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Talking With 2.0 Kernel Maintainer David Weinehall
Jeremy Andrews writes "While the recently released 2.6 Linux kernel is all the rage these days, the much older 2.0 kernel is still alive and kicking. KernelTrap has interviewed David Weinehall, the maintainer of the 2.0 Linux kernel. David became the 2.0 maintainer in December of 1999, after Alan Cox moved on to work full time on the 2.2 kernel. In this interview David talks about what's involved in maintaining the 2.0 kernel, who uses it, when we can expect the impending release of 2.0.40, why you should upgrade (if you're still running 2.0.39), and more."
Linux 2.0 is fine for systems that don't need the power and capabilities of the 2.6 kernel.
While the 2.2 kernel was pretty much a bust, the 2.4 kernel proved itself wonderfully capable.
Still, I would love to see BSD or AIX stacked up against Linux 2.0.
I have been pwned because my
Glad to see that he still has his C64 alive and kicking as well..
That was an interesting interview. It's nice to see some people still use the good old Commodore 64 for programming.
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http://www.agigames.com
These guys have the tools to let you make your own adventure games.
Free Wii Points
Still maintaining the 1.0 kernel? :)
This space is not for rent.
Isn't it great? One of the best things with free software is that anyone is free to maintain and support it for as long as they wish. Compare to say, NT 4.0, which is perfectly capable for some tasks, but users are forced to switch because MS cuts support (read: no more security updates.)
.: Max Romantschuk
Not many people realize that a lot of us in the aerospace community rely on older versions of the kernel due to its "nimbleness" for fly-by-wire systems, etc. A lot of us don't need the newer features of more recent kernels, and having something that does the bare minimum--fast-- is optimal.
We really have to be thankful that people maintain the older versions!
Yes, it is. Especially when considering how many untalented suits (posing as programmers) are currently employed out there. And here I see someone maintaining the Linux kernel and he can't find a job...
I've got at least a dozen production machines which have been going since Slackware 3.6, so I'm very glad to see the 2.0 kernels still being 'overseen' by someone.
The hardware is old, it works with the 2.0.x kernels, it works fast and without issues (except for exploits of course), so why bother making a radical change which might end up breaking more by moving to the latest.
There's you're answer to "who's using it"... Debian!
I have to admit, I suspected it all along...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Hmm :) The 2.0 kernel maintainer says: "In autumn 2002 I also started to work quite a lot for the Debian-project"
Get your own free personal location tracker
Cool, when will it be released for debian stable?
2.6.2 has been out for several hours now ... (changelog here) - surprised /. hasn't picked this up yet. It's not like the /. editors care about hammering a site. :)
How come that such a skilled person with enough references can't find a job?
Do we really want the best and brightest in our community to get distracted by jobs? Or would we rather they do what they love to do and benefit everyone while they do it?
I think "giving a buck" via paypay directly to the developers has the potential to do worlds of good. I heard something about sourceforge organizing some kind of donation system and I couldn't be happier. If it becomes possible to make a living coding, for the forces of good, full time, that will turbocharge development.
Typical socialist rhetoric. It's now come down to programmers begging for a buck to get by. When will the slashbot crowd realize that their Free software pipe dream will completely destroy the programming profession?
did u miss that postoring?
7 968
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=95453&cid=817
get some coffee
I wonder what he would recommend for someone running 2.0.18. It still works fine, why might I want to upgrade? :P
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
after reading his interview, it seems to me as if there are still fairly frequent problems with 2.0 relating to stability and potential security problems.
I don't recall hearing about these problems all that often with the newer 2.4; is it just my perception, or are the new kernels more soundly written than the older ones?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The 2.0 kernel is great, even though it is old it is quite reliab=20 ]} $}1}&..}=3Dr}'}"}[NO CARRIER]
No, it doesn't.
Predictive text is shiv!
If a kernel maintainer can't find a programming job then the programming profession is pretty much destroyed already.
