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Linus says 2.6 kernel will be out by June 2003
Xpilot writes "C|Net reports that Linus Torvalds predicts 2.6 will be out by June next year during a talk on his Geek Cruise. Linus called the next release '2.6', but knowing him that may be just a working title;)"
Update: 10/26 17:29 GMT by T : An anonymous reader adds "Rob Landley has published the latest list of features being considered for inclusion" in the new kernel; ... "the long and impressive list is available in more or less human readable form on Linux and Main."
Because IA-64 requires a lot of work to support for mediocre results on an atrociously expensive platform that appears to be on a glide path to catastrophic failure. Those efforts could be more productively spent elsewhere.
Meanwhile, x86-64 is much simpler to support, the platform will be cost competitive with current top-of-the-line x86 systems, and you don't have to recompile all your programs if you don't want to. 4-way and 8-way multiprocessor systems ought to be semi-affordable too. In short, it's a far better philosophical and practical fit.
I think he feels that way as well. Its just that he has learned that the corporate world likes release dates and the one he "gave" is in all likelyhood a resonable estimate. I see nothing in the GNU/Linux philosophy that states that you can't try to set a schedule and stick to it. Just because Redhat says "when its done" doesn't mean there isn't a giant whiteboard at their headquarters saying a certain date is "D-day".
Also this isn't some sort of sign of selling out, but I do think if anyone is to guesstimate when a release is likely, they talked to the right person. He is after all the final authority when it comes to releasing kernels.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
That's the best one-sentence indictment of the Inanium I've seen to date.
Intel's plan was to come up with a new, different architecture that no one could clone because Intel had patents on key parts. They did. But it wasn't a better, new, different architecture. It was worse. So it seems headed for the Intel niche processor department, along with the i860 and i960, both of which are quite reasonable RISC machines that nobody cared about.
AMD's 64-bit architecture is straightforward. It's IA-32 expanded to 64 bits, with a few more registers and some of the little-used stuff removed. That's not hard to support. With Linux support, that's likely to be the mainstream machine for cost-effective server farms for the next five years or so. Assuming AMD ships the thing soon.
By far, it is not a desktop replacement, but when that isn't how you try and use it you are fine. Their cpu was not built to be a killer-super-fast-cpu (and it isn't). I bet if I sit you down on a computer powered by an 800mhz transmeta and a p4 2ghz, you won't even be able to tell the difference with "normal*" tasks.
It all comes down to how one plans on using the technology. Just because _you_ think it is unacceptably slow does not mean others think the same thing. I used to upgrade my PC all the time because it just wasn't fast enough. I stopped doing that around the 1ghz mark because now it is fast enough. To throw a good quote in here... "A blur is just a blur." (this quote was back when doing a 'dir' in dos scrolled by in a blur on a 486sx-33, and it looked the same on a pentium-233.)
*Normal being just checking mail, AIM (or your IM client of choice), Web browsing, Generic stuff like that. Of course this assumes that everything else is the same (HD speed, ram size etc).
bah, I'll just submit this now