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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..
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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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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
Since I'm currently unemployed,
It's sad really...
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!
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.
the new kernel 2.6.2 is just out
slashdot here! before the story shows up on slashdot mainpage.
so we can slashdot em even before it comes to slashdotting.
lol
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?
I, for one, welcome our new 2.0 kernel overlords!
Kernel 2.0 maintains YOU!
but does it run Linux?
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?
Having read the article thoroughly, this startling news shows the flaws in the brewing Open Source Zeitgeist that is gripping the software community. Have you considered that providing software for free to countries such as China is essentially tacit support for oppressive regimes? Far-fetched? Think about it: With MySQL, the People's Army will now be able to do multiple queries on their tables of democratic activists in Olog(n) time instead of lengthy searches in card catalogs. The bureaucratic overhead previously allowed activists enough time to flee the country. How about building cheap firewalls so the people can't get the unbiased reporting that CNN provides? Or using Apache to publish lists of Falun Gong people to their police forces instantly? I doubt that never crossed your minds when you were coding away in your parents' basements. Consider putting that little thought in your mental resolv.conf file. If that does not concern you ( which it probably doesn't, since the lashout.org paradigm is publishing articles about how not to pay for things ), consider something else. When China eventually goes to war with Taiwan, we want to be able turn their command and control facilities into the computing equivalent of a train-wreck. One of the advantages of Windows never mentioned in the article is the ability of Microsoft to remotely deactivate Windows XP in the case of a national emergency. Thanks to GNU/Lunix, Taiwan will be on a collision course with the mainland in the near future. Which throws into question Mr. Torvald's motives. A known proponent of socialism, the Chinese government and Linus are natural allies. Could it be a back door to Torvald's dream of an uber-Socialist United States? We may never know for sure. Next time you consider contributing to an open source project, ask yourself this question: don't you want to make sure your work isn't used for nefarious purposes? Will you risk having blood on your hands?
Hello master.
sid=95453
formkey=eEKoyc4n21
This is a joint venture that will be mutually advantageous to both parties involved.
did u miss that postoring?
7 968
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=95453&cid=817
get some coffee
Have you considered autoerotic asphyxiation?
i dont think it would do him any good, when i look at what it did to u.
S
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kick right now.
slashdot moderator whores modding same shit differently?
get a new job foolz, or learn how to mod same stuff the same way.
what kinda bullshit is this slashdot website anyways?
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
Donald Duck will have a SCREAMING ORGASM when the 2.8 kernel comes out.
Fine, laugh, make jokes all you like. But when all your base ends up belonging to SCO, you will all come crawling back to kernel 2.0/2.2. You will all be thankful that someone has kept it nice and warm for you. You'll see.
<embed src="deranged_maniacal_laughter.wav" autostart="true" hidden>
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]
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
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.
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 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.)
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"
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".
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!"
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)