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2.4 Kernel Delayed, Says Linus
cnkeller writes with this snippet from an article in InfoWorld: "BERLIN -- THE much-anticipated 2.4 version of the Linux
kernel will take at least another two months to
complete, Linus Torvalds, creator of the open-source
operating system, said here Friday.
'It's been a slower process than many people would
like,' he said, remarking that developers are no
longer adding new features, only fixing bugs. 'With
luck, we'll see it in early December, and with not so
good luck, I still hope that we can do it this side of
the year.'"
Could it be because they have no OBLIGATION to you to finish to YOUR schedule, because its a HOBBY? Could it be that maybe they'd like to see their FAMILY after their DAY JOB?
Mozilla gets better all the time, but it still blows compared to IE (I'm still with 5.01).
Sad, but true.
Also, as the comment you replied pointed out: 'Companies are building their information infrastructure around intranets and web development. MS is providing these companies with easy to use applications such as MS Office 2000 and IE 5.x. You may not want to here it, but this alone will keep these companies using MS products alone!'
Do you seriously think Mozilla is ready for this?
Well, at least I hope it will be out before the year 2038 problem kicks in?!
This is what Linus addressed after saying what's quoted in the article. He asked the audience to go and test the latest 2.4-test kernels, because if you want to switch over richt after 2.4.0 is released, you better have tried to look for showstoppers first.
--Arni
I'm running test9 right now and my system is stable
> This doesn't happen with closed-source stuff, where the marketing forces hound the developers
Fun. I recall Apple beeing slamed here because OS X is about one year late...
Two systems of measurment ? Or different people...
I'm trying Netscape 6 PR3 (2000092908) right now and it's performing nicely. Previous PR crashed like hell but this one is pretty good and I'll think I'll stick to it... What specific problems did you have with it?
test9?
:)
sheet,I just got test8 all up aand going properly on my system at home. Bah.
Course, I don't *need* anything in the 2.4 kernels, it's just nice to be on the edge once and a while
If someone posted that Windows [whateverthehelltheyareworkingonnow] was delayed, you *know* that the first 20 posts would be "vaporware! vaporware!", without consideration for why, how or what they were doing it for. Simple MS discrimination (I'm guilty of the same thing).
:)
Not that MS would ever delay any vapor*cough*.net*cough*ware^Wproducts
How come when MS misses a date it's vaporware, fud, etc... and Linux gets moved back and it's all "That's okay".
The two cities are 300 miles apart, and LWCE is currently taking place in Frankfurt, where I saw Linus yesterday.
These delays don't say much about open source development... except maybe that people who work on open source tend to prefer quality releases over early releases.
What these delays really tell us is that predicting the future is inherently difficult. You don't ever know exactly how long some task is going to take until after it is finished. I wish typical managers understood this... as a computer programmer no matter how hard I try to accurately predict when a project will be complete, I'm still just guessing, and nothing can be done about this, it's just the way the universe works.
This, BTW, is why the progress bars in well-written installation-tools are data-based instead of time-based... i.e. when it says 72% it means that 72% of the data has been copied, not that 72% of the total installation time has past. The software knows how much total data there is, and can accurately report a percentage fraction of that data. But the software does not know much total installation time will be required... all kinds of things such as multitasking or hard drive variances or even temperature changes in the CPU can change the total amount of time required to copy the files. So no precentage fraction of the total installation time can be reported, it's an unknown quantity.
-- laws are the opinions of politicians --
-- laws are the opinions of politicians --
Who is Linux?
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Well, there WERE big bugs and it was embarrassing to him and the other primary developers through several point releases. I think they deserve to take their time and earn the awe that this release will deserve (and, in many ways, already does). The details matter.
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
Doh! I was rather tired when I read and posted. My mistake.
Pre-9 has hit the mirrors already.
.96 - .98 took a long time; muchless the coveted 1.x series...
.96 land, when linux would kernel panic more often than a NS3.3 box. Those were some fun times!
F /...
Most people around here, don't know of times like in
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Solaris/FreeBSD/Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
imho a later and better release is a win, hehe
how could that sig be annoying?
There are some of us who have found serious
problems that makes this kernel not ready for
prime time. Perhaps Linus is aware of some more
problems where the solution isn't there yet.
To go ahead and release the kernel at such an
unstable point would not be a smart move. Linus
just shows us that he is a bright individual
and that when he does release the kernel we won't
be dealing with some sort of Microsoft style
kernel. Those of you who use winblows are perhaps
used to frequent crashes but for us in the Linux
community it is not acceptable.
Hmmm. From this comment, it seems evident YOU haven't had a look at the SMP support in upcoming v2.4 kernel either... Please do.
Yes, the SMP in v2.0 kernels suck majorly.
Yes, the SMP in v2.2 leaves a lot to be desired.
But the v2.4 support is really looking ok.
Yeah, but the original release should have been a year ago. Since then, every few months, the release has been delayed.
Having said that, I'm currently running test9 and it's stable to me, including the VM. This is the first time in the development process I actually believe the date mentioned by Linus.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
Alright, well of course any delay that results in the betterment of the 2.4 series is well worth the wait. Alas, I have one single infuriating issue which I have yet to resolve - my new networking card requires a new kind of tulip driver that either requires me to compile a special tulip module against the kernel source (a module which does not want to compile), or use a 2.4 kernel - which seems to gloriously crash after ten minutes of use! If there were anything I could ask, it would be for a back-porting of the tulip code in 2.4 to be brought to the 2.2 series now - networking support is very importent for a Linux distro, especially Debian!
And I'm not the only one... I've checked the Usenet, and I'm not the only one having this problem.
Know ye not that ye are Gods???
2.4??? Sheesh I'm still on 2.0 :)
It seems like 2.2 just came out not too long ago... what's the rush!?
--SONET
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
> Now I know I'm a newbie, but I can read It's nice to see there is still people around who can say something like this. I am no genius when it comes to Linux but generally anything can be figured out. Many newbies I talk to can't seem to grasp that. Nice to see an exception :)
I for one am unhappy with my "full featured" driver. After two weeks of trial and error, the only feature I've found in NVdriver is the ability to crash my system. And since the drivers are closed, I have no reason to believe that these problems will be fixed...
