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2.4 Maintainer Marcelo Tosatti Answers Your Questions
1) list of changes for the common folk
by e40
One thing that is really missing is a list of changes in each kernel release that is meant to be consumed by the masses. The "changelogs" that are offered up are sorely lacking for us non-kernel hackers. What I'd like to see is a prose description of the changes in each version. Something like Release notes for 2.2.18 by Alan Cox [linux.org.uk] is a step in the right direction, but some of it is even a little too technical. For example, in the above document, set_current_state
* Fixed potential SMP race
means little to me and probably a lot of other people. Under what condition does this occur? The question why should I care about this change? should be answered for each entry.
How do you feel about doing something like this?
MT: I agree on that the changelog is "not for end users."
As I've seen several requests, I'll try to do more extended changelogs.
However, please note that right now I'm giving higher priority to fixing problems than to writing extended changelogs.
2) diary
by Lennie
Do you have a diary, like Alan Cox we can read?
Because we all like to know, if you'll actually be doing what your gonna promise now :)
MT: No I don't, sorry...
3) Kernel growth -- is it a problem?
by connorbd
While I am a passionate Linux supporter, I have also come to the conclusion that kernel bloat is likely to be a major issue fairly soon. It appears to have been the case for some time that =486 systems Need Not Apply, and Red Hat in particular has become a rather memory-hungry distro (it won't even install on my 16MB Pentium system, though I doubt this is really a kernel issue). The end result is that Linux seems slowly to be growing out of the lower-end used-server-in-a-closet market that helped it get so big in the first place.
My question: I presume kernel bloat, both in terms of code size and resource demands, can impact heavily on maintainability. Do you see this as a significant issue for the future, how much of a problem is it, and is it something that can be easily addressed without tearing apart the code base and reorganizing it from the ground up?
MT: Core kernel bloat is a _very_ bad problem. However, I'm pretty confident Linus is not going to allow that on 2.5, though.
About more drivers/fses being added to the kernel, well, thats a bad problem for maintenance.
All we can do about it is to make sure all accepted code to the kernel is clean, simple, and well designed to make maintenance easier later...
4) code control
by brer_rabbit
Have you thought about putting your changes under some sort of version control software? If you started putting the kernel/patches under CVS, maybe the rest of the kernel crowd would follow.
MT: I'm releasing pre patches now pretty often. However, I could export my local CVS, yes.
I might do that in the future.
5) Any plans to improve documenting the kernel?
by Carnage4Life
Currently the Linux kernel is filled with functions that are either poorly documented or completely undocumented. One of the purported benefits of Free Software is that many developers can jump in and help yet when you have functions like __free_pages_ok [linux.no] in page_alloc.c that are important, complex yet the only comment is:
"Buddy system. Hairy. You really aren't expected to understand this."
Doesn't this somehow defeat the point of the source being available in the first place? Basically the question I have to ask is this, "I have flirted with the thought of sending comment only patches to the kernel to further help people understand certain subtleties (e.g. why the pprev and next pointers in user_struct are not what they seem) in the source code especially CS students who are learning about the kernel in operating systems classes. If someone were to start such a program would such patches be accepted into the kernel?
MT: Yes, I would accept such patches as long as I agree with the documentation _and_ as long as I have time to read all patches :)
6) A pretty generic question
by archen
How do you view Linux in the scheme of things? Mainly where do you think the niche of Linux is now, and where will it be years from now. How do you view the direction Linux tends to be taking compared to other OS's (Windows XP, FreeBSD, etc) - ["direction" is up to what ever you personally interpret it to be BTW]
MT: Linux has a lot of "niches": the embedded market, the home users market, the enterprise market: Handling all of those "niches" in the best possible way is a very nice challenge.
I don't see any "direction" to Linux, though: It can work well on several niches.
7) Why you?
by CmdrPinkTaco
This is not intended as a flame or a troll, more of an interview style question. I figure since we are the people who are putting our trust in this person to handle *our* kernel, that this should also be our chance to learn about the person responsible.
What makes you think that you can handle maintaining the Linux Kernel? What qualifications do you have and why should we (the people) trust you with the Linux kernel.
I realize that this is actually two questions, but they more or less go together in one answer.
MT: I think they chose me because I can deal with different people without ego fights. I usually avoid conflicts and instead I try to solve problems.
About qualifications: I've been working at Conectiva for some time (4 years) as a software developer. I'm working together with technical support, which makes me have an idea of usual end users problems/needs.
8) Patches
by return 42
Linus likes very small patches, everything broken down into little chunks of functionality. Alan is ok with bigger patches. What do you like and dislike in the patches people send you?
MT: I prefer patches which touch specific things only: what I really hate are patches which touch several kernel parts.
9) CML2, cvs, kdb, crypto and more
by iamsure
If during the course of your maintainership CML2 proves very successful (as I beleive it already has) would you consider using it instead of CML1?
Also, would you consider moving crypto into the main tree in the near future? Debian has, Redhat will "soon" ...