Are anybody maintaining 2.2 now...? It doesn't seem to have been anything released on kernel.org since 2.2.25 and Alan went back to studying.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Oh yeah, he's the perfect employee. He spends all his time writing free software and poetry. I'll go ask my boss to open up a req at $100k/yr on that job description right now.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
just the other day i was telling someone about the old 2.0 kernels. how fast they booted. and halted firewalls.
keep up the good work.
You might mark it flamebait, but I agree. When I setup a computer I want one that can be sat in front of and just used. The newest and greatest provides this functionality, with each kernel release slowly improving on the last.
Kernel 2.0 has no meaning for myself anymore and I'd hazard a guess and say most people who use a linux kernel don't use 2.0 if they have a choice.
Since I've probably spoken out against the slashdot hivemind, I'm assuming most of you won't even read this...
hahahaha
Everyone knows that only the USA and Greece have IT & programming jobs. I think there's a law saying so. Sweden! ROTFL. That's almost as funny as saying France or Canada! LOL
I'm assuming that you're setting up a new computer. Maybe someone with an old computer would find 2.0 serves them well. Or maybe they have old software that works on 2.0 and they don't want to risk it breaking on 2.6. Or maybe they're Debian users. Not everyone wants or needs the latest & greatest, as this article shows.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
If a kernel maintainer can't find a programming job then the programming profession is pretty much destroyed already.
Yes, because we all know that anyone capable of maintaining an old Linux kernel must, by definition, be the world's most talented programmer.
Or perhaps there are other reasons why he doesn't have a job. Perhaps he lacks a degree from a four year institution. Perhaps he has the primadonna attitude many "superstar programmers" have. Maybe he has very poor social skills, which leads him to making a less than favorable impression during interviews. Who knows? Don't jump to conclusions.
Perhaps he lacks a degree from a four year institution. Perhaps he has the primadonna attitude many "superstar programmers" have. Maybe he has very poor social skills, which leads him to making a less than favorable impression during interviews.
;-) But this is why I believe setting tests and challenges at an interview is better than seeing whether they party or have outside interests. Sometimes you NEED social programmers who get on well with everyone.. but certain roles demand hard-headed introverted geeks who can get the hard stuff done quick!
These things can actually be good things for a programmer though.. Most of the best programmers I know, and we're talking real code wizards here, lack Comp Sci degrees, aren't very social, and have big egos amongst their type.. but they do the work and don't complain.
They're just not good things when you're interviewing
I humbly disagree. 2.4 has been a nightmare. I don't think any other stable Linux kernel series has seen so much mid-stream fluxuation or show-stopper bugs. For quite some time it was prone to crash, we had the severe VFS bug in 2.4.11, we had VM maintainers switching out the algorithm used to allocate memory, the functionality of the cryptoapi+cryptoloop subsystems has been broken between the last 3 releases such that encrypted devices are unusable between version n and n+/-1. I could probably go on, but that would require more time and I'm in haste. My point is, 2.4 had few significant improvements and inferior stability (in terms of development and system) over 2.2. I would not say it has proven to be anything other than a fiasco!
Join Tor today!
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(Don't lick so many fat pricks. It's like vomiting up spurt.)
These things can actually be good things for a programmer though.. Most of the best programmers I know, and we're talking real code wizards here, lack Comp Sci degrees, aren't very social, and have big egos amongst their type.. but they do the work and don't complain.
I disagree. That type of programmer is the kind who has a hard time doing things any other way than his way. If management says "this NEEDS to be done this way", he's the one saying "that's stupid because I wouldn't do it that way. Therefore, no one else would do it that way." You tend to see this attitude a lot on Slashdot, usually when someone points out something Linux can't do but Windows can. To which, the Linux zealot/anti-social programmer will reply: "so what? That's stupid. No one would want to do that anyway."
These people are not necessarily the best people to have on a team.
linux guys are always saying freebsd is dead...
;)
yet they get all excited about some ancient kernel...
sounds a little hippocritcal to me...
-judging another only defines yourself
Since real numbers are hard to come by, we get by on the very weak ones we have.
According to the version monitoring page at the Linux Counter, 35 out of the 4862 monitored machines run the 2.0 kernel - 0.7% of the total number of monitored machines.