So there aren't that many differences between OSS and CSS then? Then why bother with OSS?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
i'll give you that, i haven't looked at it, but my post was not about smp ( the previous guy brought it up ). My post is about dev models, and why it's better not to have only two people controlling such a big project... that's all
i'll byte...
http://216.240.41.2/FreeBSDSmp/
http://people.freebsd.org/%7ejasone/smp/
linus... yeah, pick on the mispellings, instead of the actial point.
damn i really need a spell checker hehe
smp in linux leaves much to be desired.. ever heard the saying "Don't do something unless you plan to do it right"?
OpenBSD maynot have smp, that's not in their agenda at the moment, but have you looked at the FreeBSD smp work, and the current rewrite coming up on 5? some serious work, not the half ass locking on linux
Yes, I know all this. But the point I was trying to make is that newly converted(tm) linux users do not know this. That was the main reason for me trying to compile the latest dev. kernel with a vanilla RH7.0 installation.
;>)
I was merely trying to point out the problems newbies might face when they first enter the wonderful world of opensource.
It took me a year or so way back when in the 0.99p something days before I got the knack of understaning kernel compiles, patches and the diffrent branches of the kernel. And not to mention how to keep track of/upgrade all the software required for kernel building.
And I had come from a strict amiga environment were compilers & programming were practically unheard of (except fro ASMOne..
I just installed RedHat 7.0 on my newfangled 2xSMP P3 700 system and decided to try the latest kernel (2.4.0-test9). Now I know I'm a newbie, but I can read, so after pondering over the kernel installation howtos I managed to include the parts I wanted and did the compile and install by the book. It did not work. .
But seriously, the kernel worked kind of.. It compiled and ran.. But sometimes gave odd warnings I haven't seen before. And crashed miserably while trying to run the parsec lan demo.
Now since this isn't my first development kernel, I know how to upgrade and check for correct versions of the software required for the kernel so I can make it compile. (just haven't had time to leech it yet... working as hell).
I just know that a shitload of scriptkiddies/newbies/wannabes etc. will install the latest RH7.0 which is the most talked about distro and complain as hell when they get errors compiling the kernel/crashes running the kernel from the dev. tree out of the box. So it's a good thing that linus bides his time and only releases the final release when he feels that it's good enough. (If I only had that luxury at work...)
Now if Linus did the release before it was good enough then we'd get a fscked up signal to noise ratio on the kernel mailing list (as if it's not bad alredy) and a shitload of bad publicity in the press. Which again would result in slower acceptance of Linux as an accepted OS in the buisnessworld.
If I were the boss... I'd most likely release new major versions even slower than linus is doing now... (but hey that says more about my skills as a developer than linus' planning
Yeah, but we want our new Netscape now, dammit! That Mozilla stuff will never ship - look at how long it's taking!
2.4 will be "a couple of months late" and still costs nothing. Windows 2000 was several years late and still costs hundreds. Hellloooo ..
Much more likely that Linux users, after looking at the Windows source, will switch to FreeBSD.
The kernel is a program written to intimately control the hardware, file systems, and users of something like a dozen different hardware architectures, from Intel 80386 to high-end IBM mainframes. You can get the source. You can read the source. If you are able, you might even understand (some of) the source.
does this upset people so much? If you *really* cannot wait for 2.4.0, run the 2.4.0test series. If they did release, it would be exactly this code anyway.. Makes no difference to me if it is termed "official" or not. Maybe for businesses, but for those applications it doesn't matter *too* much.. 2.2 seriesis good enough for most users, especially corporations that would be afraid of running test software. No one can claim vaporware because anyone can use it :)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
cause "User #230538" has been around for a long time... please flame about something you know anything about and we'll get back to you.
(i wish this was a day earlier and i could mod you to where you belong)
There are significant bugs in the kernel, especially if you don't use a single-CPU x86 machine with all standard hardware. They should NOT release it if they have not fixed all the bugs they can possibly fix. If they did, it would make it no better than any of the other companies that release software before it's ready. If you can live with the possibility of stability or security problems, then you can, by all means use the test kernel. I, and most people, don't want a kernel that's actually not stable being released as though it were Stable.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
No, if this were Microsoft, people would be saying there they go again, late software, boy do they suck. I hope as
organizations close to slashdotters' hearts start to grow up and come to terms with reality, they'll gain more perspective on
why other companies make the decisions they do.</I>
<P>True. I'd like to say that *I* don't ridicule them for releasing something late, I ridicule them for releaseing something late AND still buggy (W2K).
<P><I>At some point the 'no' is required just to get a new stable version
out. </I>
<P>I agree, but at least when he decided to add all the other stuff, he didn't keep the same shipping date, like some companies do.
<P><I>
"In this regard, open source is definitely not very different from any software project -- they are notorious for always being
over-budget both fiscally and time-wise."</I>
<P>Yep.
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Life is a race condition: your success or failure depends on whether you get the work done on time.
I love this. When software isn't ready, they can say so without any pressure. If this was Microsoft, they'd just ship it and we'd have to deal with the headaches. I wish a few *companies* would do this.
--------
Life is a race condition: your success or failure depends on whether you get the work done on time.
Sorry, what's the current release version? 2.2.17? Hmmm, that really sounds like waiting to get 2.2 right, and not releasing some buggy product before then.
"Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it" - Tom Lehrer
See http://slashdot.org/articles /99 /06/16/1849231.shtml
Linus first planned for 2.4 in Fall of 1999. Yeah, there's the "it'll be ready when it's ready" stuff, but when we've been sitting on top of 2.3-dev kernels for a year and there's still no 2.4..
What I'm getting at is that "what will come from 2.4" needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I don't know when 2.4 is coming, but I'll bet it's in 2001.
And if you want to speculate on future SMP implementations, FreeBSD's 5.0's implementation will be much superior to Linux's 2.4. I don't think anyone who is well versed in the subject will disagree.
-bugg
What good is SMP if the box won't stay up? And BTW, RAID on FreeBSD is just fine. Linux RAID? Linux should worry about good SCSI support first.
-bugg
Heh, you cannot blame Microsoft for crappy 3rd party software. 90% of the problems seen with windows (and I'm taking NT here) is due to lame 3rd party software screwing with things they shouldn't even be aware of -- most notably replacing system DLLs (mfc*.dll for one) with older, non-compatible versions.
Case in point, the Clearcase 4.1 installer installed a Win95 3D dll which caused every GUI to fail until I removed it using the W2k "recovery console". People scoff at Microsoft's insistance on reapplying the service pack after installing or removing any component, but you really do need to.
