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New Tool to Track Kernel Testing Time
mu22le writes "Andrea Arcangeli has created a new tool, 'klive', to automatically track the amount of testing that each kernel gets before release. According to Kernel Traffic "There was some discussion [on making it a kernel config option] that public perception might put this in the "spyware" category", but still the ability to track a kernel usage and reliability would be valuable to both developers and users."
They seem to be taking system stats and system uptimes and presenting it in a hard to understand table. Is that tracking testing?
If I turn on my computer and don't touch it for a year, it will have excellent uptime, but it doesn't really test very much. Same too, if I just start up Apache and let it do its thing.
Testing is a very important part of any development cycle and testing metrics are very useful in determining the quality of the delivered product. However, I've never heard of "testing time" used as a metric. Maybe "coverage" or "bugs over time", but the amount of time itself is never really a concern.
From what I've seen of the Linux kernel (just downloading the source from kernel.org and browsing through it), there doesn't seem to be much in the way of actual debug code thoughtfully and diligently placed throughout the code. There are a few litterings of debug code here and there, but for the most part, it seems like the developers just expect it to work without error.
Nothing wrong with that attitude, if reality backs it up. And luckily, with Linux, reality is right there to prove the developers correct.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Microsoft probably puts their stuff through more testing than anybody. And it's needed -- even with all that testing, things slip through. (I'll skip talking about why there's so many bugs ... others can do that.)
The Linux kernel is much smaller than Windows. Far less testing is needed, though of course some testing is still a good idea.
And I know this is unrelated, but the article submission talks about Spyware? Well, not all Spyware is bad. Just because software reports home, that doesn't make it evil. It's only evil if it does this without your knowledge and consent. (And putting this into a huge legal click-through doesn't really count.)
An example of `good' spyware would be the Google Toolbar. Yes, it can contact google if configured to do so, but at least 1) this provides some benefit to you, and 2) google makes it very clear what it's doing, not burying it in some click-through legal agreement and 3) you can easily turn it off if desired.
I wonder if this is similar to the tool used in my microwave to track Kernel popping time.
/sig
Keeping this as an external script is definitely the way forward. As pointed out, having a kernel flag and especially having the possibility of it defaulting to YES is a step too far IMHO.
This is definitely a very useful system however, and I for one would very much like to see something similar for distributions (ie. not just the kernel, but the whole damn caboodle).
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
Microsoft DOES test its products. I recall Win95 having "the largest beta-testing stage in history".
Anyway, the security failures in WinXP are not due to lack of testing, but because of poor design decisions. Besides, security failures can't be detected by common beta-testing, but by heavy security audits (Not that I don't hate MS policies, I do, but there was no point in your comment).
In summary, your post wasn't informative, interesting, or insightful. Not even funny.
And I don't think it could be thought of as spyware.
Spyware is supposed to be unknowingly reporting information about you, whether it was mistakenly installed by you or it crept in from somewhere else.
An application, or kernel option you flick on like a switch, which you install, and that reports information you know about, to people you understand are going to use that information, can't be called spyware unless it also happened to report how much pr0n you have as well as the kernel's amount of usage.
I think it would be a neat option to have in the kernel in general. Off by default, all us geeks who want to say "look! here! I'm running Linux!" could turn it on and it could report our uptimes and what kernels we're running.
We could "stand up and be counted" to show our support for Linux and give the various distributions a rough idea of what we think about them.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
if you download and install it as of 10am PST today, its going to try and install a cron job that begins:
-*/10 * * * * ps x | grep...
which vixie cron (and presumably others) rejects as invalid. i just changed it to run every 10 minutes like:
*/10 * * * * ps x | grep...
hth
about sean dreilinger
I think this is a fine idea - tracking and all - and I've been running klive since I saw it on kernel trap last week - however, I think that some people are correct when they question how uptime counts as reliability. It doesn't - in the sense of it testing load and the like - but it does because it takes a whole lot of kernel reliability/stability for it to boot in the first place, and it takes a bit for it to just gain uptime.
Personally, I would like to see it as an option in the kernel - but I'd like it to be off by default. I'd the statistics to be available to everyone (*NOT* IP addresses, hostnames, etc) but rather version, compiler, memory and load.
While I'm fine with just running some guys software for now, it's gonna turn into a huge mess . What happens if there's a bug? How's he gonna get it distributed to everyone? What if they want to track something else?
You know, I don't know what universe these folk are living in, but this "python-twisted" package or whatever it is called is absolutely NOT included in every Linux distribution.
Slackware - oldest living Linux distribution - does NOT have this twisted thing in it.
You would think that the developers would use a standard programming language - like C - for something like this...(gr&d)
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
Linux is not Windows