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The 2.7 Kernel: Back To The Future For Linux
Anonymous Coward writes "Now that the Linux 2.6 kernel has been released and is being worked into distributions, many in the open-source community are turning their attention to the next development and test kernel, known as the 2.7 tree. To get an early glimpse at some of the thinking going into the next kernel, key vendors that aid in shaping the Linux kernel helped eWEEK last week put together a long-range wish list for 2.7."
I saw something about clustering support. Not much of a list. There's gotta be more than that. "Focusing on the desktop" does not make a list...it's too vague. Any specifics?
Then again, I suppose you're not going to get very specific on an e-week article.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all excited about 2.6 making the distros and then hearing about what awesome stuff they'll have on 2.7 -- but this article really just leaves me hanging.
The ad du jour: Windows saved 11-22% over Linux in TCO in 4 out of 5 environments.
From the story: Amazon, which has been running Linux since 2000, has been steadily moving its infrastructure from Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Unix servers to Hewlett-Packard Co. ProLiant servers running Linux. The company said in a 2001 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that Linux cut its technology expenses by $16 million, or 25 percent.
I know the Amazon example is in comparison to Solaris; but still... I felt like stoking the fire.
That's still the idea. When they say "putting new stuff in the kernel," they really mean "new options that you *can* compile into the kernel." Don't like Ham radio support in your kernel? Don't compile it in. Same for multiprocessor support, or virtualization support, or whatever the hell they throw in that you happen not to want.
That's the beauty. Now - you *are* compiling your own kernels, right? Cuz if you blindly use whatever default kernel RedHat or whoever throws at you, that's not so good maybe. ;)
I've read and re-read the article. Other than a couple of vague references, there is no list there at all.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Interesting that CA is pushing for inclusion of a kernel auditing facility in 2.7. That sort of functionality, required in a number of federal contexts, is already available in a Linux-compatible, GPL'ed code base, from Intersect Alliance down in Australia. The Snare project patches the Linux kernel with auditing instrumentation, making it possible to detect abnormal system call activity that other methods don't.
Solaris has had something like this for a long time in the form of BSM, as had Windows. Even Mac OS X has preliminary BSM support in Mac OS X Panther. It would be very great to see this kind of functionality as a config option on the Linux kernel, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
"hotplugging" is already a feature of linux. /var/log/messages and watch the output as you add/remove devices).
once you've shoved your usb pen/mouse/kb into the port, the kernel will see it(try running tail -f
the problem here is implementing the interface in userland(Gnome tools for example).
The next version of gnome will support this through "Project Utopia".
Read Robert Love's blog for more info on that:
here
i wish i was but oh well
This problem is disappearing nowadays because most devices you'll find in a desktop use standardized interfaces. OHCI/UHCI for USB 1.1 and EHCI for USB2 controllers, USB mass storage, Firewire DV devices, Firewire storage devices, PTP mode cameras...most recent hardware is really easy to support, except for sound cards and graphics cards. The sound card manufacturers seem to make specs available because most cards have support in ALSA, and the graphics card manufacturers have all turned evil and release proprietary drivers (my Radeon 9100 is probably going to be the last graphics card I buy unless someone decides to release Free drivers again).
The only hardware I have ever had trouble with have been printers (usually cheap ones that only work with Windows) and PCI modems (evil Winmodems!). I know that 802.11a/g and Centrino network devices don't work at all (I even wussed out when we got an 802.11b network and just got an ethernet to 802.11b bridge and hooked it up to my 3c905B). So there are still a few driver issues, but most generic hardware is supported well.
And autodetection...kudzu/discover/whatever-Mandrake-u ses (hwdetect? I forgot) combined with hotplug makes dealing with hardware fairly painless. I plug in my Neuros and all I have to do is mount /mnt/neuros and I'm done (hotplug can even mount the device for you, or load the camera software, or really do anything you want it to do). All of my hardware (except for my on board sensor chips and my SCSI card...kudzu finds them fine but discover doesn't) is either auto-detected and the drivers loaded at boot or the drivers are loaded when I plug them in via USB. Maybe I'm just special.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Um. We have this already, right? You can run linux virtually in linux, to do just as you describe iin paragraph 3. You can run any kind of emulator for other OS's to run on. What else would you want again?
"..complete access to the hardware..."
That's the point of virtualization, etc. Access to the hardware breaks the security part of virtualization and emulation. If you can access memory just like you were the original operating system, then you ARE the operating system, and you can trash anything and everything running.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
erm, Linux does this already
mount your
only give exec permission to applications that you want people to run (by setting the owner, group, and appropriate permission bits on each file).
now only root can allow a user's program to run (by installing it outside
Wouldn't be hard to have a setuid-root (or even setuid-special-user) program that checked the signing of the new software and moved it to the executable area, and we already have the sandboxing
2.6 is a server release?!?
