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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()."

12 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Upgrade ain't gonna happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Uptime uber alles!

    coward@server:/usr/warez/torrent$ uname -a ; uptime
    Linux server 2.4.21 #8 Wed Jul 9 20:33:22 CEST 2003 i586 GNU/Linux
    15:51:40 up 196 days, 1:50, 1 user, load average: 0.01, 0.05, 0.07

    1. Re:Upgrade ain't gonna happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      i586 GNU/Linux

      AHHAHAHAHA! Which distro is that? I need to know, so that I can recommend to my colleagues to stay away from that GNU/Hippy propaganda!

    2. Re:Upgrade ain't gonna happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      1 user, load average: 0.01, 0.05, 0.07

      And that would be, because your GNU/Linux box doesn't seem to be doing anything...

  2. Oh no, another one.. poor *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It was announced some time ago, YET ANOTHER key person left the *BSD core!!!Diletant dabblers are the only ones tinkering *BSD kernels now.

  3. *BSD : Computing :: Howard Dean : 2004 Election by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    *BSD is done. Turn the lights out, folks. As a one-time administrator of a hey-uge BSDi server farm, it was a great party but I think we all agree that it's over.

    gg, *BSD.

  4. 503 Service Unavailable ?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    Please try again later.

    Taco... I told you guys to fire michael. Now you've lost readers, lost ad revenue, lost the few subscriptions you garnered... it's over. Please sell out to Go and let this puppy thrive under new leadership/editors. I think you've burned out, that you no longer really care, that you're punching the clock.

    Best,

    A longtime reader

  5. Re:The Tao of Linux by duffbeer703 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Is this some sort of ESR quasi-religious babbling?

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  6. XBox rules!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    first post!!! you lame assholes... I can post first because my XBox is a american product and my pride in my great country and my great XBox accelerate everything...

    If only they would make games for that bitch... IAve played Metroid Prime and it ruled... I hope M$ will buy those japanese bastards and port Metroid to my great american console system!!!

  7. Microsoft could learn from this by xjqkojqxj · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    From the 2.6.3 Changelog: [NETFILTER]: Fix signedness overflow in ip{,6}_tables.c Bug discovered by Olaf Kirch. M$ Wouldn't have had the recent embarrassment about a certain BMP import filter if its code was opened earlier. (It was the same type of bug that was exploited...)

  8. biznatc4 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Dim. If *bSD is Let's keep to

  9. mod Down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    bloc in ordAer to Counterpart,

  10. Java kernels by mparaz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How about JBoss, or Apache Geronimo? User Mode Linux is also important for Linux, like in Java hosting companies.