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Ars Technica Interviews Robert Love
functor writes "Ars Technica has interviewed kernel hacker Robert M. Love of MontaVista/Ximian fame. He covers current and future developments in the Linux kernel and on the desktop, particularly concerning the Linux process scheduler and its enhancements for system responsiveness and also his work toward Project Utopia, an effort to make Linux's device management on the (GNOME) desktop transparent and seamless. (Robert Love is the principal hacker who worked on kernel preemption for the Linux 2.6 kernel.)"
The standard KDE argument:
>A GNOME spreadsheet you want Miguel? Don't worry. The way things are
>looking, I can hack one out in a few days. We will borrow from X, Y, and Z
>projects since they have most of the functionality we need. It will be a
>matter of fitting them all together."
I find it always funny that KDE supporters always list re-use of existing libraries as a big minus point of Gnome, as if it is a bad thing to re-use and adopt none-Gnome supporting libraries,
It is my vision that this is one of the great strengths of Gnome. In Gnome the supporting libraries are almost never Gnome dependent they often use already existing libraries or help to modify them too their needs, without Gnome-ifying them. When they create a new one for use in Gnome they tend too make it as generic as possible, With this sort of philosophy you create functionality that is easily adopted by other projects or was already in use or planned to get used. Things like Cairo (X-server), Fontconfig, ATK, etc. This is exactly why this functionality is popping up everywhere in open-source land. Which makes the KDE supporters scream that Gnome is taking everything over. This isn't true, but Gnome by using the above philosophy, doesn't alienate itself from other Linux/*nix projects in stark contrast too KDE. Gnome is not only about building a great desktop, it is about building modular desktop technology that can be used and reused by more projects then Gnome only, which make Gnome more cooperative too other projects then KDE.
As example below a quote from Robert Love (from kernel fame) in a interview too Arts-Technica developing for Ximian about his project Utopia:
[Begin quote]
Love: Project Utopia's goal is to fully integrate the Linux system, from the kernel on up the stack, through the GNOME desktop, its applications, and finally to the user. Therefore, Project Utopia is very GNOME-specific.
But Project Utopia is composed of many small components, and each component is intentionally being developed separately and abstractly. Thus, a GNOME desktop (or any desktop) is not required for much of the functionality and another desktop environment could (and should!) provide the missing pieces.
The system is architect-ed in such a way that the only components actually at the desktop layer are policy mechanisms, such as gnome-volume-manager, and glue layers/libraries, such as any forthcoming notification system.
Components such as udev and hotplug are obviously entirely agnostic to the rest of the system, as they are (or will be) required pieces of nearly any Linux system. Other components, such as D-BUS and HAL, can likewise fit into any system. I very much hope that both of those projects find wide adoption.
In response to your example, I think that a server with no desktop environment would still benefit from this work. In fact, it would just use Project Utopia as far up the stack as needed, definitely making use of udev, D-BUS, and HAL.
[End Quote]
Now do you think that at KDE they will be glad to get such technology? Oh sure they will take it and probably "adapt" it (like the Borg that is) into there desktop, but for sure the work they will put into it will only benefit KDE and while this is happening they will scream and whine till the end that Gnome is about adopting and Gnome-ifying (giving project Utopia as example off-course, because the technology will get adapted in lots of non-gnome projects), while little somebody else can use is coming from the KDE community (it is all of the KDE or die, look at Red-hat and user-Linux how KDE treads other visions).
The question is: Do you want a *nux/Linux community desktop which takes from (Fontconfig, Cairo, librsvg, etc) and gives too (Project Utopia, GTK+, Freedesktop.org, Gstreamer, ATK, Pango, etc) other projects (Xfree86, XFCE4, etc) without making everything it touches Gnome or do we want the none-*nix/Linux philosophy of one big API in the form of a win32 clone which alienates everything no
...is a bad idea. Who are the users to think their trivial tasks are more important than the kernel's?
I was on the linux-kernel mailing list and all I got was spam from Microsoft trying to sell me OS enlargement pills and spam from Intel trying to sell 7 minute SMT support (if it doesn't work in 7 minutes they throw in the extra minute for free.)
I haven't had enough sleep, because that headline came out as "Slashdot Interviews Robot Love". I thought we were going to have the interesting story of the worlds first robot pornstar.
Oh well, back to my deranged little world...
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
0(1) is a "term" from computer science.
Are you sure it's a "term"? I could have sworn it was just a term.
If it's truly an O(1) routine, there should be -no- increase in running time as more procs are added; it should remain constant. If it increases with the number of procs, it's no longer O(1).
Period.
Calling it anythign else is the kind of marketing deception that OSS is supposed to free us from.
Linux already works fine as a desktop; what most potential switchers need are a few good apps to fill the role of Quickbooks, Exchange, iMovie and a handfull of other programs. They're happy with any schedular as long as their ogg/mp3 player doesn't skip while loading a big spreadsheet.
