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2.4, The Kernel of Pain
Joshua Drake has written an article for LinuxWorld.com called
The Kernel of Pain.
He seems to think 2.4 is fine for desktop systems but is only now, after a year of release, approaching stability for high-end use. Slashdot has had its own issues with 2.4, so I know where he's coming from. What have your experiences been? Is it still too soon for 2.4?
Windows vs Linux. Windows is up to version 5.0 (NT) for their server OS. Linux has a way to go. Ever notice that the first usable version of windows was 3.11? Might be the same with Linux.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
"However, after about a month into deployment I started noticing strange problems with the machine. Intermittent lockups were the most common. The lockups appeared physical, and the machine was unrecoverable without a reboot.
While performing research on the problem, I learned there was a serious sync() bug in the 2.4 kernel. This bug exists in all kernel 2.4 versions until 2.4.6."
Intermittent lockups? Serious bugs in the kernel? For five straight minor releases, no less! This is beginning to sound like Windows! Where are the trolls who post about the Open-source movement completely preventing and/or eliminating this sort of thing?
I run Linux 2.4.16-pre1 on both my desktop machine and a server and have never had any probs (except for the odd system slowdown due to ext3 sync()`ing, but winME was much worse.) Ironicly, I run windows XP as a NAT server on my dialup box, because it also has to run some windows-only software that doesnt like wine. It took me HOURS to get the bloody thing setup and working, and I spent another 3 hours downloading all the patches, plus a virus scanner (AVG... very good- www.grisoft.com), ZoneAlarm, and then had to wrestle with XP's bullshit "User friendly" configuration while it told me that everything I did wasn't a good idea. After all that, XP's built in 'firewall' (which is on even though I turned it off) conflicts with ZoneAlarm, and constantly locks down all internet traffic, requiring a reboot. It also runs like a sloth with 520mb ram on a 1.5 ghz p4. And to top it all off, XP constantly refuses to connect to my ISP... which are running "Incompatible" windows2000 servers.
How many people lost all their retirement savings because Clinton got a blow job? Yep, none. Enron, GOP; GOP, Enron.
Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.
An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
Why not go directly to 4.4-STABLE or chance 4.5-PRERELEASE? It's definitely nice and stable. Much better than 2.2 or 2.4.
# uptime
7:39AM up 31 days, 7:46, 8 users, load averages: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00
#uname -a
FreeBSD somewhere 4.4-STABLE FreeBSD 4.4-STABLE #10: Sat Dec 1 13:37:45 EST 2001 root@gw.smnolde.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/FIREWALL i386
Well, maybe I am trolling, but you linux d00ds still don't get it.