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Three-year Anniversary of Kernel Traffic

Posted by chrisd on from the zack-brown-is-very-cool dept.

Eric Gibson writes: "Thought everybody might want to know, today is the three-year anniversary of kernel traffic. The site for those of us that want to like to keep up with the goings-on of the kernel mailing list, but can't afford to read 1500+ emails a day. ;-) Congratulations to the maintainer who has kept this site alive, through trial and tribulation."

16 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. 3rd Anniversary of Kernel Traffic by dbarron · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm truly glad it's there for reference. I really miss some of the sites that have been more or less lost (ie www.linuxhq.com, www.webwatcher.org,etc). Today's economy and the maintainers lack of time/interest have taken their tolls.

  2. 1500+ emails a day? by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 3, Informative

    The site says that, last week, there were a little over 2700 emails total...

    - 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?"
  3. Speaking of that... by NiftyNews · · Score: 2, Funny

    How can one even HAVE a mailing list with 1500+ messages/day?

    Unless of course, you're talking about Hotmail. I don't remember signing up for any lists, but I sure do enjoy the hilarious back-and-forth conversations between the people trying to sell graphic p0rn and the people convinced that we should all be selling real estate for a profit!

    --
    ------
    Today's Top Deals
    1. Re:Speaking of that... by m_ilya · · Score: 2, Insightful
      How can one even HAVE a mailing list with 1500+ messages/day?

      Well, usually nobody needs to read all these emails. The trick is having good mailer which can help to sort all that email and find what you do want or need to read. It is not a problem with good mailer which supports threading and kill lists (or Scoring). I've been subscribed on a number of maillists with more than 2000+ message/day in total and I could easily read them with Gnus.

      --

      --
      Ilya Martynov (http://martynov.org/)

    2. Re:Speaking of that... by AnalogBoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're right.. At that point, wouldn't a newsgroup be more appropriate?

      On SunManagers i used to get about 100 a day on heavy days, and that was a LOT for me to handle. I ended up creating a new e-mail account specifically for mailing lists.. Between the SM list, Legato NotWorker, Veritas...

      Just a side comment: Slashdot looks *SO MUCH BETTER* in this blue color. When will we get the option to theme slashot, like other weblog engines have? :/

    3. Re:Speaking of that... by dan+g · · Score: 4, Informative

      The linux-kernel mailing list is available via nntp at fa.linux.kernel. If you have a news reader that does scoring (e.g. gnus it makes the traffic all that much more manageable.


      dan.

  4. Extra Props to Kernel Traffic by 00Monkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Come on guys, they get *extra* props for having a URL like that. :)

  5. Exaggeration on kernel traffic? by bconway · · Score: 5, Informative

    I see comments like this one regularly, and I'm really not sure why. I'm a subscriber to the kernel mailing list, and rarely get over 100 emails a day (max 150), all of which get dumped into a kernel-traffic folder which is quite easy to browse through and delete, as well as keep one's self up-to-date on kernel developments. I would think the more people involved in Linux kernel development with _constructive_ bug reports the better things would be. Comments like this really aren't doing anything besides giving a false impression, and would certainly encourage anyone looking for some good reading material to sign up and set aside a mail folder for it.

    --
    Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
  6. Great stuff by spatrick_123 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This site is so useful not only for those of us who can't follow the huge volume of email, but also for people who either got into the game late or only read sporadically. It's sort of like jumping into a TV show in the 8th season and having a wonderful reference to give you background on the first 7. Thanks so much to everyone at kernel traffic!

  7. the one where I agree by DeadPrez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am no kernel hacker, just a lowly information technology worker who wants to keep up-to-date on the comings and goings with Linux development. Ok, I admit it, I am just a bit of a gawker when it comes to free software development theory. I religiously read the abridged kernel traffic every Monday. That is good stuff (all nice and technical) to start the day off with. I recommend it to anyone who wants to stay hip and with it (and hey, you get to see the real Alan and real Linus every now and then).

    Keep it up guys!

    1. Re:the one where I agree by psavo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Heh, if you want to get spoilers (before monday ;), I personally always read Linux Weekly News every thursday. Especially the kernel pages.
      Also the Kerneltrap has sometimes news on latest kernel developments (like recent O(1)+preempt patch..).

      Speaking of that, they should have full interview with Alan Cox tomorrow..

      --
      fucktard is a tenderhearted description
  8. Kernel Traffic is better for me by Weird+Dave · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Kernel traffic is doing everybody who has limited bandwidth a favor. It increases awareness of Kernel issues, even to those who know they won't become active developers.

    The original post was obviously hyperbole, but having subscribed to the list myself, I know how quickly lkml can eat up your disk quota if you aren't vigilant.

    Zack Brown deserves props specifically for the bug reports you mentioned. If I found a kernel bug, I wouldn't have previously known how to report it, or whether it was already reported, without sifting through tons of mailing list archives.

    I read kernel traffic weekly, and I feel like the few minutes I spend reading it really keeps me on top of what's going on.

    Overall, people with a 56k modem cannot deal with lkml, and they shouldn't have to.

    --

    Grumble, Grumble
    1. Re:Kernel Traffic is better for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Another option for the bandwidth-limited are the web archives, where you can somewhat easily pick out the topics of interest.

      The only word of warning is that people don't change the thread subject lines by convention, so the subject almost never matches the particular flame war that's going on. (The Kernel Traffic summaries generally ignore most of the interesting flamage, focusing on the prouncements of the bigwigs.)

      There is also a usenet front-end (which I think is what Linus uses), as well as a Google archive

  9. Good starting place, but not for everyone by dan+g · · Score: 4, Informative

    When I first started getting interested in the kernel I subscribed to the mailing list and was immediately overwhelmed by the traffic. I soon found Kernel Traffic and unsubscribed from the mailing list and was happy.

    The truth is, though, that while KT gives a good overview of some areas of the mailing list, it misses a lot. This is obvious, of course; cutting 100's of posts a day down to one moderate weekly summary is going to leave a lot of information. But to be honest, though I admire and appreciate Zach Brown's efforts, I wonder what criteria he uses for deciding what threads to cover. I sometimes feel he has left out some fairly important/interesting stuff while quoting huge gobs of somewhat trivial (imho) threads.

    Anyone who is seriously interested in the kernel internals shouldn't really be relying on KT too much. Head over to kernelnewbies and start reading the real list. I recommend a good filternig system to help you separate out the chaff, though.

    dan.

  10. Different lists? by sigwinch · · Score: 2
    Why don't they split different issues to different lists?
    They *do*. Which makes lkml all the scarier.
    --

    --
    Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end. ;-)

  11. That reminds me... by Legion303 · · Score: 2
    The page doesn't say when the next stable version is due out (at least, not that I can find after a quick once-over). It's been, what, three whole weeks since the last one? I'm used to the "once a week" releases.

    On the plus side, that must mean 2.4.17 is somewhat stable. :)

    -Legion