Would you consider using bitkeeper, cvs, or even complete changelogs with proper attribution of WHICH merges took place?
And finally, would you consider FINALLY bringing kdb into the main kernel? Linus doesnt want it, but he doesnt want it because he doesnt see the value. He didnt say he banned it ...
MT: About CML: Sure, I may consider including it in the future. Not now, though.
About crypto: I want to be out of legal problems. Sorry.
kdb: Maybe. Not now, though.
10) Alan Cox and politics
by melquiades
Alan Cox's stand on the changelog is clearly not only a matter of personal protection, but a political statement. He has chosen an issue that is tremendously important to Linux, free software, and software developers everywhere, and certainly it's right for him to be pursuing it.
But is the Linux kernel the right forum for politics? Do you feel that it's a bad idea to involve the kernel in politics -- a slippery slope in which the software itself becomes a political pawn? Or would you say that the kernel -- and all software -- has already become a political pawn, and Cox's actions are entirely justified given that free software's existence is under increasing threat?
MT: I'll try to avoid involving the kernel in political questions.
11) Sound drivers
by BlowCat
The sound drivers are very poorly written. A lot of code is duplicated. Not all drivers support some ioctls. Every driver has its peculiarities, e.g. some drivers reset dsp to mono, 8bit on DSP_RESET, some don't. Some support /dev/audio, some don't.
Not having ALSA in 2.4.x means no good sound support in the stable kernel for another year of two. Do you plan to integrate ALSA into the 2.4 branch? If yes, will it happen after it's done on the 2.5 branch?
MT: I do not plan to integrate ALSA on 2.4.x.
12) How do you plan to handle the big companies?
by hansendc
As all of us know, many large companies are putting large amounts of resources toward Linux. 2.4 will continue to be important to these companies because it is the version currently being shipped with the distributions, and will continue to be shipped for at east a year or two.
How are you going to deal with the submissions from people like IBM and SGI who are going to want to make significant changes to 2.4?
MT: If their changes are non intrusive and I agree with the way they are coded, sure I'll apply them. Why not?
13) Stability vs Features
by azaroth42
How do you intend to decide which new patches should be added to 2.4, the stable tree, and which are not to be included as being more appropriate to just 2.5, the unstable development tree? For example, do new or updated device drivers rank more highly than VM updates?
MT: I'm really trying to avoid new features which are intrusive: Those ones are for 2.5.
New features which are non intrusive are OK.
14) Threads
by Exmet Paff Daxx
What are your thoughts about threads? Specifically, do you support Linus's "Context of Execution" generality with clone() or are you going to focus more on plain POSIX pthreads compliance?
Any chance of Alan Cox's multi-threaded post-mortem debugging patch which dumps multiple core files for each lightweight process (LWP) making it into the kernel? How about support for post mortem debugging of multithreaded core files in general (right now there is zero support).
Any rants about threading as a general topic would work.
MT: I do support Linus's "Context of Execution" idea, yes.
About Alan's multi-threaded post-mortem debugging patch: I haven't read it yet. But I might apply it.
15) Age a question?
by debrain
If what I've read is correct, you are the youngest maintainer for this kernel. Do you have any feelings on a social level, regarding much of the peer review and critism will come from people who are older? (and very possibly set in their ways, and potentially intimidating)
MT: I don't have any feelings wrt age. I just hope that older people don't take that into account.
16) Expectations
by MikeBabcock
In the time you've been aware of or been using Linux, how have your expectations for what it ought to be or eventually become changed? I know in the time I've used it I'd never expected it, for example, to become a desktop OS but rather a good server or embedded product. What did you expect when you first started with Linux, and what do you expect now?
MT: I expected it to be a server system when I started using it.
Now I expect it to be a Unix system which can work in a lot of different environments. :)
17) Hit by a bus
by moonboy
I'd hate to stray from the status quo where standard interview questions are concerned, so in keeping with it, I ask:
What's it like knowing that, if (God forbid) Linus and Alan were hit by a bus, you might be "The Man"?
Hey, someone had to ask.
MT: I don't know, dude.
18) Re:Do you use a distribution?
by bfree
To rewrite the above question the way I'd like it asked:
What operating systems and platforms do you personally use and which ones do you also use (and why)?
MT: I use Linux for work and sometimes I use Windows to play games.
Do you run a common environment on all your machines (in as far as possible) or do you run different things in different places and which environments do you prefer for what?
MT: I do run Linux on all of my machines. I like to take a look at other OSes when I have time...
What development tools do you use (especially for the kernel), would you do anything differebtly for the kernel (like make it compile with other compilers) if you could (or will you) and would you like to (or will you) place the Linux stable kernel into CVS or another version control system?
MT: I use vi for editting source code and gcc to compile the kernel. :)
No, I'm not going to put the kernel in any kind of version control system because I have to know what goes into the kernel.
