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Linus Torvalds Speaks Out on Future of Linux
SlinkySausage writes "Linus Torvalds has laid out his plans for the future of Linux, including the 3.0 kernel [there probably won't be one], problems with the Linux release cycles and which distro he personally runs on his home PC. '"Compile everything by hand" ones simply weren't interesting to me,' Torvalds says."
guessing he's not a gentoo user :)
But really at this point, even if he stops developing the kernel, someone else will just pick up where he left off. I don't think we can ever really expect to keep one final generation of the kernel. It'll always be changing and morphing to new cpu's, hardware, etc...
cb_is_cool knows where his towel is.
Oh come on!
3.0 is a perfect excuse to break everything and allow your imagination to run riot. That's the fun bit!
Deleted
already slashdoted
The one thing I really like about Linux is that it adheres more to a Unix tradition of doing things continually and incrementally. Like, it drives me nuts that on Windows, to talk to SQL Server in C++, one has had to go from db-library to odbc to either OLE-DB or ADO... whereas, in a Unixy type mindset, one might ask, what really needed to change about db-library that required a whole new way of talking to databases? And, the answer is, not a lot. It is absolutely wonderful that in Linux there is a core set of APIs that always work, aren't suddenly abandoned to make a new feature that frankly, most people don't need.
So, in my mind, to say that there won't be a Linux Kernel 3.0 or a Linux 4.0 or something like that, is actually a GOOD THING. If you want dramatic, shocking, breaking releases that require you to rewrite 95% of your code to do the same thing, if you want to find that what you used suddenly can't work largely because it isn't supported any more, then Microsoft has plenty of that.
So three cheers for point releases, and here's to the death of "major" releases.
This is my sig.
Sounds like he is sticking with the programming model of doing a large number of releases with small changes type model. Glad to see it actually, as this is the approach that I have been using on all of the software I build for work. What this does bring up, though, is the unfilled need currently of having an auto-upgrader software package where new kernel packages can be auto-upgraded and then migrated too on the fly without requiring a reboot. This would be quite complex I would admit, and maybe not possible in all kernel releases, but this is definitely something that needs to be looked at... Just my 2 cents worth.. :-)
There is a lot of new stuff happening, but it's in the main not specific to the kernel. New things the kernels needs to do are thin on the ground now. Not to say it'll ever be finished as such, just that there aren't any needed big new features. It'll take a major new shift in computing to do that, I suspect. Something way bigger than extensions or tweaks to x86/SPARC/PPC/ARM etc. I'm not holding my breath.
I may be stating the obvious, but the site is slashdotted, so I can't see what Linus has apparently said.
So you're saying AMD/ATI have a worthwhile open source video driver, eh? Oh, they don't? Gee, maybe THAT is why he said that. He may very well be an Intel lover, but that statement you quoted holds no proof of it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
http://apcmag.com.nyud.net/7012/linus_torvalds_tal ks_about
Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, has, along with others like Richard Stallman, literally changed the world of software forever.
;)
Linux-based distributions seem to pop up every day, more and more devices now run Linux at their core, from mobile phones to inflight entertainment systems, to the world's mission critical server infrastructures.
The development of the kernel has changed, and Linux is just getting better and better. However, with a community as large and fractured as the Linux community, it can sometimes be hard to get a big picture overview of where Linux is going: what's happening with kernel version 2.6? Will there be a version 3.0? What has Linus been up to lately? What does he get up to in his spare time?
I had the opportunity to chat with the original creator of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds, in a number of email exchanges.
APC: Writing an operating system kernel is a hard job. Why did you write Linux in the first place?
LT: Kernels may be hard, but partly because of that they are also interesting. I've always been more interested in "down to the hardware" details than in fluffy stuff like user interfaces etc, and an operating system kernel is about as down to the hardware as you can get without actually building it yourself (which I've also done - I was at a CPU company for seven years, after all). So I'm not into soldering irons etc, but I very much enjoy working at a low level, and thinking about how my software actually interacts with the CPU and other parts of the system. Besides, I really didn't realize how hard it would be. I really never expected to be still working on it 15+ years later
APC: What's the Linux Foundation?
LT: Heh. I just work here, you should ask some of the people who are actually involved in all the other things that LF does. It's basically the combination of OSDL ("Open Source Development Labs") and FSG ("Free Standards Group"), and is a vendor-neutral place for different organizations to discuss the issues they have, and trying to help Linux along. Part of what LF does is pay me to maintain the kernel.
APC: What are you doing with the kernel now? Are you working on it full time? What parts of it do you work on the most?
LT: I very much work on it full time, but I no longer really work on any particular "part"of it - I end up spending almost all my time on not writing kernel code myself, but on working with the flow of code and merging it all.
In fact, the biggest amount of actual source code I've written in the last two years is not in the kernel itself, but in the tool I use to just track the kernel development (called "git" - a source control management system).
So I still get to write code (and I send out suggested patches quite often - but usually they are along the lines of "so here's how we could handle this issue..." in order to prod others to actually do the final patch and testing). But what I do a lot more is go through other peoples changes and say "yes" or "no".
APC: The 2.6 series kernel has been around for a long time. Why?
LT: We used to have these big and painful development releases that took several years, and it worked reasonably well and people got very used to it ("2. is stable, 2. is development"), but it had serious downsides too.
