2.6 Linux Kernel in Need of an Overhaul?

toadlife writes "ZDNet UK reports that Andrew Morton, the head maintainer of the Linux production kernel, is concerned about the amount of bugs in the 2.6 kernel. He is considering the possibility of dedicating an entire release cycle to fixing long standing bugs." From the article: "One problem is that few developers are motivated to work on bugs, according to Morton. This is particularly a problem for bugs that affect old computers or peripherals, as kernel developers working for corporations don't tend to care about out-of-date hardware, he said. Nowadays, many kernel developers are employed by IT companies, such as hardware manufacturers, which can cause problems as they can mainly be motivated by self-interest."

Comments

Re:Important for the Old Debate

[TheRaven64]

Linux got me using *NIX. BSD showed me how *NIX is meant to work. I currently use OpenBSD and FreeBSD, and this is exactly the kind of reason why I switched.

In FreeBSD, there are three branches, -STABLE, -CURRENT, and -RELEASE. Any new features are put into -CURRENT. Here, they undergo testing. The only people who should be running -CURRENT are those who are developing or actively bug-hunting. Once a feature is stabilised, it migrates into -STABLE. Here, it receives more general testing. A lot of people use -STABLE, and file bug reports. Finally, a -RELEASE branch is created from -STABLE. This undergoes even more testing and is then shipped (usually after several betas and RCs). The -RELEASE branch is maintained in the tree, but only bug fixes are allowed to go in it. If you want a stable system, you stick with a -RELEASE branch. For a slightly less-critical system, you might want -STABLE for the features (my ThinkPad runs -STABLE, and I have never yet had it crash).

The direction of the OS development is driven by the core team. These are elected annually by the developers.

In the OpenBSD world, there is a code review process. Every piece of code in the base system is audited on a regular basis. When a new category of bug is discovered (e.g. the multiply overflow that caused a security hole in OpenSSH), the entire source tree is searched for occurrences of that bug. These are then fixed.

Both of these development processes give high-quality, stable systems.

Re:Important for the Old Debate

[ozmanjusri]

Failing that, you could just install the Debian distro of it from here: http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-cd