One thing which I'm going to do, and which matters, is the use of STP in each -pre release of the kernel.
I hope the SGI guys can get STP stable and working well soon.
Do you feel any personal preferences for anything might actually be in anyway reflected in your work as the stable kernel maintainer?
MT: No.
Do you have a good lawyer?
MT: No. Actually, I don't have a lawyer at all and I hope I'll never have to use one on Linux related issues.
Are you planing on travelling to the U.S.A.> (for all I know you live there, excuse my ignorance:-)? [Note: Marcelo lives in Brazil.]
MT: No. I may go to some congress, though. Not sure yet, though.
Have you experience dealing with politicians, business leaders and large groups and do you see this as a part of your job description? MT: I do not have experience dealing with politicians, business leaders or large groups. I see that as part of my job description, yes. I hope I can learn that with time...
When you stop maintaing the stable kernel, what would you like people to be saying about your reign?
MT: That it works well. ;)
..if his code is as terse and to-the-point as this interview, the kernel's gonna shrink by at least 75%.
Hate trolls? Troll 'em back...at home!
Not trying to flame or troll, but is it just me, or are his answers short and to the point, unline a lot of other Slashdot interviews where the interviewer would give a paragraph or two answer on every question?
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
How are you going to deal with the submissions from people like IBM and SGI who are going to want to make significant changes to 2.4?
MT: If their changes are non intrusive and I agree with the way they are coded, sure I'll apply them. Why not?
Whats he mean by "... and I agree with the way they are coded"? If it works and has nothing bad in it, why would he reject it?
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
...How about we start a couple interviews of the slashdot staff (CmdrTaco, Michael, Hemos, Roblimo, JonKatz, timothy)?
That gives you guys an easy interview, and we get our questions answered straight up.
Anyone else interested?
Mods that are interested, mod me up (don't worry, I'm at the cap).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I hope his code is as unbloated as his answers.
Coolest interview to date.
However, please note that right now I'm giving higher priority to fixing problems than to writing extended changelogs.
Poor/Incomplete/Out of date documentation is the Achilles Heel of open source.
The best thing a maintainer of a stable kernel tree can hope will be said after his reign is:
Nothing. The less that ends up being said, the better a job he's done.
'Storm a toilet, AC' = 'Marcelo Tosatti'.
Spread the word.
Come on! This guy is the kernel maintainer? I know I will probably get modded down as flamebait because I am not singing his praises about being concise and to the point, but that interview was awful! I can't believe he is suppose to be the point of contact of anybody (read IBM, HP etc) that want to submit patches to be in the 2.4 tree. It looks like he spent about 10 minutes answering these questions, I can only hope he takes his job maintaining the kernel seriously. This interview certainly doesn't instill confidence in his ability to maintain the tree.
You asked Marcelo about everything from the influence of politics (age and otherwise) to his working enviroment and approach to maintainership
No I didn't.
or
tags or closing brackets? I mean come on, the formatting errors are really annoying and could only take 5 minutes to find and fix.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
"Do you guys read your own site?"
-no.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
That is, if his name is Bill Clinton.
This interview definitely kept him out of trouble, but that's not really what we wanted..
Berto
Does anyone really expect to be able to run the latest kernel on their 386/486 machines? Let's think about it: Your system was built and purchased probably between 1989 and 1992. It is now almost 2002. That's really not a bad run for something so antiquated. Should the people who work on the modern 2.4 (and now 2.5) kernels really have to bend over backwards to support such ancient hardware? If you want a kernel for your 10-year-old hardware, use 2.2 or 2.0. If you want to take advantage of new hardware, use 2.4 or 2.5. Why is it that people can't understand this?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Very witty and original stuff!
Haha! I don't know where you guys come up with your ideas. Please I've been wanting to go into comedy can you spare a moment of your time and give me insight into your comedic genius?
THANKS!
I can't seem to make sense of the answers to questions #4 and #18, about putting the kernel in CVS or similar system. Marcelo wrote, in response to Q#4: ;^)
However, I could export my local CVS, yes. I might do that in the future.
And then, to Q18:
No, I'm not going to put the kernel in any kind of version control system because I have to know what goes into the kernel.
Last time I used it, CVS was a version control system. So, am I the only one to think this question can't be answered with "yes" and "no" at the same time and still make sense? To me, this is just plain weird, and if this was a "real" interview, I'd think bad thinks about the interviewer. Now I guess I'll have to settle for the editors, as a few others in the thread already have. Heh.
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
I just want a working, stable kernel.
:) After hearing 'fluff' from both commercial and non-commercial developers for so long, it's nice to hear a one-sentence answer that doesn't leave one puzzled.
For some reason, though, I like this guy.
Maybe it's because of his short and to the point answers.
Man, someone out there sure feels threatened .. hard to believe someone is so worried as to spend the time pasting this form-post in /. threads.
...