In particular, the release cycles were so long that all the commercial vendors effectively had to back-port a fair amount of new code from the development kernels, and so development code ended up in the stable releases. Also, conversely, the vendors fixed problems in the stable versions, and sometimes the fixes were missed or weren't easy to then forward-port to the development series, because the two were just very far apart.
Basically, a multi-year development cycle simply doesn't work. It was reasonable and required for a while (we did some pretty radical changes there too), but with 2.6, the base kernel is in good shape, and we've improved our development process enough that we just don
Personally, my favorite aspect of this interview is that Linus himself basically considers the core OS now stable enough that anything new is likely to be incremental instead of ground-shakingly different, at least on the x86 platforms.
Which would imply a stability that leads to dependability which leads to usability which leads to widespread use. At least that is my hope in the enterprise, that the combination of commodity hardware with a commodity, high powered and stable OS can be coupled with increasingly powerful database engines such as mySQL, Veritas, etc. Oracle on Linux is now considered stable as well.
At home? stability leading to dependability leading to integration leading to crossover applications that will no longer depend on a proprietary OS stack to function. The only thing missing from my desired tool set on Linux right now is basically an easy to use, high powered MIDI to music recording and notation system -- and the pieces for all of that is already there -- it's my time to research and integrate the pieces that is in short supply.
I guess my point is that stability and upgradeability cause me to buy (several Linuxes and Win2K). Give me yet a large bulkier OS that doesn't really do much but add coolness (Vista or even XP) and I yawn.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
It sounds like you don't grasp the simple brilliance of this. Rather than having the kernel handle these bits, forcing a one-size-fits-all approach, you instead have other teams working on this, developing the GUI, customizing it to the task at hand. Look at Enlightenment, GNOME, KDE, each one fills a need, but none of them are exclusive.
The phrase "My name is Legion for we are many" comes to mind.
Example, at work here, Fedora suits our needs perfectly. While at home, Ubuntu powers my sons desktop and Gentoo is my servers backbone. Yet, when I need to take apps from home, they run with minimal problem. They isolate the desktop from the apps that run on it, giving you infinite flexibility. Yes, it can be overwhelming. Yes, it does not look like a unified front. But by doing this, Linux can be, and is, whatever you need it to be! Hell, my gentoo box doesn't even have a monitor! I ssh in, or when that fails, I have an old teletype in case of emergencys.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
well..., we need people to work on the kernel and other low level stuff, we can't run a GUI on raw hardware. It is not his fault people can't agree on what to put on top of his kernel. we could always embed the GUI in the kernel like Microsoft :P
here http://apcmag.com.nyud.net/7012/linus_torvalds_tal ks_about
p.
I managed to read the slashdotted article, and I think you're sorta missing HIS point. Which is that he is a Kernel Developer, not an OS developer. He's not really interested in the other parts of the system, just like you're not really all that interested in the nitty-gritty of kernel mechanics (which is more than fine, btw).
In other words...you need a lot of different kinds of people to build an operating system. Linus never claimed to be the benevolent dictator of an operating system - just of the Linux kernel. There's a difference, and there can't help but be. Related, yes, but the same thing: No, and they can't be.
Thankfully, there are many people out there who want to focus on stuff like UI design and the like. I might even disagree with Linus that such things are "fluffy", but I don't really think his opinions on that have influenced anybody any MORE toward the side of "we just like to code kernels, we don't care about ease-of-use".
So - yes, but no. Ease of use is an obstacle to widespread Linux adoption: Yes, and everyone knows that. But No, this doesn't really have anything to do with Linus.
Linux doesn't have a GUI, dude. You should read about Linux more, and write about it less.
Linus is the creator of, and remains deeply involved with the development of the Linux operating system kernel. "The GUI" isn't his concern. (Though providing the underlying services to support it is.)
Also, I don't think Linus much cares about Linux being "mainstream". He just wants it to be the best!
-Peter
But if Linus, as an individual, isn't interested in doing things to the GUI, why should he? There are plenty of talented coders fiddling with the GUI and desktop subsystems, why would Linus chipping in make much of a difference? Personally I think he'd be wasted working on something he didn't like doing.
Your claims about the mainstream are sorta valid, but that's not Linus' fight - he doesn't really care about it, and just wants to help make the best kernel he can on techincal merit alone. The interview gives it away - pretty much all he uses a desktop for is a web browser, most of the rest of it is CLI stuff and his usage pattern is completely different to your average desktop PC user.
To analogise, if this was an OS war for the Battle Of The Desktop, Linus would be the dude in charge of making sure the supply lines were always well stocked and that if one supply line stopped, it wouldn't cause the entire army to grind to a halt. The generals on the front line would be people like Mark Shuttleworth and Miguel de Icaza.
(Sorry, couldn't think of a lame car analogy...)
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
I totally agree. If everyone would just switch to Ubuntu, the few left that aren't already running it that is, we would have one true distro to rule them all!
