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A 3D Animation of Kernel Source Development

fixit! writes "Have a look at this cool 3D animation of the Linux kernel source. This is how a source browser should look like!"

22 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Errors by BenjaminHall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It would be nice to see major errors identified and then fixed in the movies as well.

  2. Not that impressive... by case_igl · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...You should have seen some of the "sex on campus"
    seven degrees of separation white boards from my college days!

    (Yes, my "small patch" was rejected as too small to bother including)

    1. Re:Not that impressive... by srn_test · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wow, that _is_ impressive! I didn't know you could even _get_ 3D white boards :)

    2. Re:Not that impressive... by XJoshX · · Score: 4, Funny

      At least you didn't live in the south.. Their family trees down there are twice as complicated as your whiteboard.

    3. Re:Not that impressive... by tx_mgm · · Score: 3, Funny

      At least you didn't live in the south.. Their family trees down there are twice as complicated as your whiteboard.

      how the hell is a straight line complicated? ok, ok...sometimes they make little diamonds....you know, when someone has twins or something...

      (it's funny. laugh.)

      --
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      -Dr. Weird
  3. Eeeevil by Omikr0n · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm going to go ahead and test my university's bandwidth by mirroring the movies at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~omikron/linux3d/

  4. OMM - one more mirror by bradams · · Score: 5, Informative
    --
    I like to build things and wire stuff together.
  5. Browsing is step one by Jedi+Alec · · Score: 5, Funny

    fixit! writes "Have a look at this cool 3D animation of the Linux kernel source. This is how a source browser should look like!"

    That's all nice and cool, but could we have a 3D shooter next where you can use a BFG#### to go bughunting? ;-)

    --

    People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
  6. Hey! by freedom_leffo · · Score: 3, Funny

    I caught a glimpse of Johnny Mnemonic in there!

  7. This would have been a lot more impressive by pcx · · Score: 3, Informative

    This would have been a lot more impressive if they had actually used java to animate the schematic instead of a static movie. Something along the lines of this...

    http://www.visualthesaurus.com/index.jsp

    Still cool, just not _slashdot_ cool.

  8. Tetsuo? by Rhinobird · · Score: 4, Funny

    Tetsuo? is that you? what happened?

    --
    If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
  9. Now available in P2P by 10Ghz · · Score: 3, Informative

    I shared the files in Kazaa. Look for "Linux Kernel 3D"

    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  10. Re:Rather Interesting Concept by njdj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think that since Linux is very clean, streamlined code

    Perhaps you didn't actually read the page referred to in the story?:
    ---start quote---
    The following code demonstrates exciting
    features of GNU C used in Linux:

    int a, b;
    typedef int t, u;
    void f1() { a * b; }
    void f2() { t * u; }
    void f3() { t * b; }
    void f4() { int t; t * b; }
    void f5(t u, unsigned t) {
    switch ( t ) {
    case 0: if ( u )
    default: return;
    }
    }
    ---end quote---

    This kind of code is CRAP. I don't know who wrote it, I don't care if he/she is a genius kernel guru. Hard to read, hard to maintain.

  11. Uses? by shivianzealot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A very specific niche comment/query...

    I'm not a programmer (BASIC doesn't count, right? :p ), but I have observed the development of a few open source projects and have seen the effects of code being introduced by programmers who have valuable contributions, but interact poorly with the rest of the source (usually novices). So, veterens, could this type of map, applied to the project in question, drive home the point and help mold the newbie into better practices, or are we better off oohing and ahhhing now and moving on to the next article?

    --

    Bored with karma, be a fan/freak

  12. Finally! by zozzi · · Score: 5, Funny
    Finally a true clear picture of the kernel! With this concise clear and stunning graphical 3d image I can finally progress beyond the Hello World modules. Lost in a function? Not sure how the kernel works? I'll just look at the wonderful lines and dots buried in the haze of blue and hey presto! All is revealed. Thank you for the amazing contribution to the world of computer science! Next up: a graphical representation of all the source code bits after mangled through a blender..stay tuned!

    (or not)

    --
    ---
  13. Re:Can someone help the man out? by Bisqwit · · Score: 4, Informative
    I put the two biggest ones here.
    http://bisqwit.iki.fi/kala/kernel3d/

    I'll keep them there for some hours, depending on the load induced to my puny 384 kb/s (<48 kB/s) bandwidth.
    So far it seems though that the actual site is enduring pretty good too.

  14. Sharp Eyes by ArmedGeek · · Score: 3, Funny

    OO..I think I spotted an error in net/sch_prio.c at line 217...back up...wait...pause..no...I was mistaken...it's right..

    --
    Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
  15. Windows by KoolDude · · Score: 4, Funny


    For comparison, here are a few animations of Windows

    --
    getSexySig(); /* returns sexy signature */
  16. visualizing complex data by fiiz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, that is interesting indeed.

    I think in general there may be interesting research to be done in the area of mapping/visualization of complex data: for instance this project of mapping the internet.

    Does this really help in general? Are there many cases where such visual maps would help understanding of complex data?
    Think for example, it may be interesting to produce such a map of everything2, which is a sort of hyperlinked online encyclopedia, to see where the clustering is.

    In astrophysics, 3D maps of the universe have been produced for some time, and the human-eye understanding of large-scale structure was at first more direct than statistical analysis--for instance, people would see the famous filaments, but stats wouldn't.

    A post above quoted the possible use in spotting "usefulness" of code contributions, by looking at their interdependencies for example.

    --

    yours ever, fz.
  17. watching the bits on an Atari ST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My first computer was an Atari ST. The MWC (Mark Williams C) compiler that I bought with it came with an amazing little C demo program. It must have been 15 lines of C code tops. The Atari ST has an 680x0 cpu chip, and a linear memory model. A chunk of that memory was set aside for video, and a separate chip pumped that video memory out to the monitor. With the C demo program, you could change the base video memory pointer to point anywhere in memory, including low memory, where the operating system (TOS/GEM) resided. By doing this, you could actually WATCH the operating system in action, because each pixel on the video monitor represented one bit! You could see counters counting up, flag bits flip-flopping on and off, chunks of bits being read in from the floppy disk, etc. It is, by far, the coolest thing I've ever seen done with a computer. =) Wish I could figure out how to do it on my linux box.

    1. Re:watching the bits on an Atari ST by StormReaver · · Score: 3, Informative

      Tandy's line of CoCo computers worked the same way with video. Set a couple registers to tell the video generator which part of system RAM to treat as video and watch the operating system state displayed on-screen.

      It was mildly amusing from time to time.

      My workplace recently bought all us programmers new Gateway systems where the integrated video card (a GeForce model) uses the same technology for video as the CoCo from the past. Figure out how to tell the board which part of system memory should be treated as video, and the same effect could be had.

  18. Use GCC? by hughk · · Score: 3, Interesting
    GCC is a compiler. It shoulldn't be a probllem to construct a local cross reference from the symbol information that it produces, especially if debugging is enabled. The advantage is that GCC would be used in the same way that it is to compile the kernel.

    I can't remember if GCC assigns attributes to symbols so it is possible to keep track of code references but to forget the data references, but that would mean chasing through the debug symbol format.

    --
    See my journal, I write things there