One wonders what this guys trying to defend. I wish this guy who let us know for whom he works, and what he does
"Old man yells at systemd"
Don't get me wrong; I love trolls. And I love it even more when they get past the Mods ;)
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I think he meant he wants to use LTP, not STP.
STP isn't much use for testing kernel pre-releases.
modded to Troll? Sounds like whoever did that is using an old 486 LMAO!
Marcelo actually answered a few more questions that didn't appear in the main article, and were cut to save space. Here they are:
What do you think is an appropriate length for interview answers?
MT:17
Can you elaborate?
MT:no, sorry
Do you think that people who write long interview answers are compensating for other shortcomings?
MT: Yes, definitely
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
What operating systems and platforms do you personally use and which ones do you also use (and why)?
MT: I use Linux for work and sometimes I use Windows to play games.
Man, sounds kind of like why I still have the Win box at home - to play games. I'm wondering if/when he'll finally decide to switch - I'm expecting to dump my last Win box when I get the Mandrake 8.1 with The Sims bundle (WINE plus DirectX support).
I know that people believe we should all play Linux games, but the reality is that most of us still have Windows cause of the games. We don't really care why we can finally get rid of it, but we need something workable.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
You're just trying to trick them into listening to all our bitching, aren't you? God knows they've all been too bored/disgusted with the comments pages to read them for years.
Snotting & snorting are different things, you disgusting bastard. How dare you lower the tone with your snorting suggestions?
What he said is that hes Not going to make a writable cvs available to anyone else: all contributions will have come come as patches in email.
In summary he gets cvs and you dont.
They probably moderated it as soon as it was posted, too, but it took mozilla running in GNOME running in XFree 4.0 running on 2.5.0 running in 8 megs of ram on their 486-33 about 15 minutes to actually register the -1 Troll. :)
Linus lives in Silicon Valley, Alan in Swansea, Wales. That's one monster bus.
Marcelo, please discuss what exactly this great responsibility means to you in terms of your childhood and your relationship with your parents.
...
MT: it's groovy...
Tell us your psychological approach to kernel development vis-a-vis great 19th century philosophers.
MT: not now. maybe later. sorry...
Some people have likened coding to a visual-perceptual dialectic where the dynamic energy of structure versus entropy result in communal "oneness." What are your thoughts on this?
MT: Code is green...
Is there anything else you'd like to add to this interview, given that you now have a chance to speak to the large slashdot community? Any particular issues you feel strongly about?
MT:
One of the features of Linux has always been you won't need a hardware upgrade every 5 years for your servers.
being able to say it runs on a 386/486 has always been a great way to get the point across. Sure we can say 'it runs on a p90! but that just doesn't have the same kick.
Personally I don't have a problem with slow obsolence 10 year old hardware support in the 'newer' kernels, as long as its only with hardwaare at least 10 years old. To do obsolence of support any quicked pputs us in the samw league as MS. meaning we can't point our fingers t MS and say "See they made you buy new hardware, AGAIN"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Man get with it!
The thing is that I would never dream of using a 486 to surf the net, send/receive e-mail, play games etc. But I DO use a 486 as the router for my network.
Why would I want to put a fairly modern machine in charge of something that doesn't require it?
I love the fact that I can install slackware on my old 486 and have it forward packets for me. If Linux didn't run on it I would have to have used one of my celeron boxes that I instead gave my kid. What a waste that would have been!
--
Garett
What about the embedded market?
--
The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.
What about it? Can you even consider Linux a player in the real embedded market? Sure, there's "real-time" patches for it, but does it even begin to compare to operating systems which are designed from the ground-up to be real-time? Is Linux even a player in the embedded RTOS market? So far, the only win for Linux has been Tivo, and it's basically a PC in a VCR case.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Why shouldn't modern OS's work on yesterday's hardware?
I really like the idea of better changelogs explaining fixes and problems to the "end users". Granted, the "end users" compiling their own kernels are generally not typical computer users... some changelog lines are easy to understand while others aren't. The understanding is based solely on the users knowledge of the inner workings of the system.
I don't necessarily think that end user style changelogs should be of much concern to core kernel developers. Obviously, they should be concentrating on fixing problems. However, I have an idea that should make everybody happy...
A group of kernel savvy & knowledgeable systems experts should get together and form an open changelog review project. This project could work alongside the core kernel team for the sole purpose of documenting kernel changes, answering the questions of why, where, how, etc.
This would achieve great kernel documentation, and avoid putting that added stress on the kernel team. Thoughts?
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
I'm running Linux on my 486 which I bought in 95. It serves just fine as a firewall, proxy server and a small scale mail/web/ftp server.
I have not noticed *any* kernel bloat (and I've been running Linux for a loooong time). All the bloat is in the apps (especially the GUI gizmos). I'm surprised this question was even asked (but then again this is slashdot...)
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I have an active interest in Linux on Nubus PowerMacs. They were new in the 1994 era. Support for Linux on these machines is still spotty, and you have to jump through hoops to get something to work. However, it is a perfectly adequate machine once you get done.