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
If stability means it's dying. As I see it, the current Linux kernel does all that it needs to, and does it quite well. There is no need to upgrade it, because to do so would be an upgrade for upgrade's sake. Anyone in IT will tell you that to upgrade simply for the sake of upgrading is stupid, and will lead to a multitude of problems. The only reason that the Linux kernel would need a version 3.x is because of a fundamentally new hardware technology. Currently, software is driving hardware development; games are written requiring advanced graphics cards. In the 90's, hardware drove software development; chip makers like Intel put out a new processor, and then software was written to take advantage of the advancements of the new chip.
Even advancements in multi-core technology would not require a 3.x series kernel (unless I'm mistaken in my belief that the 2.6.x series supports multi-core CPU's), simply because once you cam make a dual-core CPU functional with the kernel, expanding that functionality to 4, 8, or even 64 cores is simply an expanding of the current code. And even if the current kernel does not support multi-core CPU's, that would be more of a 2.8.x series, rather than an entirely new kernel version.
Anybody want my mod points?
scary part is, I'm finding Intel is making huge leaps in areas that they've long ignored. Their IO systems used to be pretty anemic for performance. Now, while not top dog, they're giving a respectible showing.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
For years, people have been saying that Linux needs to focus-in on one particular distro, to make it less confusing for new users. I would argue that day has come: you can confidently recommend Ubuntu. (And, once they overcome their initial trepidation about using a new OS, they will be able to migrate to any other flavor of Linux without much issue.) I agree that Linux should keep improving. I am, however, always a little confused by the repeated calls for "uniform packaging in Linux" considering that the software installation methodology in Linux is, in my opinion, light-years ahead of Windows. With a single application (GUI or commandline) you can install any of thousands of tested, malware-free software. It's such an efficient system, that switching to the method of searching the net for a "setup.exe" of questionable origin seems like a huge step backwards.
Like many Linux users, when I first starting using it, I was annoyed at the differences and cried in frustration: "Why can't they just make it simple like what I'm used to?" With a little more experience, I discovered that there are very good reasons for doing things "the Linux way"... now that I'm used to it, I wouldn't want to go back.
They don't?
**flips to Warcraft, City of Heroes, Civilization III (hey, still my fave), and Quake 4, then comes back**
Really?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I'd caveat Linus' statement with "but treat yourself to a NVIDIA video card". I've had 4 over the years, all worked flawlessly and easily with Linux. And beat the shit out of any of Intel's graphics offerings.
Some games work. Most require tweaking. Quite a few do not work at all.
And good luck getting official support if you need it.
I agree with what you're saying... my point is that since Linus shares his name with the product in question, I just thought his role as a kernel only developer kind of stifles adoption because his voice is left out of it. When he speaks, people listen -- and I just thought that his using his position in the industry to spur development, reconcile GUI options, unify, etc... would be a good idea.
:)
As good as a kernel developer as he may be, I still think he'd be valuable reconciling the problems that the different distros have and producing a product that is not only good on technical merits, but also other merits
I figured I'd get flack for the initial comment I posted, but I stand by it.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Not at all. These days if you buy something with Intel chipset, even hot off the press before the docs are online, there's a bloody good chance Linux will just work out the box. No tracking down weird drivers, beta out of tree patches. It just works.
Why? Because Intel can be bothered to give the devs the specs and not get their tits in a knot like ATI.
Happy days indeed.
Linus' comments on Debian seem old. Calling Debian (and especially Ubuntu) "technical" in nature doesn't jive.
I share the idea that some systems I don't want to have to do a bunch of work to setup/maintain and my current choice for servers is Debian. desktop would be Ubuntu for most people. Personally I use Gentoo on my desktop, as I like the way it works.
The key advice remains "Try it all and use what you Like".
Anything is possible given time and money.
I just tell people (when they ask; I'm not a zealot) that I run Linux. If they ask for specifics, I let them know.
:-)
It's more when they stop by my computer and they see it doing things that they don't have (like thumbnails of various file types in nautilus), that things get hairy.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
You're a fucking idiot.
The "failure" bit of your comment is kind of confusing. He has not failed in what he wants to do: make a good kernel. It's a bonus to that if lots of popel use it.
What he has "failed" at is not meeting your goal of getting Linux (as a desktop or workstation configuration) into mainstream. That's just not his goal in working on Linux. So, he never took up the banner your mentioned to begin with. He's been pretty straight forward with that.
Not trying to be critical, but wanted to point out part of the power of open-source. People who have the talent and the motivation work on what they feel is important to them and then make it available so that someone else can do the same by building on it .
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
In fact, it could be argued that the personality type that makes him so great at being the "benevolent dictator" for the kernel (strong opinions, detail oriented, more concerned with pragmatics than ideology) make him a terrible choice for spokesperson (makes enemies with strong comments, cares more about coding than marketing, doesn't care about large-scale ideology issues).
The fact is that Linus prefers being a technical guy building awesome technology, and doesn't really want the responsibility of guiding large-scale direction. Moreover, like many FOSS coders, he considers freedom of choice to be really important, and so has a general attitude of "do whatever works for you." Like I said, there's truth to your statements... however at the end of the day I think we're better off looking to people like Mark Shuttleworth as leaders of this movement.
Framebuffers. Nyah! :)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...Windows is dying.
There fixed it for you.
>>Which would imply a stability that leads to dependability which leads to usability which leads to widespread use
while I agree with your Sentiment I must say that windows 95 was anything but stable, yet it still had widespread use.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Huh? Are you saying that a framebuffer is a UI?