As for supporting new hardware... you didn't say which Windows you are using. It doesn't matter. You are implying software written years ago (NT 4.0 is 4+ years old now) can support the stuff we're going to think up next week. W2k is certainly the newest version, but it's still older than the KT133. If the vendor supplied driver doesn't work, then that's the vendor's problem. I had that problem with my NT machine at work... nothing in that machine existed when NT was designed -- I had to burn my own installation CD to get it installed (NT 4.0 will not install from an LS120.)
- Don't let any new stuff into 2.4, unless it helps with the release.
- Release when its non buggy
Last point is really improtant, if 2.4 comes out buggy it will look bad for Linux, while a delay is just one of those things. 2.2 is still being added too don't forget.Yes but that's what the small increments mean. You can't compare FreeBSD 4.x to Linux 2.2.x; the projects were started at different times and by different people who have different priorities.
I can say from experience that 2.2.17 is much easier to work with from a sys admin's point of view from 2.2.16 simply because of the abillity to monitor failed processes because they die cleaner, rather than hanging, staring you in the face. Each increment is not done arbitrarily "when they feel like it"; when small improvements are made and relative stability is reached, then a final is released. This is the nature of software dev.
At any rate 2.4 will be solid beacause they are willing to take the time to make it so.
BTW: putting >console into the user window on the OS X Beta dumps the GUI and leaves you with a Darwin session.
Also BTW: if you read the Darwin FAQs carefully, you might notice that Apple is steering an effort to make Darwin a multi-platform OS. Since the parts of OS X residing on top of Darwin are said to be platform independent, this probably means, OS X on Itanium in 2002. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.
DB
Well then there's one sure way to speed up the process.....grab a C book, subscribe to the linux kernel mailing list and hit the keyboard!!! Everyone who is involved speeds things up a bit, even if you are just beta testing you may find a bug faster than everyone else.
--End of recruiting speech
I remember when 2.2 was release, al (Linus included) said that it had taken way too long.
The cycle from 2.2 to 2.4 would take much less time (i.e. some less extra functionality in one stpe, instead more small steps in the future).
Already at that time I thought they wouldn't make it faster from 2.2 to 2.4. The Linux development model is not right IMO. 2.0->2.2 already showed this. The development group IMO is not coherent enough, there is no core group as in the *BSD's, but only one person (which may delegate some things to 1 or 2 others) that has to screen all contributions from widely varying sources. As time progresses, the chaos increases and even small steps forward get increasingly difficult.
In contrast, FreeBSD's stable releases seem to accelerate, including more functionality at an accelerating pace. There is a group of 20 people, each has his own speciality, but all of them at least have a sound idea of most parts of the system (including kernel and userland). All commits to the source are published and accessible through CVS meaning they get much wider exposure for all to scrutinize.
For Linux there have been discussions to adopt some source code control system to get things better in control. CVS wous found to be inadequate (of course, what is good enough for half the UNIX world is insufficient for Linux) so one has to wait for bitkeeper. That wait has taken about 2 years already, and apparently it is better to have nothing than CVS.
I can only say that I see a gloomy future for Linux, the fact that 2.4 takes so long again is a bad sign. Sooner or later people or firms (like Redhat) will become impatient and take things in their own hand. Sooner or later (with or without Linus) I think there will either be complete stagnation, or complete fragmentation and chaos.
Okay folks, time for everyone to start piling the shit on Linus. Fair is fair. You do it to Microsoft every time they push back a release.
I think....therefore I am
I reject your reality
--
The shareholder is always right.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Have you ever read Brook's paper entitled the Mythical Man Month? I doubt you have since this suggestion is certain to prolong the time to completion.
*Who says CS is a waste of time?*
He wasn't saying that there are no differences period, he was saying that there are no differences on the point you brought up. Both CSS and OSS are influenced by the same forces and respond in the same way. Both can suffer delays for the same reasons, except CSS has the added burden of management pressure which would be willing to push a buggy product out the door before it's truly ready.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Get it right kernel dudes! I'd rather wait for a stable one then take on that may be a little unstable or something not working right! :)
Gorkman
Being a person with very little Linux experience, I would like to know how this thing works. Does Linus still make the kernel releases, and then other companies change it? Or does he incorporate parts of companies' codes along with it? Please help a curious nerd out.
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
At least Linus & co. are aware of them, make you aware of them, and are actively fixing them BEFORE .0.
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
How long has USB been supported in linux?
USB's been in freebsd for a long time.. 3.0
All this random hacking has left my Mandrake 7.1 system in ruins when it comes to compiling and some other things. 7.2 is supposed to contain the final 2.4 kernel. Now I'll have to live with screwed software 'till nearly the end of the year! *@$#^! Oh well. Guess I'm just taking for granted the fact that Linux is upgraded every month or less and Winblowze only makes a point-oh 0h-x version every couple of years...:-)
-----------------------------------------
Perversely greped and groped by PowerPenguin
Not a very smart thought.
Linus is opposed to kernel debuggers because he doesn't need one, and in fact he views them as anti-productive. I'm sure they are anti-productive... for him.
I still think he is wrong to oppose kernel debuggers. There are some people who will be more productive with a kernel debugger, and they will use one whether Linus likes them or not. So all he really is doing is forcing them to maintain their debugger with patches. I personally view this as Linus wasting their time to satisfy his own quirky opinion.
Our debt to Linus is so huge that I'm still a fan of his, even though I think he is wrong about this. But Linus, himself, clearly doesn't need or want a kernel debugger.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Personally I think that he should stand firm on the feature freeze otherwise 2.2 -> 2.4 could end up taking even longer than 2.0 -> 2.2.
Perhaps Linus and friends should over-predict the date of release. If they had said that it would be out Feb/March 2001 and they thought they would be done Dec2000 but the actual release date of 2.4 was late Dec2000/Jan2001, they might look better.
:) if you're still late...ummm...admit it.
Something like this:
private predicted release date --> actual release date --> publicly predicted release date
or...
"Ok guys, I think this should be done by $date."
"Hey, everybody, kernel XX.XX.XX should be ready by about ($date + 4 months) !"
[($date + 2 months) later...] Slashdot headlines: Kernel 2.4 out early!
However, if they did this enough times, people would get the hang of what they were doing and say "hmm... release date predicted minus 2 or 3 months == release date actual" and then figure that the kernel was late after a certain date. But linus and friends would still appear better (at least to the CEO/PHB-types) for getting their product out before the projected release date. And then, even if they were late, they would look like they were on time which seems rare in the tech industry.. So, linus, perhaps you should predict jan/feb 2004 for 2.6
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
---
Why would anybody want a quote in the bottom of they message???