One might have to build a custom kernel to fit within the limitations of the hardware. But it's a case of only the newest kernel being able to run on the old hardware at all. I'm glad that people are actively developing for it, otherwise I'd be unable to learn to use Linux because I don't have new hardware available.
Constitutionally Correct
The function of a kernel maintainer should be to make the best possible technical decisions for the kernl. It doesnt matter that he is terse in his communication with other developers. As long as the core of the technical ideas are communicated, it shouldnt be a problem. He is not being expected to deal with management types - just the technical ones.
Now, it wouldnt hurt if he also had an extroverted character to supplement his technical capabilities. But this is not essential for doing what he has to do.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
It does run fine on 368/486 - if you run the software appropriate for that system. KDE2 is gonna suck goat balls, but so is XP. The difference is, you can trim down Linux to work great. On a 486, you can use Blackbox, on a 386, I'd stick with textmode apps - there are plenty of good editors, browsers, etc, still in active development for textmode in Linux. Significantly fewer for XP (and many of them are "Unixy" things like shells and telnet clients).
Use a setup appropriate to the hardware, and Linux works fine... the Jailbait distro (so named because it's under 16 megs, haha), is very full featured, and there are "routers on a disk". Also, don't forget that 2.0.36 and kin are still out there, downloadable and usable. Unlike Win98, which just went unsupported and realistically unavailable, old *and* stable kernels are available. And then there are specialty forks - I think the one for the 16 Mhz Dragonball processor is an amusing example (a.k.a., Linux on Palm).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
m00.
Unless Linux runs on my 8088, the terrorists have already won.
P.S. In any case, good luck on 2.4 and everything!
Although I largely agree with you (I mean, 512MB of RAM is now 40$ @ Frys), an other reason for keeping the kernel small is cache.
L2 cache is still fairly small, and the more you can do inside it the better. The performance hit of a cache miss is bigger than you think.
But, yeah, if the reason would be to keep it running on 10-20 year systems, that's wrong.
Yes
Level Control Systems Matrix 3 has a embedded linux ppc system with 100baseT and UW-SCSI for real time audio system.
--jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
I've read longer haikus than some of those answers! I guess it makes sense though, he's the 2.4 kernel maintainer, not the 2.4 kernel spokesperson.
I have to agree with several posts that say inaccurate documentation is OSS Achilles' Heel. Sure, you could just jump in the fire and learn, but why not help folks out with some documentation?
What good is an OSS project if no devs join the construction effort and no users can figure out how to make it work? I'm not saying that you need a big fancy website and tons of UML diagrams, but don't just dump a pile of code and a makefile in my lap and expect me to be as giddy as a schoolgirl about the project.
it's not going to stop until you wise up, no it's not going to stop. so just give up.
Check here or here even...
Remember back in college when the professors took off points for lack of documentation. Comments from them usually include something as, "Sure you know how it works, but what about me." It was the first commandment of programming. So I think it should be one of the first changes to be made by commiters and developers posting patches. That includes all mighty Cox and Tourvalds taking some time to document some routine functions in the source code tree. There is some commenting that is relevant and some that has no purpose being there at all. BSD people should hush up too. They are just as bad. Yeah I know I should be willing to sit down with a pepsi and read through yards and yards of code. I shouldn't have too. I should be able to get an idea of the logic behind a fuction from your documentation. grade 60% you fail, repeat the class....
Mr. Katz, if you got hit by a bus, do you think anyone would care?
Hello Turd Report,
Your post, which is thoughtfully worded and carefully constructed for maximum impact, is appreciated, by me.
However, it goes without saying that the situation on slashdot is even WORSE than you think. I currently believe there are no humans manning the controls at slashdot. I think the whole thing is automated by primitive bots. These bots scower the net looking for certain keywords, like "Linux", and "beowulf cluster", and then they construct "stories" out of the retrieved information. They do this by using simple-minded algorithms which Cmdr "Taco" stole from the CMU artificial intelligence archive. I also have reason to believe the whole evil enchilada is coded in Lisp.
Now, in closing, may I please say that your posts, along with those of that beowulf guy, are some of the best ones on slashdot currently. Heh heh, that beowulf guy is fantastic - you never know when or where he'll strike next! And, thanks to him, I'm imagining beowulf clusters of the most unlikely things. Hilarious!
What's this crap about sound not working? I've had sound working on my box since... jeez... '97 or '98.. I've never touched ALSA (and indeed am skeptical of what good it is).
Any ALSA people here who can explain what it buys you over the standard kernel tree?
If you don't believe in "this fuck", don't use any of the stuff he produces/maintains. Nobody's forcing you to, you know.
"Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one."
Linus has a "chick" and offspring, so much for you're theory.
One thing people tend to forget about when talking about the ability for Linux to run on older hardware is the embedded market. If we (I work for MontaVista so "we" seems the right term) can't run Linux on 386-486 hardware, it probably won't run on that (hypothetical) new $15/unit low-power x86 SBC that one of our customers wants to use.