-Peter
All right, so they'll duel first.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Same amount of work?? No way. If everything works, then it's only however much time it takes to compile and install, which is, what, 10 times as long as installing a precompiled binary?
If compiling was done once, fine. But whenever an update comes along, it's compile time all over again. How many packages might a typical user have? Maybe 1000? And how often is a typical package updated? Maybe 4 times a year? So, looking at perhaps 4000 updates per year, which comes to more than 10 per day. And how long does installation take? 1 minute per package? (For comparison, anyone have any idea how many updates Ubuntu has per day? Something like 2 or 3? Takes about 10 minutes to do?) So if time for compiling and installing is 10 minutes, that's over an hour per day spent staying up to date with Gentoo. That's too much. Gentoo doesn't lend itself to staying current.
And that's only if you don't encounter problems. What really irritated me was the installation of a package that had 20 dependencies that all had to be compiled and installed first, and which, after hours of work discovered that a suitable version of the 15th dependency wasn't available on any of the Gentoo sites, and gave up.
Gentoo might be pretty nice when networks and computers are so fast that a complete OS with a profusion of apps can be downloaded, compiled, installed, and running in seconds. Even then, there could be snags trying to get the extra configuration options right. Not saying that other distros don't have some of the same problems, like the lag between a Firefox update going live from Mozilla and the time a distro can get, tweak, compile, test, approve, package, and push out that update. But it seems simple practicality to go with a distro that avoids excessive work. Firefox is a little unusual in being one of the few applications that has a built in updater. For that reason, I usually rip out the Firefox that comes with a distro and install a binary straight from Mozilla, with appropriate permissions so that Firefox's automatic update will work. That's a bit of extra work, but I do it anyway. Gentoo however is too much.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I hope he was told the truth about Drop Bears and that he was kidding...
Nice troll, Intel graphics are fine for desktop use and don't taint the kernel.
/ATI are okay until you hit a problem like this
NVidia
On my FreeBSD system, I have around 500 packages, for a fully functional workstation.
I might need (read: want) to recompile 20 or so packages total (counting multiple recompiles of one package separately) a year. This takes a very limited amount of compile time, and with the exception of KDE and X, the compile time is minimal and you can keep working while the application is compiling. And you shouldn't have to recompile KDE or X more than once a year, or even that often, unless you are someone who absolutely has to be at the bleeding edge.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Nobody, not even Linus can turn Linux into an unified system.
Imagine that Linus suddenly went and said (he wouldn't as he's interested in the kernel, but let's ignore that for the moment): Ok, let's do an unified system.
Now that's fine and all, but WHAT would this system be? Just which environment? KDE, Gnome or something else? Nobody would agree, and nothing would change. Maybe some group would appear trying to create Linus' vision, but everybody would be free to ignore it, and it'd be just yet another distro.
Let's suppose he goes with a more blunt approach and says: "I hereby as the Emperor of Linux say that Linux is officially Debian, and the desktop environment is KDE. All other organizations are required to disband, and the developers have to join my chosen ones".
Nobody would give a damn. Well, there'd be discussion for months about that kind of pronouncement, but other than that, not much would happen. Why would Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc obey somebody who doesn't hold any administrative power in their organization? Would Red Hat suddenly liquidate their company or throw their distribution out?
And if I decide I want to work on Enlightenment, and release my own distribution, who is going to stop me from doing that? Nobody.
Again, Linus, and everybody else is completely powerless to dictate anything to the community. We're not employees of a company. If I want to work on something I do, if I don't want to then I don't. This works for MS because Ballmer can say "Ok, this team will work on Vista, and this group has decided it's going to have features X, Y and Z, and that other one came up with this design for the UI. Now get coding." Obviously as MS employees they can't disagree if they want to stay employed, and they can't just fork it because the Windows licensing doesn't allow it.
But Linux is free, and a consequence of that freedom is that nobody can dictate anything to anybody else.
If everyone *else* would switch to Ubuntu, Linus would continue to compile the kernel on Fedora. That'd be quite ironic wouldn't it?
Enough with the Vista bashing, we're sorry.
Quack, quack.
Don't apologize for your analogy. After reading it I was ready to volunteer for the fight! If it was a car analogy the most it would inspire me to do is maybe drive across town to do some shopping or something.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Even advancements in multi-core technology would not require a 3.x series kernel (unless I'm mistaken in my belief that the 2.6.x series supports multi-core CPU's), simply because once you cam make a dual-core CPU functional with the kernel, expanding that functionality to 4, 8, or even 64 cores is simply an expanding of the current code. And even if the current kernel does not support multi-core CPU's, that would be more of a 2.8.x series, rather than an entirely new kernel version
I guess that a 3.0 version would be a suitable "label" to a conversion of the Linux kernel into a Microkernel architecture, I am not saying that it is going to be done, but I think that with the development of multicore technology and the overall new technology a microkernel architecture seems plausible.
In any case, I assume that just a modification of such size would make the version major worth of being changed.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
"Hmmm" what? If you had a point, you might try making it next time... unless, of course, you were simply trolling.
>Because Intel can be bothered to give the devs the specs and not get their tits in a knot like ATI.
