employees who worked on the AIX kernel before moving to Linux. Ask about anything from the rmap VM, to PTX's crashdump facilities, to life in Portland :)

• Martin Bligh - Large IA32 system VM scalability, Specweb, NUMA
• Dave Hansen - Big Kernel Lock, SMP locking, Specweb99
• Matt Dobson - NUMA API/ Documentation
• Rick Lindsley - SMP/NUMA Locking, Performance Tuning
• Patricia Gaughen - Discontiguous Memory for NUMA
• Bill Irwin - VM/rmap hacker
• Hanna Linder - dcache_lock scalability
• Janet Morgan - I/O Scalability
• Ruth Forrester - database/performance/scalability"

As usual, please ask only one question per post. We'll forward 10 of the highest moderated questions to Dave, and run all the answers, verbatim, as soon as we get them back.

Crossfire writes: "IP over Avian Carrier (RFC1149) was just a joke, right? It would seem not. The Bergen Linux Users Group has made it a reality! It would also seem that Alan Cox was present for the event too, given by the photos on the page." This is just excellent. Kudos to everyone involved.

Crossfire writes: "IP over Avian Carrier (RFC1149) was just a joke, right? It would seem not. The Bergen Linux Users Group has made it a reality! It would also seem that Alan Cox was present for the event too, given by the photos on the page." This is just excellent. Kudos to everyone involved.