Where can I download MacOS 10 for free (legally) ?
That's right next to "Where can I download Sorensen Quicktime for Linux?"
Lars -
I'm not sure that I can hold my breath for that long.
Lars -
Please rethink what you just said. Version numbers mean shit, hell I can release a kernel tommorow and call it 10.0!!
It's pretty sad that the bulk of the messages on this article fall into one of these three categories with very few falling into the latter. The semantic messages are those that want to argue about the term 'vaporware,' 'stable v. unstable releases,' 'deadlines,' etc. The pissing matches are just my OS is better than your OS wars (especially the venom spit between Linux and *BSD users.) And then real discussion.
:).
I found a lot of good info in the real discussion on what's going on in the latest kernel of great interest since I'm running those 'test' releases. Some of the info makes me a little edgy
I guess my two cents is I don't think it matters if you are in a closed source model that has 'official' releases and no access until then or an open source model where you can pretty much pick up code in progress. The real responsibility of using software and systems is on the user of that software or system. If a binary only company consistently releases buggy software and claims that it's not buggy, you can't use it. If an open source company releases code that doesn't do what you need it to, you can't use it. We sit here and complain about the state of software and noone is willing to vote with their feet (not their dollars because that doesn't apply to open source in a lot of cases.) Too many people aren't willing to give up promised features in favor of stability and correctness. People give money to companies lie microsoft despite stability and correctness issues encouraging them to release software too soon. People use 'bleeding-edge' kernels because they want better SMP support or devfs or USB support despite the clear message that anything with an odd middle part of their version or 'test' or 'pre' in the version is asking for trouble. Once they get what they ask, demand, and whine all day about, they turn right around and cry about how something doesn't work or isn't the quality they want.
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. The people making the software aren't the ones who should change (e.g. open vs. closed source), it's the people using the software that should change.
It's not something you can show of to your friends.
gmc is just not usable in its current state, kfm kinda is but it still is no match for the Windows Explorer. KDE2 (with konquerer) and Gnome1.4 (with Nautilus) will hopefully fix all that.
Monkey sense
If they are paid to work full time on it, I'm sure it would go faster.
But when microsoft delays deployment it is so they can add another buggy feature. Even when they do release it is always buggy as hell.
Got Code?
In this case, we know what the product is (you can download, compile, and test it if you want) We know why it was "delayed" because Linux said it was to fix bugs.
OK, some people get a little too zealous in M$ bashing, but it's not entirely unjustified.
To email, do the obvious.
Are you really that humor impaired, or was that one of the worst trolls I've seen in a while?
To email, do the obvious.
see this /. article
To email, do the obvious.
Obviously "Puff the Magic Dragon"... sheesh.
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"To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
"So instead of just going to a well-threaded FS (file system) and cleaned-up networking, we ended up having loop-back mounts, 64-bit file systems, NFS v3, 64GB memory support, etc. -- a lot more than originally envisioned," he said. "And it's damn hard to say 'no' when it's all so obviously a good thing. At some point the 'no' is required just to get a new stable version out.
"In this regard, open source is definitely not very different from any software project -- they are notorious for always being over-budget both fiscally and time-wise."
I think I'll keep it just to annoy you.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I guess so...
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
Against WIN9x, I don't think anything ever NEEDED so many Beta testers.
Windows 95, the world's longest running Beta Test!
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
Last time I checked you could run Win2k before it was released. And people are running OSX now.
Or didn't you notice that part?
I want scope, quality not time. I think most would agree... Does 2 week even hurt?
--
$ whoami
nobody
The SMP implimentation under 2.2 kicks BSD* ass.
Right now, it's not even close.
The BSD* SMP push has not been to get farther ahead, but rather to catch up to what Linux already has in stable kernels. I know 2.2 SMP isn't perfect, but it's still pretty damn good for what my boxes do.
Yes, I have heard the phrase, and I agree with it but am completely at a loss about what you hope to gain by saying things that are so completely in the realm of FUD.
Hell, I know FreeBSD admins who wouldn't in their wildest dreams imagine telling me their favorite OS has better RAID or SMP support. That's why even though it's their networks, when the boxes need those features they bring me in to work on it with them.
The 2.4 implimentation of SMP is amazing, it's improved in so many ways it's not even funny.
I am interested in what the freeBSD 5 implimentation may be doing so right, got any links/pointers for me? I honestly would like to be able to read up on it further.
-Nathan
Ok, then will somene who is "well versed" in the implimentations please explain to my why the FreeBSD SMP page can mention sacrifices they are making because of legacy design issues in every third sentence and still be so technicaly advanced?
I just want to see the dang numbers ot compare the two - can FreeBSD 5 run on 64 processors on IA64?
Can it run on 32 processors on IA32?
Linux's can.
-Nathan
"just fine" described the Linux RAID implimentation in 2.2 and 2.4 completely blows it away.
I have boxes running test# series kernels in production capacity which have been up and running for close to as long as their respective kernel series' were released. If there is a problem or 2.4.0-final comes out, I will upgrade.
I think a single box with 5 hot-swap auto-rebuild SCSI drives (the support for which kicks ass) running in a RAID5 solution on a multiproc system handling >300 web sites, DNS for over 500 domains and disk space for mail clients for three ISP's (total of 12,000 user directories) running test2 (I think) says more about 2.4's potential stability than anything I have heard from a BSD fan yet.
Linux lets you go a hell of a long distance with decent hardware. It's a shame the BSD people won't pull their collective heads out and contribute what they think Linux is missing.
By insisting on holding onto a loosing end of a UNIX distribution war, the segmentation of camps is only hurting both the BSD and Linux systems.
And no, complaints about how the development model won't let them walk in with their inflated ego's and start running things doesn't phase me.
-Nathan
2 minor things patched and you are calling ME the troll?
.17 (now .18) series has had 15-20+ patched sections (that were big enough to mention in the announcements.)
*shakes head* That's beyond laughable - each pre-release of the
By faster technical and overall development I mean just for a second, look at the pure skill of people who work on Linux for a living or hobby. Look at the pure numbers of projects and perople who care enough to get it right (please don't bring RedHat into this, they are an emberasment).
Look at the technical work big companies like Intel and IBM are putting into Linux.
If the BSD zealots didn't insist on having every post dripping with envy of Linux's lime-light, I would be much more inclined to respect their opinions.