Riiight.
Just ask Theo de Raadt, he can tell you all about getting specs from Intel.
Don't believe a word of it! Look at his flaky source - Wikipedia. Would you put your life in Wikipedias hands, or would you trust a genius such as Linus? You'll notice the interviewer never corrected him - because there was no mistake! Don't you make the same mistake the parent has!! The reason such rubbish gets in is all the city slickers that never go out back. In the wild bush, crikey they're everywhere, and they'll take you when you least suspect it. You can try toothpaste, vegemite, forks and other chicanery but the only true defense is a well developed sense of terror!
If you're looking for MIDI recording that generates notation for you in linux, check out Rosegarden. If you know of this program already and don't think it's easy enough to use, my apologies for assuming.
You think they'll bring those back? And you'd think NVidia'd have the good sense to allow the nvidia kernel module to supply an fb block device for dicking around with virtual consoles and non-X guis. Ah well.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
bork bork bork!
The screen is inherently an output-only device, and framebuffers allow you to direct output from an application to the screen in a mixed text-and-graphics mode. To me, that makes it as much a UI as anything else. It's not fancy, but neither was the mixed mode for the BBC Micro or the Apple IIe. If those were UIs, then so's a framebuffer.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Actually I was trolling to a very small degree.
Reading TFA, that part struck out.
I kind of knew Linus doesn't feel a compulsion to maintain neutrality in any number of issues, but still in the context of that whole "Is Intel sitting on 30nm chips" or whatever story, it kind of jumped out at me, and "Hmmm" was kind of my way of encouraging interpretation without having a dog in the fight.
(I'm very much a PC as commodity guy; for new equipment at least, processor speed or even chipset isn't even on the list, besides maybe sanity checking that it's not something ancient.)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
From TFA:
"LT: I spend a lot of time at the computer. But I'm writing this one-handed, because our puppy is sitting in my lap right now."
That's sick! You sick, sick, SICKO!
Linux is the name for both the kernel and the OS. Richard Stallman tried to get people to call it "GNU/Linux", because he felt his contribution was more than that of everyone else that's contributed to the Linux OS. But in the end, almost everyone calls it by the name it was originally given by its creator: Linux.
Linux's UI is based on MIT's X-Windows (why not "MIT/Linux"?) and either FSF's Gnome or KDE, though, so yes, it's not Linus' purview to worry about Linux's UI, so his geekiness on that matter is not why Linux's UI is considered inadequate for desktop use by many.
E pluribus unum
Actually, besides the fact that multi-core has been supported for ages, I can't currently imagine what kind of changes exactly would warrant the 2.8 or 3.0 re-labeling.
Even an improved graphics scheduler that's allegedly so amazing in Vista (read about it here a day or two ago) is just another switch, just like the kernel scheduler.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Linux ran just fine on 64 CPU systems back at the start of 2003 when SGI announced Altix. See, for example: http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/4612/1
If I recall correctly, that would have been running on a 2.4 kernel. Cores in a single socket vs. distinct CPU's is a really minor distinction, so all the work done to make Altix work will basically run just fine on a hypothetical Intel Core 4 Sixtyfourdro. So, 2.8 really shouldn't need to much work in terms of being able to handle the "new" multiprocessing.
Seriously, 1.0 was considered "feature complete" at the time of release, and there are some major architectural changes which will be required in order to improve scalability across multi-core as well as SMP systems, not to mention some fairly major pieces of work that are still under development which will need to be merged fully at some point (DAPL being one of the bigger). With the growth in the cluster market, I would also expect some meta-structure to go in to support the basic concepts. Even PCI-e 2.1 support is going to have a serious impact, due to the changes introduced in it.
If I was in Linus' shoes, I'd be pushing for these big infrastructure components to be readied and maybe placed in the -mm tree at this point. Once they're ready for the big time - which might take a while - I'd migrate them into the main tree and wait three or four cycles for last-minute bugs to settle down, then flip to 3.0 to mark the first of a generation of kernels that are keeping pace with the curve. I'd reserve 4.0 for when Linux is not only stable for mainstream use but defines the curve for OS development. I think everyone on Slashdot is at least aware of the research into new hardware technologies, new OS technologies and so on, so I don't think anyone seriously believes that Linux won't undergo more fundamental changes in its life.
Obviously, I am not Linus and he gets to do what he wants, whether I - or anyone else - would agree with his beliefs or not. However, his reluctance to flip digits is not new - I remember when kernels had a letter at the end to mark the sub-sub-version and it had to go into 2 letters because Linus ran out of alphabet. I also remember the first time sub-sub-version numbers ran into the hundreds. On both occasions, there was gigantic frustration with the absurdity. I guess he's forgotten the problems caused, or something.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You still aren't reading me. A framebuffer is no more a UI than a mouse ball or X (sans window manager). A framebuffer is a service that might support a UI, but it certainly isn't a UI.
-Peter
I for one welcome our delcious "kentucky fried penguin" overlords!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Did you first compile your compiler for your specific hardware?
Not sure if this actually makes a difference, but I've heard third hand that it does.
