Time for a Linux Bug-Fixing Cycle

AlanS2002 writes "As reported here on Slashdot last week, there are some people who are concerned that the Linux Kernel is slowly getting buggier with the new development cycle. Now, according to Linux.com (Also owned by VA) Linus Torvalds has thrown his two cents in, saying that while there are some concerns, it is not as bad as some might have thought from the various reporting. However he says that the 2.6 Kernel could probably do with a breather to get people to calm down a bit."

Comments

Standardize the Kernel API!!

[mlwmohawk]

I have been using Linux since the early 1990's and I've been a software developer for almost 30 years. The one ting that concerns me, and I think this recent indictment is just a symptom of a larger problem.

The problem is that the drivers have to remain in constant flux because the kernel API is always changing. Now, when there are a limited number of drivers, this means that you can move quickly on the kernel. As you add more and more drivers, you add more and more work to keep the drivers updated. Eventually, there is more work needed to update the drivers than modify the kernel, and the drivers become your sticking point.

This is where I believe Linux is stuck. Linus and the kernel team has to look at the various kernel APIs and standardize them with the next release.

Sorry guys, time to grow up. Linux *is* mainstream!

Re:Standardize the Kernel API!!

[LordOfTheNoobs]

Point 1 - Your post contradicts its own supposed respect of the GPL.
Point 2 - Linux is FSF free, share and share alike by license. BSD is not. You can't generalize them together on this issue. If you don't get the difference, you don't know what the hell your talking about.
Point 3 - The operating system doesn't _have_ to do shit. If the companies want their shit to run in Linux, the should submit GPL'd drivers or suffer their rightful hell for being miserly with their code in a project based on sharing. To hell with them.
Point 4 - There is a fairly standard API. And when they change it they fix the GPL drivers. There is not an ABI, `application binary interface' since you obviously don't know, which is not require or desired as Linux runs on many different types of hardware. Should we instead suffer to create an ABI for each hardware platform that each driver must uphold? There is more than x86 out there. Hell, even in x86, should we make all drivers have to suffer to a 16 bit driver interface, or create different ABIs for 32 and 64 and the future 256 and 1024 bit systems?
Point 5 - Cry more noob.
Point 6 - If a hardware manufacturer wants to sell their hardware to us, they will either suffer intolerably or they will give in and release some GPL'd code. If coders want it bad enough, someone will reverse engineer it and create free code on their own. It's not like we're going to start using our DVD-Rs to burn off graphics cards. Well, not until my chinese GFX-RW comes in anyway.

Re:question

[Vo0k]

yep, the previous poster is right.

I thought I know C until I tried to fix a bug in the kernel.

It was a simple syntax bug. Somebody put xxx[...]->yyy instead of xxx->yyy[...] in one line, and the compiler was protesting about type mismatch. One single line. But it took me 4 hours or so and I figured out only what the correct syntax for that piece of code would be, by analysing types of the variables used. I have no idea if the fix really corrected the problem, it just made the line lexically correct and let the compiler go on. In the meantime I had to crawl about 4 levels of header files for each of the variables/records used in the line to reach primitive types of given variables and macros, from which the structures, pointers etc were derived, and generally was totally dizzy. And I was doing it the code monkey style, I didn't really understand the workings of the kernel, what was the line I edited meant. I was purely checking that a pointer to float isn't directly assigned a value of float, just pointer to it etc.

Kernel is too difficult for us average coders. Only the elite can fix these bugs for us.

Re:I preferred the old odd/even split

[s31523]

I wouldn't so much say we're a dying breed... Rather, I would say that the numbers of people that do their own Kernel building is growing, but the number of people that just buy a distro and install and "hope everything just works" is growing much much faster, which can be viewed as a good thing, since the more people that use Linux will cause commercial Vendors to take note and support Linux more readily. Although, I will miss being that nerdy guy who doesn't run Windows...

Re:question

[bhima]

This is nearly the same as my own experience... which makes me enjoy using, in my case, OpenBSD. I use C professionally but it's an order of magnitude (or two) less complex than the Linux kernel. It's just amazing to me it all comes together despite how many people are working on it.

Back to the point what can spending some time and having a bug fixing cycle hurt? I don't see a downside...