If Linux is going to be suitable for a wide variety of niche markets, it needs to be scalable down as well as up.
You can code the same functionality in an infinite number ways, all of them correct. Most of them will be ineffecient and hard to maintain. Some coders just don't have the knack of writing simple, efficient code. Also one could write code which ignores certain kernel policies which is correct, but has the potential to cause problems down the line, or just isn't 'clean'.
I think this is what Marcello was talking about when he was referring to 'the way they are coded'.
What's the deal with Alsa? I mean Suse has been behind it for quite some time now. The code seems fairly mature these days. People have been talking about merging it into the Kernal for years. What's the deal? Has OSS really jumped ahead recently in features, or does Alsa have a lot of bugs we don't know about?
...because they're the folks who like simple, straightforward and correct answers without extra fluff. By contrast, those who insist on being fed bullshit (why? as a respect thing?) make the other half of the userbase (I almost said "community", but that'd be wrong) all too visible.
I can't that you can blame him, personally I don't run windows, but I also don't play many games... However, almost all of the really good games at the moment are either console or PC only.
Most of the rest of the interview was pretty much what you would expect anyone to say, this is the only bit that jumped out and said "boo" to me. If we can keep him to his promises though Marcelo looks to be every bit as good a maintainer as Alan and Dave.
You need to give some examples. Here goes one:
What was done : A bird began to sit on your dick
Who did it : Penis Bird
When : You were wandering out there
Where : In that place
Why : The bird was so tired and willing to snap
Score 5? Interesting? Yeah...riiiight...
Gotta say I told you so...see previous post
Slashdot, the site where everything's made up and the points don't matter
ALSA is a major code change and will not happen on a minor release. Expect it for inclusion only with development trees (and then rather early on).
I won't believe any claims regarding this until it happens however. There has been a push to include it for a long time.
Luckily the project has gotten past it's biggest old problem, which was constantly, drastically, and suddenly changing the API, breaking many programs and pissing lots of people off, not to mention making it completely in flux.
we'll see
Many programmers (yes, I am guilty too), take inexpensive hardware as license to write ineficient code. So what if the end user needs more RAM or a faster processor....thats progress!
This attitude only works because end users don't realize the benefit of non-bloatware. The replies to the above post all mentioned being able to run the kernel on an old 386/486 computer....fine, thats a worthy goal. I do it myself. However, what happens when the same "removal of bloat" is applied to regular software, as to that run on old hardware?
I dare anyone to say that the above four points are in any way a Bad Thing [tm]! I don't know about everyone else reading Slahdot, but I'd love for my computer to run even 5% faster without any changes to the hardware....even (especially?) on my new 1.0 GHz / 512 MB RAM / 48 GB HD system.
"I might not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it!" --Voltaire
This was the best non-interview slashdot has had in a long time. Let me illustrate his "interviewing" style to you.
Question: Will you introduce XXX into the kernel?
Answer: I will do the job of kernel maintainer.
Question 2: Do you like cheese?
Answer: I will do the job of kernel maintainer.
Question 3: Do you know your pants are on fire.
Answer: Only if it is in regards to maintaining the kernel.
I have seen more personality on a head of moldy lettuce. But hey, good luck to you man, and don your flame retardant suit, you are going to need it.
One Token Ring to Rule them All, One Search Engine to Find Them, One WAN to bring them in, and TCP/IP Bind them...
no, that was win95 that went unsupported. IIRC, win98 won't go unsupported 'till 2003.
Actually, it's not inevitable. The core kernel code hasn't grown significantly since 2.2 which was released in early 1999.
By the core I mean everything except drivers.
Yes, I expect the kernel to run on a low-memory '386. I had a contract to put it on just such a machine for an embedded mission-critical project.
Your compiler errors wouldn't help you there, because the code you posted was completely standard C, and has been since 1989.
To those posters that have been complaining about MT's laconic answers, consider that the man's first language is obviously not English. He's an Italian living in Brazil, fer sakes.
Plus, I'd rather have concise "yes" and "no" than "well, let me start by talking about my childhood..." or "I did not have sex with that woman" deals that we see all too often in these interviews.
I know this really, shouldn't matter; if you're qualified, you should be given a chance. But this person looks *very* young. He must have spent quite a significant part of his life in front of a CRT. That's not a good way to make a balanced human being.
Can't beat perl!
my $max = (my $min = 2) + 2;
``If a program can't rewrite its own code, what good is it?'' - Mel
He's like 60 years old, guys. "over the hill"
for k3rN3L hacking? More power to hime, I say.
Why was parent modded funny? Any step to improve OSS documentation at this point deserves support, imo.
-Kraft
Live and let live
I have some questions about how versions are handled:
.1 is helpful to who, exactly?