Granted, this is not a reliable source, but it made sense to me at the time. This person first compiled their compiler for their hardware, and then compiled all the source for their distro with this compiler. Any thoughts on this?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Even advancements in multi-core technology would not require a 3.x series kernel (unless I'm mistaken in my belief that the 2.6.x series supports multi-core CPU's), simply because once you cam make a dual-core CPU functional with the kernel, expanding that functionality to 4, 8, or even 64 cores is simply an expanding of the current code.
I'm sorry, but that's just not true. As the number of cores goes up, a great number of things changes and there's been tons of radical changes to support non-uniform memory, fix scaling problems with many cores etc. However, most of this has been implemented much earlier with SMP - basicly multiple processors on a motherboard. Not common in PCs, but common in servers which is where Linux has spent a lot of its time. Not as elegant but basicly to the OS the problem is the same - manage multiple cores. So no, you're wrong as it's far from trivial, but yes, most of the hard work is already done.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Which would imply a stability that leads to dependability which leads to usability which leads to widespread use. At least that is my hope in the enterprise, that the combination of commodity hardware with a commodity, high powered and stable OS can be coupled with increasingly powerful database engines such as mySQL, Veritas, etc. Oracle on Linux is now considered stable as well.
Depending on what kind of infrastructure you needed, six or seven years ago, you were fairly likely to get funny looks if you announced you were running a significant chunk of your servers on Linux. If you were running a significant chunk of your desktop infrastructure on Linux, the funny looks were a dead cert.
Three or four years ago, the funny looks regarding Linux servers were long gone, replaced with genuine interest.
Today, nobody bats an eyelid about server infrastructure, and you'd be just as likely (if not more so) to get genuine interest as funny looks if you are seriously migrating desktops to Linux. About the only thing you can't easily replace is Exchange and the centralised configuration UI that Active Directory gives you (no, LDAP user authentication doesn't count). The centralised configuration isn't too difficult to work around, the full integration of Exchange is.
I would be most interested to know what OS is on his wife's computer. If Linux, what distro.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
OK, a few days or even a week... but a month and a half on a piece that was covered everywhere is a bit of a stretch.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I wonder if your "name" is luser....
One of the most interesting things (to me, anyway) that Linus talked about in the interview as how proud he was of the technical merits of the kernel and of Linux as an OS in general. I thought that was fairly interesting.
I really don't want to try and turn this into a Linux vs BSD vs [something else] flamewar here, but since I'm not really qualified to comment on things like memory-management algorithms, I wondered if anyone wanted to weigh in on exactly what areas they think Linux really excels at -- from a purely technical perspective. I really like the idea that Linus is getting at, namely that the real confirmation of open source is technical excellence, but I'm curious exactly what areas the Linux kernel is "The Best."
In particular I've always been interested in how some of the different open-source OSes handle different technical problems. Is how Linux handles (just for an example) memory management quantifiably better than how BSD does it? And if so (or not) why?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Linux's terrible support for SATA cards is a pretty good reason to upgrade. If the drivers ever actually materialize. /me looks over at 3 partially-supported SATA cards and weeps
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The phrase "My name is Legion for we are many" comes to mind.
Yes, well, Legion in the Gospels was a demon (Mark 5:9)...so either you're making a BSD joke or implying that the bewildering diversity in the Linux world is the work of Satan :-)
Advice: on VPS providers
He likes to tend.
And why would you expect developers of things like KDE and GNOME to listen to him? Both run perfectly well on FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, [Open]Solaris, etc. They can survive quite happily without Linus and his kernel.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Unless, of course, Ubuntu gets open source video drivers...
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
I can fully understand recommending Intel for graphics, since they fund DRI (and X) development. For WiFi cards, Atheros and Ralink still seem to have much better Free Software support.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I disagree. We don't need a dictator for the kernel. But there are several candidates who could replace Linus, should he step down - Andrew Morton is the first name to pop into my head, but there are several other excellent choices. I don't think a committee would necessarily be bad, but would prefer there to be one lead developer, to whom all members of a committee would answer, but not necessarily a dictator. However the committee would have to be small and it would have to have certain requirements, like no person who is or has ever been a committee member of Debian is eligible, etc.
Linux is soooo Y2K. I run RedHat now.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Your numbers are way off. The number of packages that take more than a minute at most to compile and install on modern hardware is, at most, about 20-30% of the ~600 packages I have installed (and 600 is a lot of packages, most people have less). Furthermore, the entire process is automated and you're free to use your computer exactly as if you weren't updating, so it really doesn't matter how long the compile takes. Thus, you can sync and update at your leisure. I usually do so once or twice a week, and it takes well under a minute of my time (per week!), which I think is quite reasonable given that that's all that's needed to maintain a completely up to date system tailored exactly to my needs.
For me, any distro other than Gentoo would be a lot more work, because I like to stay on the bleeding edge of software, and in my experience, Portage has always had the largest and most up to date selection of software that works with the least amount of fuss. Even if only one or two packages are missing or too old from a given distribution's repository, that's already going to cause me substantially more work than a minute a week to maintain it manually, and I ran into that situation frequently with other distributions. I've yet to find any software that I wanted that wasn't already available in Portage in several years I've been using it.