-Nathan
USB is in 2.4 (I don't think 2.2 support is worth a damn)
Since 3? Was USB even an option or there anything decent to support back then?
2.4 has damn cool USB actualy. You should take a look.
How in the hell is this insightful?
Being unable to purchase or in any way get ahold of a MS product that has been "releasing any day now" for a year+ does NOT compare to "the final release of the stable kernel is not ready, but you can ge the pre-release that's a week old now if you want."
Freak the moderators are asleep today.
Two systems, apples and oranges.
One: Product cannot be used before release.
Two: Product can be used before release by anyone who wants to download it. the vaporware rules are different because the product is real and you can load it and run it.
The kernel versions are only useful to promote a stability/development cycle and to let people know when a version when considerable upgrades is stable enough to install or a bigfix has been implimented.
It's two completely different systems of development and release or didn't all you elite "you don't bash MS for this when they did it you hypocrits" morons notice that part?
Think. Damit.
-Nathan
Thanks a ton for the links, it looks like some good reading.
I read through (not in depth, I admit I mostly skimmed) but the impression I got was there is a serious amount of development going on and alot of changes are still under consideration.
The only point with that is it seems the promise of a wonderful rewrite of SMP for FreeBSD can't quite stand up to what 2.4-test? can handle now.
Any comments on what my FreeBSD friends tell me about the sorry state of RAID under FreeBSD?
-Nathan
Will somebody care to *please* explain why that was marked as flamebait?
There is not a single item in there I wouldn't mind backing up.
And there is a problem with someone being able to give a final answer?
The only thing BSD has going for it are the people who just can't let yesteday go...
Oh, and you are dead wrong about the devel speed of BSD being faster than Linux - I can't actualy figure out what logic you are twisting to say it.
So, SMP in OpenBSD tomorow? Oh wait, it's still in the "some people are interested in trying it" phase. Good thing there are multiple trees!
-Nathan
I don't presume to know Linus' mind by my impression is that he went to the test series to try to push things along. I'm not convinced it really worked though - after all we did switch VMs during that time. Still it's looking good.
No that was 2.4.0test9-pre9. The current testing kernel is 2.4.0test9. You can't read anything in the version numbers though. It wouldn't surprise me if there was quite a long 2.4.0test series before a very short 2.4.0pre series.
Many of you recent Linux users probably don't remember, but we used to say that the kernel version numbers were asymptotically approaching v1.0. Compared to then, this is no big deal
Well even if linux is GNU, hacker developed, we
should not push untill programmers somewhat comfortable with features. Saw it enough when
Redhat pushed 5.0 out the door because Comdex
was coming up. Maybe, for some unknown reason, it was good decision, result was one of the worst linux distributions made. Same was with gnome.
1.0? It was still in Alpha for gods sake, and red
hat pushed for it. Thank god RH does not have as
much say in kernel as it did in other things. Or any other business.
=) happy HaCkInG
Lets be real here, Linus is stuck in a no win situation. If he releases early and the kernel is buggy, everyone complains and he just gives people more reason to point out why Linux isn't ready for the big time. On the other hand, if he releases late, people are going to complain, but at least the kernel works. I think he is doing the smart thing here. Personally, I'd rather see a late kernel that is a quality piece of code than an early release that needs patch after patch to work.
I agree completely, Linus has chosen the best of two bad options. One, he can release a buggy kernel early to meet a deadline. Or two, he can miss the deadline, and release a quality kernel late. If he released a buggy kernel early, he just gives ammunition to companies like MS that claim Linux isn't ready for the big time because 'look at all these bugs.' However, with a late release, the worst anyone can say is that he isn't punctual. I say 'Way to go Linus' keep up the good work.
It's posts like these that make me wish i had some small ability to moderate. very insightful, indeed.
not
We might both be wrong.. it could be a combination of the two, or whatever.. does it really matter? It is what you make of it.
This maybe something that I could use, but like I said...
Who gives a rats ass if they can't click on the edit button in IE and edit content on their intranet using a word processor (IE and MS Word)?
If you can link some documentation on this, I would be grateful. Yet, most employees will need it to be easy as MS has provided. When I see this, well then I will understand your side. It's not the IS folks I am talking about, it is the common employees.
Yes, but...
Sure, other another OS may be more stable, but who gives a rats ass if they can't click on the edit button in IE and edit content on their intranet using a word processor (IE and MS Word).
Technically, you can't measure the rate of devel speed for linux per se because...
Let's see, Linux has no revision control system? As said by someone else, "The whole, 'let's distribute a tarball every other period of time is getting old'".
Just because you get yet another release of kernel 2.2.x (what is it at now? 17?) more often then FreeBSD 4.x, that doesn't mean the development is faster, it just means the kernel writers abitrarily increment the subversion number everytime they feel like it. You don't see what's going on with FreeBSD dev because from your trolling it appears that you don't use CVS, or if you do, you don't know how to use it correctly.
Let's see when 2.2.18 and 19 come out with just 2 minor things patched.
So we wait, what's the big problem? 2.2 does just great for now. What's alot more scary is the fact that they want to release Netscape 6 this month. That thing is *NOT* ready for final release, not ready! Wish they would take Linus's approach on their development, I can forsee 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.1.1, 1.0.1.2, 1.0.1.3, etc...
About.com are on The Roseanne Show.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Now if slashdot had a king...
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
I'm just glad that they're taking the time to do everything right. I don't think that people would appreciate an unstable 'stable' version of the kernel. If I have to wait another two months, thats fine with me. When it comes out, I know that I'll have the best kernel possible. And /. has been right posting those "its almost here" stories. It is almost here. Right now they're just doing bug fixes.
Don't release it until it's DONE. That's one of my personal creeds. Let's hope he's personally ripping apart the entire kernel, hunting for bugs, inefficiencies, and quirks, and fixing them. I'm glad that Linus gave that honorable reason for the kernel delay; after all, who wants to buy anything that's as vital as a kernel when it's partially done?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Lets not forget, Microsoft shipping early beta releases of their software causes crashes, which means more troubletickets for me and more justification for my job as a NT admin. --t0qer
It's not like the 2.2 kernels aren't really stable and nice. I'd be pissed if he released it too early.
This sig intentionally left blank.
He's been busy fixing Crueso bugs... He's quite the exterminator!