.10 larger than .9? It's stupid, just go to 2 decimal places if you have to, not pick a conflicting system
- what is the point of different maintainence forks: 2.4, 2.2, etc. when the unstable branch can be rolled into the unstable? I guess 2.2 is more tested than 2.4, but at some point 2.2 just takes fixes made to 2.4, doesn't it? And
- Who the hell made
- anyone wanna comment on odd vs. even (stable vs. unstable) naming? why not just append a b or a to show it?
- is the kernel binary bloated? surely it could be made to ignore the stuff it doesn't (or can't possibly) need, such as whatever is keeping it from running on a 5150. If you _need_ more than 640k to run a terminal you're pretty lame.
MT "About qualifications: I've been working at Conectiva for some time (4 years) as a software developer."
4 years as a prof. paid developer. if he's 18 now = started @ 14
if he has the skills to be hired on by a major company @ 14, i've plenty of faith in him @ 18. posts like this are obvious representations of old farts with some serious insecurities.
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
... Because he's spent less time on the interview so he could get back to working on the kernel!
=)
You're rather missing the point. Linux is a 386 operating system, and should (with the proper trimming of utilities) still be able to run on a 386. Believe it or not, some of us can't even afford $500 for a shitbox Celeron and are stuck with what we've got (in my case a $200 P2 as well as the P100 I mentioned in my interview question). That market is probably a lot larger than you think it is.
Look at it this way: yes, I can use a 1.x kernel, but forget about things like up-to-date security, USB support (a lot of old Pentium MMX boxen have the ports), etc. Who can someone in that situation turn to but Linux?
/Brian
Sure, I know at least 3-4 VoIP devices that run Linux (including the one I'm directly responsible for). You have to realize that embedded is not always equal to real-time.
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
Marcelo gave a good interview to a Brasilian magazine, talking about his self and how he met linux. the interview is in portugese but you can use some sort of translator on it.. Folow the link: http://epoca.globo.com/semanal/_materias/entrevist a.htm
Okay, fine: the interview was a little dry. Perhaps, 5 years from now, we'll have trouble remembering it.
What the hell do you expect from a kernel maintainer? Trust me, you don't want revved-up and passionate...because he'll make revved-up and passionate mistakes. Marcello wasn't hired because of his strong views on the future of technology...he probably just does his job really well. I wish I could say the same about many people I've worked with.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
I run linux 2.4 on my 486 notebook, it worked fine when the machine had 8mb of ram, in fact, there's a slight speed increase from 2.2.19. Kernel bloat may be becoming a problem in source size, etc, but it's not bad enough that you can't use linux 2.4.16 on your 486/386 with 8mb of ram. You may on the other hand have to compile your own kernel, instead of using the one redhat compiled with every driver and it's brother. Don't fall back on versions because some of the new versions are bloated, just use a less bloated distro, say Slackware.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
idiot.
the entire reason its hard to program
drivers and kernels is because the hardware
geeks dont give a shit about their documentation.
the entire reason any higher level programming is hard
is because the assholes at the 'lower level' dont give a fuck
about the people who have to use it at a 'higher level'.
jesus fucking christ.
you bunch of fucking morons.
if you want a democracy or something to vote
on the next maintainer, , , then fucking organize it!
Spend a day in the embedded systems industry and you'll be embarassed you posted this. Go to Google and type PC/104 and read for a while.
In our world a 486 is plenty powerful for most applications, draws very little power, and is less vulnerable to temperature and electrical interference. And I love that I can still install off-the-shelf RedHat 7.2 on my test hardware and debug embedded applications right on these small systems.
Luckily the folks who are running the Linux show know exactly why it's important to support 486s. 10 year old hardware? My 486 system is brand new...
A tua mãe é uma prostituta !
I presume that you've never looked through the kernel code? At least the core kernel code is generally very clear and well written. Perhaps quoting the relevant section of linux/Documentation/CodingStyle would be helpful:
This is generally what the kernel actually adheres too.
Moreover, there is a certain sort of self-selection that goes on: kernels are inherently difficult - if you can't figure out what the clean code in the kernel does, then you probably shouldn't bother anyway. It may sound harsh, but when all is said and done it's probably a good idea. The kernel is not the place for beginners. There's plenty of other good software for that.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Am I the only one that thinks changelogs are often not technical enough? IMHO, a changelog is not a place where you put abstract descriptions such as "fixed bugs in dohicky". It should have very precise descriptions so that the exact nature of the bug fix or feature addition can be determined without having to go searching.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Are you gay ?
rtsp://mediafarm2.rjo.embratel.net.br/~parana-d/pr 2linux091101.rm
Probably I will get modded down for saying this, but why should he care about answering to slashdot ?
What has slashdot contributed to linux ?
It's full of elitist who think they are gods because they can install redhat 7.2.
It's full of idiots who overload kernel.org when there are mirrors in each country.
It's full of whiners who want this and that feature in the kernel yet never contribute even in the form of a simple bug report.
Ok, I _am_ surprised a bit, namely why in hell did he agree to this interview...