Another point to consider is that Gentoo is always current and up to date, you never need to upgrade to Gentoo n+1 as you do with basically every other distribution. Big upgrades are nearly impossible to get done perfectly (and software breaking is something that is statistically infeasible to avoid), so with a non-Gentoo distro, when something breaks, you have no idea what caused the problem, because everything was changed at the same time. With Gentoo, if something breaks after an update, (I or someone else) have a handful of packages to blame at most, making the problem exponentially easier to find and fix.
I won't say that Gentoo isn't daunting at first, because it is. I spent several hours doing my first Gentoo install (which is still running, over 3 years later), but now a new install of Gentoo takes me under half an hour, and a very trivial amount of time to maintain. The package management in Gentoo is second to none, and when it really comes down to it, that's the only part of a distro that actually matters. The choice is obvious to me.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
There absolutely is no "Linux OS". There are many Linux-based OSes, usually called "Linux distributions". Sensible people abbreviate that to "distro". Insensible people abbreviate that to "Linux".
Wow. First, Linux did get it's name from its creator. But I defy you to show me where he claimed to have created an OS.
Secondly, why did you feel the need to pull RMS into this? I don't recall having used the term "GNU/Linux" in this discussion, and I certainly didn't suggest that anyone else should. If you want to call systems based on a Linux kernel and X "MIT/Linux", be my guest. I'll know precisely what you mean. (Incidentally, I'd suggest that most Linux-based systems don't include X.) My point is that calling anything with a Linux kernel "Linux" is the opposite of communication.
-Peter
I used Gentoo for over a year, but it was sucking up too much time. The final straw is that Gentoo is often out of date (ironic) so I switched away from it.
Gentoo fans often claim Gentoo compiling gets you a faster machine. That was not my experience. My Gentoo box started up and shut down more quickly, but that was because it didn't have a bunch of unnecessary services starting up. The individual application speeds were no better than with any binary distro--which is what one would expect in this age of superfast processors.
If compiling was done once, fine. But whenever an update comes along, it's compile time all over again. How many packages might a typical user have? Maybe 1000? And how often is a typical package updated? Maybe 4 times a year? So, looking at perhaps 4000 updates per year, which comes to more than 10 per day. And how long does installation take? 1 minute per package?
Heh, that's optimistic. The problem with Gentoo is that there is no incremental patch mechanism. You have to reinstall the whole package any time there is a security update. The real stinger is that the packages often do not work. I'd say roughly 1 in 50 emerges quits due to some compile error. That's a lot of breakage on a typical system, which may have nearly a thousand packages--all of which often must be reemerged for security updates and for upgrades. Fixing broken emerges takes some time--"hmm, let me try unmasking the testing version to see if that works. Hmm, let me try changing the USE flags. Hmm..."
Gentoo would perhaps be acceptable if it worked a greater percentage of the time. Unfortunately it often breaks, and the response from other users is "oh, you shouldn't have upgraded your system" or "oh, any user should be able to fix that." True enough, so I have left Gentoo so that I don't need to bother fixing these things. No problem here.
Penny - plain text accounting
mplayer is 35% faster? Presumably you mean mencoder, the encoding tool that comes with mplayer is 35% faster?
:-o I call bullshit on your bullshit on his bullshit! The only way you would see any benefit from this extra 35% faster mplayer, is if the generic package was juddering/skipping frames etc.
Sorry, but saying a media player is 35% faster is just retarded, what, you can watch a video in 35% less time than I can?
Yet if you can compare a generic packaged mplayer compiled for i386/i586 with something compiled especially for your processor on the same machine, you still must have some x86 compatible processor. What x86 processor do you have that has trouble playing mpeg files without skipping when using only i386 optimisations?
Fried in its own fat, you mean ?
Linux 2.6.x = UNIX System V
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
And that's that pretty much every Debian derivative (and Debian itself) has a vastly superior packaging system. Comparing Gentoo and RedHat is like comparing Windows 98 (Gentoo) and Windows ME (Redhat). Sure one is clearly better, but they are obviously both inferior to Windows 2000 (Debian), or even Windows XP (Ubuntu).
Much Love.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I always get the feeling that Linus still just views linux as a cool project that he wants to use, making it the best because that's what he wants to use.
Linux may have had the best filesystems some years ago, but I don't think it can make that claim now, with Sun's ZFS. (Incidentally, ZFS is open-source, but is unlikely to make it into Linux, save for an inefficient user-space version, because it's not licensed under the GPL. So it looks like OpenSolaris has the initiative in that area for the time being.)
The packages in pkgsrc don't always compile on slackware. I'd guess 1 out of 3 packages are broken. I know this because I've tried several times to run pkgsrc on slackware. If you want to run a simple, straightforward, slackware-like distro with source based package management, I suggest Lunar Linux.
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
It's not really news. I don't think that Linus doesn't "like" Debian because of the install though... it's the whole "Debian GNU/Linux" that's probably the showstoper for him, i.e. the fact that Debian was (and is, in many regards) more directly linked with the FSF line.
I think given his contribution, Linus at least deserves to be listened to. Now, to be obeyed on the other hand...
I mean, real collapsable threads. Because one asshole says "gentoo" in a FP and 99% of what was supposed to be about a Linus interview goes to Hell in a handbasket. So I wish it was possible to click on a "[-]" button the second I saw "gentoo" and be spared of all this.