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first of all Linus makes it open source because of he idea of open source production, so others can build off of what you have made. Now BSD developers are not of the devil, and I think of you as a fool for saying that. And then you bring up the suggestion to use Windows...what kinda stuff are you smoking, dude, windows is crap, and windows 2000 professional, they added more bugs so they now can call it professional...man you need to get yourself looked at.
I assume you mean "all other OS's VFSes" because, as absurd as that claim is, the claim that Linux NFS could leave anything at all behind is just too ridiculous even to imagine.
The Linux VFS effort is still crap. Viro and Co. are still fixing major bugs, there are still no regression tests available, there has still been no serious measurement of the changes' performance impact (the only actual numbers I've heard were worse than 2.2), there's still no documentation of interfaces ("read the $#@! code" seems to be Viro's mantra), there are still filesystems that used to work and are now broken because of the changes.
No...Al Viro isn't a genius. He's an arrogant boob who has done more to screw up the Linux kernel than any other single individual has ever been allowed to do. Many people, most particularly Rik van Riel, have had to make heroic efforts to get this mess under control, and it's still barely limping toward respectability.
Seriously, how can something be late, when it was never promised by a specific time?
AFAIK, Linus and the kernel crew don't set "scheduled release dates" like Microsoft, so what is this late for?
Move along people, nothing to see here, your new kernel will come when it's ready... Move along..
Recent versions of gcc (2.95 and above, RH7 has 2.96) and kernels don't mix. It's a kernel bug that for some odd reason the kernel developers never accept the existence of. (The same went for egcs during the 2.0.x series...)
Because of this known issue, RH7 includes a "kgcc" package for compiling kernels. You will have to change the kernel makefile to force use of this compiler. (On my machine, 'export CC=kgcc' doesn't seem to do anything...)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Well, it seems that most of the people in this thread have had no problems whatsoever with test8 - I love it.
As to Microsoft products - Winblows won't recognize the second IDE channel on my new mobo (VIA KT133 chipset). Bye-bye DVD drive. The drivers that come with Winblows give a "Device is not present or is not working properly.", VIA's updated drivers crash the machine when I try to install them. Yeah, Windows is reeeeaaally stable. That's in addition to the standard BSODs.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I threw a tarball (uncompressed, thank God) onto a fat partition, then tried to recreate it as an extended rather than primary partition. Bad move; this overwrites both fats.
[lots of failed tries deleted]
I made a new partition there, dd'd it to a file, which gave me a 1.7G file. I then tried to load this with beav on a machine with 160M of ram, and 64M of swap.
It runs out of memory and goes away, hard. It answers pings, but that's it. This is repeatable.
I did the same thing to FreeBSD (3.0?) by middle-clicking on a whole bunch of images in netscape, causing many instances of netscape 3 and xv to launch . . .
These were both as a regular user, not root.
hawk
I'm also running test8 too. Its been a while since I played with devel kernels, but there was a warm fuzzy feeling seeing it was so close. There are many new toys in the code to play with. Its been only running for a few days, but no bugs seen around here.
I'm running test8 as well. If I leave the machine alone for a a few hours I find it covered in dust and cobwebs when I return. As I switch desktops and cause windows to be repainted, I can actually see them being drawn piece by piece, accompanied by a barrage of disk access. Then all is well again. Test8 is not without problems.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
The problem isn't that Linus says "the kernel will be out a month from now", every now and then, because generally he hasn't. He's said things like "if we're lucky, we might get this out before the summer", etc. The problem is that people try to put words in his mouth and claim a release is close or misinterpret the numbering of kerenels (v2.4.0test) to mean that the stable version is imminent.
Don't expect a v2.4.0 before seeing at least a few kernels named v2.4.0preX, where X probably should be at least 6 or 7.
Oh, and consider that the v2.1 series went to v2.1.132 before going into pre-patches...
This is true, but nobody would have any way to know if the new Microsoft product were vaporware or not. We know for a fact that the Linux kernel isn't, and if you care to look, you can even get an extremely detailed list of things that still need fixing. Definitely not vaporware. *grin*
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Remind us again how that differs from CSS?
The only differences we're seeing in this regard are -
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If you believe the conclusions of The Cathederal and The Bazaar -- that with enough eyes all bugs are shallow you would have to wonder why several of the large open source projects (the Linux 2.4 kernel and Mozilla come to mind), are always late. Yeah yeah, they aren't released until they are ready and there are no release dates, but in both cases the projects have taken much longer than the people running the projects anticipated. Most software projects end up running late becuase of two reasons: feature creep and bug smashing. Given that the 2.4 release has had a feature freeze for quite some time now, the question is... what's holding things back?
Are large open source projects lacking some sort of organizational tools needed to make things run more smoothly? Are they the victims of bad project management, such as it is? Is it becuase after you get above some number n, you fail to gain any more advantages by having more people looking at and working on the code?
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Add this one to the fortune database, its too good !
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
But that's because NVidia sucks and won't release open-source drivers that people can debug.
NVIDIAs "driver" is a full featured, highly optimized OpenGL implementation containing intellectual property of SGI. You should be happy to get it for free (as in beer, and OK, you had to buy the video card).
Now I have disabled Fast Writes and the driver runs rock solid and really fast (almost on par with Windows) under 2.4.0-test. I really don't care if it's open-sourced now...
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
I've been using the 2.3 backbatches and they work fine. I've got a Logitech USB trackball, a sony F505 digital camera and the matel electronic magnifing glass all working fine. I did have to make a few changes in a table for the sony camera but it now works fine. There is a bug in the scsi drivers that had to be fixed as well.
But it's going to be rock-solid when it comes out...
Linus said a similar thing just before he put the paper bag over his head. Seriously, no software is going to be released rock-solid. Linux is getting very complicated.
The only thing you can hope for is all the major show-stopping stuff cleaned. The little bugs found later can and will be patched as required.
What really irks me is that this kernel is already in -test. What exactly have they been doing to a test kernel? Wasn't the feature freeze months ago? I remember that the 2.2-test series was like a month long. Methinks that someobody was so eager to get 2.4 out the door, that they went to 2.4-test prematurely.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
No big deal, for me. I'm pretty happy with 2.2.17, and I'll be even happier with 2.2.18(the pre- series has some bugfixes I've been waiting for). I'm glad Linus decided to postpone the release, but it would have been nice had the article mentioned specifically what was holding it up. ie; bugfixes, waiting for some important code/drivers, etc., etc..
Dave
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(Either action or death.)
I've been running test-7 at work for since it came out and have nothing but praise for it. Just wondered what was going to take so long to fix.
