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Behind the Scenes in Kernel Development

Posted by michael on from the knit-one-perl-two dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Some interesting changes took place in the way the Linux kernel is developed and tested. In many ways, the methods used to develop the Linux kernel are much the same today as they were 3 years ago. However, several key changes have improved overall stability as well as quality. This article takes a look behind the scenes at the tools, tests, and techniques -- from revision control and regression testing to bugtracking and list keeping -- that helped make 2.6 a better kernel than any that have come before it." We might as well mention here (again) that a couple of new kernels are out: leif.singer writes "2.6.3 and 2.4.25 are out, fixing another vulnerability in do_mremap()."

7 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. SCO by rauhest · · Score: 5, Funny

    Without RTFA (of course), I tried to find any reference to "sco".

    The only match was "a misconfigured system". :)

  2. Re:Kernel development interests me terribly by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wish I could wrap my head around even the smallest part of the kernel. There is so much code in there and aside from main(), it is hard to find a good place to start studying.

    You could contribute some work to SCO: I hear they're very interested in having someone sprinkle several "printk("(c) SCO\n");" lines here and there in init/main.c, since they can't do it themselves, having no technical department, being a law firm and all...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  3. If only... by Gothmolly · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now if they only had a web dashboard portal showing the latest results in an easily-assimilated color coded HTML table....

    Then you'd become a PHB.

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  4. do_mremap by suckamc_0x90 · · Score: 4, Funny

    fixing another vulnerability in do_mremap() ah, good old Mr. Emap.

  5. Framebuffer? by bruthasj · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think they forgot to test the framebuffer in 2.6.x kernels. If I can't see Tux, then I ain't booting it! (radeon)

  6. Re:Kernel quality by b17bmbr · · Score: 4, Funny

    because waiting for a final release to be stable, secure, and thoroughly tested has worked for microsoft, and we wouldn't want to do things their way.

    --
    My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
  7. Re:Kernel development interests me terribly by po8 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does the fact that Diomidis Spinellis has repeated won the International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC) make him more or less qualified to write such a book :-)? Check out his "best abuse of the rules" entry from 1988 that is my all-time favorite. BTW, the contest is currently open.