As to GNOME and KDE? Well, they're fine if you think all Microsoft's HCI mistakes are outweighed by the need to make it easy for their users to switch to an equally badly designed system. I don't and so I couldn't care less about what the programmers on these projects are wasting their time on this week.
My wish list for the desktop is: a decent file system which stores meta-data beyond the file name and date stamp, a program which decodes the data in Quickbook files so I can import into Gnucash, and a single, working, font system. None of these are very urgent but they're all more urgent than anything mentioned in the article.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Perhaps you'd wish to appreciate Ingo Molnar's work? Robert Love's work has been to make the kernel mostly preemptible, rather than to make its scheduling algorithm more efficient.
Project Utopia is going to glue a whole bunch of stuff together. Meanwhile, some of the pieces look interesting.
Is udev ready for use by typical Linux users (as opposed to kernel hackers)? How about sysfs -- that is just part of 2.6 and is completely ready, right? How about D-BUS?
Meanwhile, on a flamefest^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdiscussion about KDE and GNOME, I saw a claim made that "hardly any GNOME applications use Bonobo". Is that true? If it is true, is it changing? (Wasn't a Network Object Model one of the fundamental things about gNOMe?)
I browsed RML's blog, and some of the screenshots look really cool. I'm really looking forward to this stuff.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
This terminology didn't originate in C.S.: it's been used in physics before the Eniac was even born and in maths even before that.
It's general meaning is that the entity described as being O(something) responds to a variation of "something" like "something"'s power that apears between the braces, i.e. here it's a constant, so the scheduler wont respond at all. You can have O(x), wich responds linearly to x's variations, O(x^2) wich responds quadraticly (non-linear comportements begin here), and so on...
Furthermore: it's not 0(1) (zero(1))... it's O(1) (O as in "Order of")
Erm no. To initially add a new process to the scheduler list takes longer (which is what the parent said); however once it's added it can be accessed in the same time regardless of the total size of the list. So it takes slightly longer to start the process, however once it's started the scheduler takes the same amount of time to do its work regardless of the total number of processes running, hence O(1)
This is just demonstrating the universal tradeoff in algorithm design: faster add vs faster access (see INSERT vs SELECT in DBs)
Carpe Daemon
I read the Evolution developers' blogs almost daily and I have yet to see anything about an "evolution-back-end-server" - I have seen some interesting things about Groupwise integration, but that's quite a far cry from the open source software that we all know and love.
And if you think that Novell will pay for Ximian developers to program something that will take away their Groupwise market, I want some of what you're smoking.
Also, I would love to know how exactly anything in the KDE API looks even remotely like anything in the MS Win32 API. I've programmed very briefly on Win32 and much more extensively with KDE and Qt, and I can tell you that they are absolutely nothing alike. But you don't seem to know what you're talking about anyway, so I'm not exactly surprised.
Hi,
...
...
The example you are pointing to is in fact one of the best examples you could have given that you are completely wrong with your reasoning.
The KDE Groupware project builds on Kolab
http://kolab.kde.org/
The Kolab Server has been a KDE independent project from the start in 2001. You don't need _any_ KDE libraries to use it and it's not built on top of anything that would be KDE specific. It was intentionally built this way to make it possible for other projects to _use_ it as well. It has been finished and stable since more than 8 months ago.
Still I don't see Ximian using it - Instead they seem to reinvent their own wheel from scratch now
And as you would find out if you were more open minded this isn't the only example where KDE creates technology which has never been KDE specific and which is has been discarded by other projects just to reinvent their own wheel.
So much for the pot calling the cattle black
Regards,
Torsten Rahn
For a minute, I was honestly wondering why on earth Ars would interview Rob Lowe.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
not to complain, but I remember one of the first beta lists I ever was on was for the product called "Microsoft Project Utopia" which apparently was the internal code name of the development project later to be released as "Microsoft Bob".
Just thought you'd find this interesting ehhe
For those who are interested (and happen to be in Brussels on October 21), Robert Love is one of the speakers at FOSDEM 2004.
He will talk about "The Linux kernel and the desktop".
> as long as you are a Linux guru
Don't sabotog your argument with such language.
I can show you a whole bunch of people who use Linux as a desktop and aren't computer experts. The bulk of the Slashdot userbase.
I'm not a Linux guru but I certanlly use it for my desktop. Cmdr ("Do I LOOK like I could make a Linux Destro?") Taco is yet annother example.
It dosen't take a computer expert to pull up a shell SU into root start up the Linux config tools and recompile the Linux kernel.
Nither dose it take a Linux guru to build Linux from scratch or a PC expert to build a PC or an automotive expert to change your oil.
But....
Grandma dosen't change her oil she takes it into the shop and they do it.
I could build my own table.. Not that difficult. But it's enough work that I'd rather buy one premade.
That is how it is with Linux right now.
MOST people could run it but for most people it's a lot of work.
I don't actually exist.