Will it be Mozilla or 2.4?
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
But when will I be able to get a distro including Kernel 2.4, Gnome 1.4 and KDE 2.0? I want to show of Linux to my friends but I don't think the current distrobutions are ready for that.
That said, I do prefer a delay over a buggy kernel/desktop environment.
Monkey sense
[drug]
;)
I am a patch junkie! I need to get 2.4!
I don't trust the pre-versions and the bloody-edge odd numbered releases!
Please, call it 2.4! C'mon, man!
I'm jonesin' for a fix!
[/drug]
Seriously, I hope that 2.4 is filled with fresh code and higher-levelUSB support. (I cannot wait to add a USB HD
And maybe better joystick support.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
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/'sen(t)-s&-ri[ng],
'sen(t)s-ri[ng]/
Date: 1882
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The Pre release Kernel running in the machine on my right works fine.
The Win 98 machine on my left has locked up twice today.
1. Beta Software That works
2. Production Software that Dies
3. Cowboy Neal
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
kdb in mainstream sources in a overworked point.
You can patch the kernel for use with a debugger without a problem, Linus just doesn't want to distribute a standard one. It's kruft in his opinion and he isn't/can't stop anyone from inserting their own anyway.
It's the use or not of kdb that's actualy at issue with the developers. The violent discussions are about whether it's a good idea or not. To include one or not isn't something that too many developers care that much about.
Those who need one, will choose one from the many available and install it - not a tough issue.
As for vaporware the difference in the Open Source / Free Software case is that anyone can try it out and see for themselves how vapourous it is.
Open developments can be no more vaporware than the brain one carries on the upper shelf.
Why? Because its open and you can watch and judge for yourself.
If one can not judge for himself, he has been lost to the world of marketing and may require rehabilitation if one so desires.
Sure, other another OS may be more stable, but who gives a rats ass if they can't click on the edit button in IE and edit content on their intranet using a word processor (IE and MS Word).
And if companies use this MS technology themselves, other companies would want to use the same technology to communicate with them!
Here of B2B? Yes, automate the exchange of information. How many are using Linux solutions on the desktop? There isn't a choice that compares. No I am not talking about the linux guys back in the computer room. I am talking about the employees that only want to click and edit. These employees can not do this with a current Linux solution. They cannot do this because Netscape currently sucks.
What about Star Office? Sure, do they have a web browser that incorporates all this data in a way that is easy to edit, share, and post like IE and MS Office? No.
Until a solution is provided for Linux, MS will dominate. And if MS continues to dominate at this level, you will see other MS products being used because the can "integrate" this information more easily with "common" IS employees that they employ.
Linux needs a new web browser.
Well, yeah... Microsoft doesn't release source code for their beta releases. We can't actually see what they've done, and we can't decide to use it professionally anyway. Maybe some year they'll realise why people are so willing to adopt X.0 releases of UNIX products and why people wait for Microsoft X service pack 1 before buying their products...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Thank you
> we were on 2.0 for a LOT longer
Mmm.
2.0.0: Jun 96
2.2.0: Jan 99
That's two year and a half. We'll be on 2.2 for nearly two years *if* it releases in december.
So, no. Not a LOT longer...
Cheers,
--fred
I don't know if anyone here still remembers the days when Linus jumped the revision numbers of the kernel from the .Teens to the .9x...he was sure it was almost ready...but we had at least 50 revisions before the 1.0 kernel was ready. It was challenging to keep track of the various number/letter/level version...but I didn't mind. We eventually got the 1.0 kernel, and I was happy to wait until it's done, because it was done well. And I expect it is the same with the 2.4 kernel.
It's chick to slam Linus and Co., but it's one heck of a job they are doing, many in their spare time...let's cut them some slack, eh?
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
While I don't know about HDs, USB audio devices and scanners are supported. (Your particular device may not be, but many are.) There is USB storage support in the kernel, but I think it's going to remain marked as experimental even in the final 2.4 release. (Of course, some of the "experimental" code in Linux works quite well...)
:)
The kernel support for USB mice definately kicks ass. I finally moved my IntelliMouse Explorer from the PS/2 port to the USB port (Higher sampling rate with USB), and I'm 2-3 times as lethal with the sniper rifle in Q3Fortress and Unreal Tournament.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I have to agree... Yeah, 2.4 may be a bit late. But it's going to be rock-solid when it comes out...
I'm running 2.4.0-test8 (was running test7) on my box, and it's a champ. This pre-release already kicks the crap out of anything our friends in Redmond can put out...
The only time my box is unstable is when doing 3D work. But that's because NVidia sucks and won't release open-source drivers that people can debug.
In an offtopic note: Could NVidia's refusal to release source have to do with the fact that the GeForce and Quadro are identical chips, only differing in their device ID number? (i.e. from what I've read at http://www.geocities.com/tnaw_xtennis/, the driver is what makes the difference between the two "chips" - If the card reports itself as a GeForce, the driver disables some features.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I've been running 2.4.0-test8, and most of the 'test' patches have been *big* patches. Along with that, I've also patched in support for reiserfs, arla, and ALSA.
:)
Since the filesystem code has been overhauled somewhat, the first patches I got broke, and I had to fix them; alsa was fine (sound code), reiserfs was fairly stable, and arla was just broken. After waiting a bit longer, I got the latest patches; it all compiled cleanly, and reiserfs is solid, the kernel is a little less stable, and arla is still somewhat buggy, but much improved.
So half the reason for delaying a kernel release is to fix bugs, but the other half is to make sure that everyone else relying on the kernel has time to catch up and write for the new API. OpenWall will have their patch for 2.4 when it's stable, which they predict to be around 2.4.10.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It's not vaporware -- you can use a 2.4.0test kernel right now.
And as for Microsoft? Most importantly, Microsoft uses product announcements and projected delivery dates to deflect interest in competitor's products and they time releases to benefit their business. Why? Their product decisions are driven by their marketing efforts. They seek to create demand, and then fill it.
Linux kernel development and feature advancement are technology-driven and aim to supply solutions for existing demand. (Note that I'm referring to the kernel, not to application SW.) There is no marketing machine at the heart of Linux, and vaporware is the product of marketing.
-dwd-
Different reasons for different projects.
In Mozilla's case, (according to JWZ at least) it was the combination of a poor decisions and bad management of the overall project.