/dev stuff is cool but that's neither server- nor desktop-specific. The IO rewrites were a big thing but only kernel developers really care about that.
The biggest feature in 2.6 is the massive improvement in scheduler performance focused mainly on DESKTOP use. This is the version that will stop the choppy mouse movements and sounds that newcomers to Linux hate so much.
Basically everything else in 2.6, while nice, is just cleanup and added hardware support (drivers). The virtual
The author of the article was both wrong and boring.
-- laws are the opinions of politicians --
Linux will always be behind if it doesn't allow binary drivers.
It allows binary drivers. It just doesn't encourage them, for a variety of reasons.
Companies have to make a living.
Since when do companies make a living writing binary drivers?
I always click MS ad in sites I like, That is same money for the site.
* once upon a time, /usr was pretty much set at system installation, and anything added by the sys-admin after that went to /usr/local, a separately mounted partition. Most package managers in linux these days put after-the-fact files in /usr, so mounting /usr read-only would be somewhat of a nuisance on desktop systems or systems with automatic updates.
This may come off as overly aggressive, and for that I apologize in advance, but people who haven't adminstrated *nix boxes in large-scale deployments often fail to recognize that there's a delibrate method behind the file system.
/bin, /usr/bin, and /usr/local/bin may seem trivial to you as a user, but from an administrative vantage point, they are very important.
/bin, /sbin, and /lib. That means that all tools necessary for fixing the system must be there including all kernel modules and shared libraries. It must also be possible for this device to be completely read-only, possibly even residing in firmware. Installing an application in /bin while its companion libraries are on /usr/lib would be folly since the /usr partition may be completely inaccessible. You may notice that some distributions install a stripped-down, statically-linked version of vi in /bin and a full-featured, shared-library version in /usr/bin. Now you know why.
/lib, the remaining partitions can be mounted. On a single-user machine, the /usr directory may be on the same partition as root. Often times it has its own partition. But for large-scale deployments, the entire /usr partition may be on a network share. It may also be on a CDROM. Installing software to /usr may be impossible or require a site-wide change. Secondly, it won't do to have software trying to write data to this partition, so programs and data are always separated. All data goes to /var which is normally a machine-specific mount. Also, a diskless machine may mount /var on a ram disk.
/usr/local directory. If /usr is read-only, /usr/local is mounted to a separate writeable volume. All software not packaged by the distributor or site administrator belongs in /usr/local if it's machine-wide and in the user's home directory if not. Other conventions exist, including the use of /opt, but that's a site policy issue.
/bin, /usr/bin, or /usr/local/bin. Libraries go to the equivalent lib directory. Header files to the equivalent include directory. Manual pages to man. Cross-application data to share. All application data goes to /var including log files and databases. All temporary files go to /tmp. If you follow these rules, there's no end to the configurations you can create. Violate any single rule and you have a machine that cannot be recovered, applications that cannot be shared site-wide, machine-wide, or between users, and data that cannot be conveniently backed up. Sorta like Windows.
/usr/software/netscape won't help if the installer is looking for /usr/software/mozilla. This class of problem has been solved many times over with package configuration files and scripts. The responsibility is mainly that of the distribution maintainers to facilitate this. If it's not happening for your distro, get satisfaction, or move to a distro that cares.
Each one of those directories has a very distinct purpose; it didn't happen that way by accident. The difference between
In single user mode with an ailing system, the most you may successfully get booted is the root partition. You have at your disposal only
Once booted and all the necessary kernel modules are loaded from
To address software installed on individual machines, we use the
So that's that. Given any package, it is a simple matter to determine if its executables go to
You specifically address the issue of plug-ins, but even having an application located at
That said, the browser plug-in issue annoys me, too.
-Hope
Don't get mad at Microsoft - blame your own poor reading comprehension and math skills.
"Windows Server offers a savings of 11%-22% over Linux in 4 out of 5 workload scenarios"
I actually clicked on the ad out of curiosity. They tested Windows 2000 over a five year period. Interesting.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
There used to be a cluster fs for windows called Mango - but that's now obsolete thanks to Win2003, which clusters. But Linux can't access that as far as I know. So there is a middleman - Coda. Coda is a clustered file system for use with WinNt/Win95/Linux and is already in the kernel as far as I know. Just clearing up the hole that appears to be at the bottom of the article (really... it's been in since 2.4!)
RTFA, it's a collection of suit-quotes full of buzzwords...
Nothing really interesting there, just companies informing us of how they plan to improve linux so they can milk it better.