If that holds true for the (who knows???) 20 million Linux machines out there in the wild, there should be something like 142000 2.0-kernel Linux boxes out there. Perhaps more - the "enthusiasts" who register with the Linux Counter may be more prone to upgrading than others....
Stand up and be counted! The Linux Counter wants you!
'Cause you know, there's a bloody high demand for 6510 programming these days...
(GRD)"Population 1,656"
Indeed I have no degree; that didn't stop my last employer from hiring me though (I had to go because of lack of work.) Primadonna attitude? Dunno; if you mean that I have a strong opinion on how things are supposed to be done (the right way, rather than the quick'n'dirty way), then that might be true... Poor social skills? That's something for my friends to judge, I guess. Haven't perceived any problems so far, though.
If I'm putting the life in the hands of a computer, I damn well want to be able to know about every piece of code that computer is running.
No offense, but I'm willing to bet that you've broken this axiom many, many times... possibly without even realizing it. Do you know about every piece of code that the computer in your car is running? Hell, do you even know about every piece of metal that's in your engine? There are tons of possible malfunctions in cars that could easily cause the death of the driver, or at least a major accident.
Not to mention that no one has the time to personally look over the source code to an airplane's systems before they're willing to take that business trip.
It would be nice to know that you have the option to look at all the code if you want, but I'd be willing to bet that if there were any major problems in there that Boeing or Chevrolet's engineers didn't see, you probably wouldn't see it either.... perhaps if you were actively using the code yourself, but certainly not on a cursory glance anyways.
Besides, if there is going to be a mistake, it's probably more likely that it's due to human error than some computer glitch, so I hope you're checking up on the pilots credentials every time you board a plane, and check a driver's license every time you get on a bus or taxi.
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
I thought one of the most interesting things in the articles is a collection of tools he mentioned for passwd/group management.
==snip==
A lot is left to be done; so far I'm only at v0.1.1, and the following commands have been implemented (complete with manual-pages):
{ls,ch,mk,rm}user
{ls,ch}age
{ls,ch,mk,rm}group
chgrpmem
{vi,cp}pw
chfn
chsh
My first aim is not to compete with passwd, but rather to be able to replace it on my own systems. At a later date, who knows?
==end snip=
Sounds like excellent tools to me. I've used similar ones on other Unixes, and would like to see them incorporated into Linux distributions. He's looking for testers.
This is an ex-parrot!
You're either lying or insane
His post isn't very reader-friendly (it makes grossly implausible statements apparantly unwittingly, and includes no specific names or facts that could be verified by the skeptical or researched by the curious), it is very moderator-friendly (the author is pro-Linux and makes vague claims of being a professional in a technical field), and it comes from someone in a deep karma rut. My money is on "lying".
Being one of these people, and employed, I agree with you 100%. Fortunately, this place thinks I'm some sort of god so I'm safe until they realize otherwise.
Or maybe they keep me because I'm cheap...
Allow me to explain capitalism. Many different entities produce products. They compete with each other. This drives prices down. Jobs are lost. For an individual organization, in the short term, competition is bad.
But for an industry, in the long term, competition is the only way to move forward. More efficient production methods are favored. To whatever extent Linux's development model is more efficient, it will succeed, even at the expense of Microsoft's OS business, however painful that may be (and vice versa). This is good because cheaper capital goods (eg. operating systems) make it possible for others to produce more (eg. custom apps).
Not paying high license fees allows companies to employ more programmers to write their custom software.
I am a happy 2.0 user via freesco
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
I know it doesn't mean much, but I use debian...
78 years young, my nizzle.
You moderators haven't got a clue about what's flamebait and what isn't.
I guess I must be a fuckin genius to have guessed the moderation that would be applied to the above post.
FYI, they aggressive tone of this post signifies more of a slant toward flame baiting...
I for one welcome our Linux zealot overlords.
According to this translated Alan diary entry, http://www.paul.sladen.org/alans-diary/, the hand-over DID happend. Scroll down to entry for September 21.
(Same anon.coward as in parent post - maybe is would be time to register)