Linux releases are always "late" because they've always been that way, because there is no due date. Who cares when a release comes out? True, Linus would like to get stuff out, but only because it's important to keep things moving. He's certainly not motivated by any corporate interests, if his resistance to whiny coders complaining about features not being added or APIs being changed is any indication of his stalwardness.
But 2.0 and 2.2 did make it out eventually, and they weren't too late to still be a progressively royaler pain in every competing operating systems' ass. What more could one want?
s/NFS/VFS/ -- Yup, wishful typo... :^)
Alexander Viro might be arrogant, but the VFS is still something extraordinary. Of course, there are major bugs. After all, he did a major overhaul of it. The performance gains with the new VFS is mostly on the SMP level. And the major gain isn't even the performance question. The VFS rewrite was done to make the code sane.
The rewrite is not finished; Al is still working on fixing the remaining non-working filesystems. But some of the filesystems doesn't have a maintainer anymore, and they'll probably remain broken. But we can't possibly set the VFS in stone forever on just to make sure filesystems that lack a maintainer still work for all coming kernels. Drivers/subsystems without a maintainer is a breed-reactor damn closed to having a nuclear meltdown.
It seems that everyone around here has ants in their pants whenever kernel 2.4 is mentioned anywhere. Linux is growing up folks, and some people around here are acting like 5 year-olds in a toy store - they see it, they want it now, and they'll kick and scream untill they finally get it.
Linux has gotten a lot of press lately and that means that in addition to all the hackers' eyes, we've got the media paying quite a bit of attention too. Rather than bashing Linus for going 'corporate' and doing his job at Transmeta instead of devoting every single waking moment to 2.4, we should be grateful that such attention is being payed to quality. If we're going to win the battle agains MS we're going to need some pretty kickass software to do it with.
There is no one stopping you from using kernel 2.4.0test9 right now, and completely free. With Microsoft software, and other closed-source software, you cannot take advantage of any of the new features, although maybe you wouldn't want to because it's so buggy. Also, if they'd done anything on the product, they're preventing any of the good stuff they've been creating from being used by the public.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
And for those who want to follow things more easily, read Kernel Traffic. (Click latest on the left bar).
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Sorry, you've been busted by the FUD police. I don't know what you do with your box, but I run an Oracle 8i instance on mine which is heavily used by software developers. I had to go back to 2.2.16, test8 is atrocious under heavy load. Windows 2000 would never run as poorly as test8 does. Note they've put in an new VM for test9, which is in the "pre" stage right now.
--jbIt may be annoying that 2.4 will be later, but I'd rather stick with 2.2 and wait for a really good 2.4, than have to go to 2.4.1, 2.4.2, etc. If this were any other *cough* operating system it would have been released anyway. Besides, we've not been on 2.2 for an extremely long time, we were on 2.0 for a LOT longer...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
I take it you've never worked on a big software project? Every big piece of software I can think of has been late, including the ones I've been on.
My theory is that you initally can't see all the problems you're going to hit in software development. So the first schedule is never right, because nobody can truely estimate what it takes to ge the job done. And once the first date is off, then you're slipping and the pressure is on to bring in the dates. But that just makes things worse because now people get burnt and hurried.
It comes down to the fact that unlike other engineering efforts, nobody can accurately estimate software development.
It has little to do with open source v. closed source, IMHO.
-- topher71
I didn't know that there was a schedule. I coulda sworn that the official statement of kernel releases was that "It'll be out when it's done."
We need stable, reliable software, not buggy software. People have come to love and use Linux because it's stable and reliable. The last thing Linus needs is pressure to release the most important part of _our_ OS because of marketing hype. Look at some of the Open Source Releases lately (trying not to point fingers!!).. markey hype pushes them to release software before it's ready, then they trickle the patches and updates through the Internet.
I never was afraid of using a x.x.0 kernel, and I don't want that to change. People wanting the bleeding edge can simply compile the PRE kernels!
I mean, uh, I have an idea guys, how about we NOT worry about it, since this isn't really news? :)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Tux the Linux Peguin lived in a Red Hat box
and debugged the kernel with a guy named Alan Cox
Little Linus Torvalds loved that rascal Tux
and wrote him strings and bits and bytes and took out all the cruft
Oh, Tux the Linux Penguin lived in a Red Hat box
and wished upon those closed-source guys a great big nasty pox
Together they would travel to a place known as Slash Dot
Old Bill kept a log-book of all the flames that MS got
All the Gates and Windows would close whene'er they came
Stevie B. would have bad dreams and call out Tuxs' name
Oh, Tux the Linux Penguin lived in a Red Hat box
and sorted the linked lists with a guy named Alan Cox
A Penguin lives forever, but not so old man Bill
E.S.R. and R.M.S., they shot his life to hell
One day it happened, Bill could no longer hack
and Tux the Linux Penguin let out a mighty quack
His belly filled with herring, free software fell like rain,
Every man and woman could change the stuff in main()
Without his life-long rival, Tux began a GNU
So Tux that Linux Penguin finally flapped his wings and FLEW
One of the main reasons that the v2.4 kernel has taken so long is the late rewrite of the VM. However, as of a released fix today by Rik van Riel, it's REALLY looking nice. I've tried extremely hard to make my 16MB memory/64 MB swap box to croak, and yet failed so far.
And the new VFS in the kernel leaves most, if not all other OS's NFS:es far behind, imho. Alexander Viro is a genious in this regard.
Some things will simply have to wait for v2.5, such as a good journalling layer for the journaling filesystems, but it would not be too wild a guess that we'll see a journaling filesystem going into the v2.4 series before v2.4.6.
It seems that the only BAD thing is that Linus started us out on the 2.4.0testXXX series way too early. It got peoples hopes up even when the VM was horribly broken and many kernel features were broken...
I can only see this as a good thing, because when 2.4 hits the streets, it will be used by LOTS of people... and we want it to be as stable and reliable as ever...
right?
-Chris
I have been following the development of the 2.4 kernel since test5, which is about 3 months ago.
For starters, a bunch of drivers that worked in 2.2.x are broken currently in 2.4. Those need a fix before 2.4 turns final.
Recently there was a lot of work on the VM (virtual memory subsystem). It's a very smooth VM, reminds you of FreeBSD ;). But it's also a bit buggy at the moment, so it must be fixed before 2.4-final.
With more people testing the 2.4 kernel, with more bug reports, it will be a lot better for the developers to fix 2.4 to perfection, so hurry up and try the new kernel. I recommend trying out test8 or test7, or test9 with Rik van Riel's latest VM patch.
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