Exactly, it should have been 42.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
32 megs of ram was obscene back then. Do the motherboards even support that kind of ram?
Stop the brainwash
Err, no. If you are writing something primarily for British folk, it is humour, if you are writing something for American folk, it is humor.
--
Anyone ever notice that those British blokes don't know how to spell? *L*
I still run debian testing just fine on my 486DX4/100 laptop with 20 megs of ram. With kernel 2.4 even. Sure, I run pwm as a window manager instead of something more elaborate, but it works great. And opera is performant enough as a browser on such old hardware.
Okay, so I am from Brazil and this might sound a little biased. But Marcello won't be maintaining the kernel alone. The open source commmunity, so proud that they have something where everyone can contribute and modify to their needs, can't see this?
He works for Conectiva, which is IMHO a large player on the Linux distribution companies. They went to the 'give support and consulting' model of business way before many of United States companies. They have a Debian's apt similar tool that can fetch and check for RMPs (from Red Hat) dependencies, and install everything from the internet. They contribued a lot with the code on every part of Linux, and a lot of documentation and HOW-TOs.
So, based on Marcello's answer, I don't believe he will add, delete or modify almost anything on the kernel without heavily input from his co-workers.
Just to remind that one of the main ideas behind open source (collaboration...) can, and probaly WILL, be applied.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Many of the attacks on Marcello here are silly. Try answering an interview in French or something and I bet your answers are short and not particularly sweet.
:-) Good luck Marcello!
On the other hand I am not sure Marcello was the correct choice for 2.4 maintainer (no offense intended... read on). In my opinion Alan should have handed the relatively mature codebase that is 2.2 on to Marcello so he could get to grips with maintaining something that is already pretty mature. Giving him 2.4 is kinda throwing him in at the deep end because we all know it has a long way to go before it is what it could be. Also, with 2.4, SGI, IBM and all the others will be hounding him with patches that they want in the kernel, this would have been less of a problem with 2.2.
However... I love to be proved wrong.
(PS: I think the biggest complement a maintainer can get is to be told that you want him to maintain the next kernel release too. Thanks Alan.)
i run slack 8 as a gateway/firewall on a p100 with something like 90 mb of ram and i use a p200 as a simple email/ftp setup with 128 mb of ram (slack 8 again). that p200 use to be my main machine and it ran slack 8 even with kde2 just fine
on the price end of things if you take out the 100 I spent on a visiontek geforce 2 i spent less than 400 on a 1.6 ghz p4 and an ecs board that uses ddr ram (512 mb to boot), sans new hdds that i already had
No sig for you!!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Reading the interview I could see why this guy was chosen. He is perfect! A coder who is interested in working code. No politics, no food, no tamtam, just the kernel! The kind of coder who made Linux what it is today. Let the marketing people at IBM do what they want. I want a working kernel. Nothing less and... nothing more!!! Good Luck Mr Marcelo Tosatti. And thanks for all the (good) fish :-)
Actually, Linux can run on your 8088.
ELKS (The Embeddable Linux Kernel Subsystem) is what you ae looking for.
Find it here.
Unfortunately, my 8088 box is flaky (controller is dodgy and the hdd is covered in bad sectors, not to mention the corroded ISA contacts) so I never got ELKS going.
I know I'm responding seriously to a post rated 'funny' but now you know you can defeat those terrorists.
--Duane
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Does anyone really expect to be able to run the latest kernel on their 386/486 machines?
I run the latest NetBSD kernel on a 486. Doesn't seem to be a problem.
So far as I can tell, there's no new advances coming down the pike in VESA or ISA cards. It's not like there's huge drifts of new code that need to be written for my shitty old Dell.
Incidentally, I thought the big advantage of Linux was that it works on old hardware. At least, that's what the zealots keep telling me.
--saint
Looks like closed source has more than the heel unprotected.There are no magic bullets, but with open source there is maybe a better fighting chance. Somebody, somewhere, sometime can. Will is a different matter, but at least lets not make it impossible.
That was my point. If you're willing to run an old distribution with the tens of remote root exploits that implies, be my guest. But you wanna stay secure, you got to get something fairly modern. And then, you'll find yourself needing RAM. More than 8 megs. I have an old p120 with 32 megs of ram. That is enough if I run a web server and postgres, along with sshd, but not by a large margin!
Stop the brainwash
All packages need to be patched. You end up with a maintenance nightmare if you wish to install some old 2.x slackware distribution, make it safe and then keep applying patches.
Anyhow, on such a low-end system you should compile the kernel by hand anyhow. You can usually shave a quite a few K off the standard kernel.
Basically, the 2.4 kernel when stripped down to the requirements have no problems running on a 386 or 486. It's the userspace software that eats most of the ram. And old userspace software will need to be heavily patched to kill all security holes.
It can be done, but it's not feasible for joe schmoe who's just starting out with Linux and wants to use his ten-year-old computer for experimenting with Linux. Sadly.
Are we approaching an agreement?
Stop the brainwash