Nothing against Gentoo, but this was a horrible example when this would've been a really useful Slashdot feature.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
This is the first I have heard of alpine, I'll definitely have to check that out. I still use pine as my email client, and will have to check this out. I do have thunderbird installed, just in case I run into something that is cumbersome in pine, such as attaching multiple files to an email or viewing one with multiple image attachments.
Does anyone else here use alpine?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I completely agree with what you are saying, but I do not like the tone at which you just said it.
If Linus likes redhat; why would he need to give some distro a second chance.
Anyway, sometimes I try KDE because if Linus likes it, I want to like it. I often get the feeling that I did not give KDE a fair chance. But I must face it; KDE is not my thing.
Guess it is the same with Debian; I love it.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
It's clear you don't fully understand compiler technology because you chose the wrong argument to backup your claim. I agree that recompiling isn't always necessary or the right thing to do. The whole idea behind compiling is that you compile once and from that point on you run "fast."
The main reason your argument is flawed is because there is no magic combination of compiler optimizations that will work optimally for every program. For example program A might run faster if compiler optimizations N was followed by M but program B might run faster if optimizations M was followed by N (note there are no such optimizations 'M' and 'N', they're just variables). In fact, some optimizations have a potential to degrade performance under certain conditions. Correctly compiling for optimization is a very hard problem because you need to determine what optimizations will even give you any benefit (this varies depending on the source code and hardware) and in what order to apply those optimizations.
To make the problem harder, certain optimizations may make overall performance faster (less time to execute) but system resource usage will increase dramatically. I took an undergraduate course on compiler optimizations and one of our projects was to benchmark a program based on different choices of optimizations. One of the optimizations called trace scheduling tended to generate some really nice performance gains. However, because it caused more parallelism more of the cpu's units where used and many paths in the code were taken that did not need to be taken. This cause the cpu to use significantly more power than the non-optimized version. So while this optimization increased performance, it could hurt under conditions where power is not freely available.
Finally, you may simply not know the best order of optimizations for a certain program. In this case you could have the compiler spit out all the possible combinations but that will take an insanely long time to not only compile but test. So you have to ask yourself, "how long do I want to be compiling?" One solution is to go purchase some time on a super computer to get your results quicker, but that is only a trade off of time for money. The end result may still be the same as you might find your optimizations were already optimal for your set of optimizations.
So I'm not convinced that we need to totally give up on compiling. At the same time I'm not convinced that everyone should be recompiling their sources just because they don't want a dependency on this and that. The real situation is there are a set of common platforms most people run, therefore we just need to target those common sets and compile for those different flavors. Right now most distributions just compile to be generic. I don't blame them either as compiler optimization selection is a very time consuming problem.
Ultimately, we don't know if our binaries could be running faster, but just because we aren't, doesn't mean everyone should stop trying.
dpkg-query -l | grep ii | wc -l
2306
is a typical number of packages for my debian workstations (some have more). I use FreeBSD and Gentoo, but I don't have enough workstations to justify the effort that they would require to duplicate the functionality I get with debian. (150 ports is typical of one of my FreeBSD servers that uses php mysql and apache)
I could see using gentoo on the desktop if I was developing desktop apps, or had enough workstations to justify a build server and quality testing of my workstations.
Work bio at MMWD
Linux has had very *fast* file systems, but it hasn't really had very *reliable* file systems. The traditional BSD file system still wins there, and since the introduction of Softupdates it's not been far behind the bleeding edge in performance for typical use.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
You're comparing apples to oranges there, Debian (and many other distros) split single packages into multiple packages where possible to somewhat emulate the modularity of USE flags and causes the number of packages to be larger than the number of pieces of software available/installed.
Fedora for example (used to) package Wine into something like a dozen separate packages, one for each sound driver (Alsa, OSS, NAS, ESD, and JACK, at least), along with a couple other package splits that I don't recall the details of. In comparison, Gentoo has exactly one package for Wine with a slew of USE flags and versions. You can see the same pattern repeat for lots of other software.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
As I said in another post I think that Linux objections to Debian is more a side effect of his dislike for anything with "GNU" on its name ;)
slack+pkgsrc is actually what made me find, and stick with, gentoo. I started using slackware, but grew tired of creating my own or searching google for slackbuilds. I then found pkgsrc and found a few distros that aimed to be slack+pkgsrc. I even tried to roll my own slack+pkgsrc solution, but I could never get pkgsrc to maintain every package of the system. There was always the core packages then pkgsrc. It's been a while since i looked in to that solution, and maybe I didn't really look deep enough, but I think it would be really great if pkgsrc could be as tight knit with a linux distro as it is with netbsd.
The way people and organizations select version numbers has always annoyed me and Linus is spot on on this topic. To me, version numbers are stupid. The only number that really matters is the revision number, all other numbers either encapsulate too much non-sense or require too much "thinking" and "creativity" based on the developer's part. At the end of the day it's just a label to say that this version was created after all of those other versions, nothing more nothing less.
In these days, versions and releases are becoming more and more of a marketing strategy or even a get out of jail card (see Google and "beta"). The real answer is, from the first day you decide to even write a document, a version number exists and should keep ticking with every change contributed to the project. That's probably too much information that the user doesn't care about so let's simplify it to only new builds of a binary. But the build of the binary could be from various sources with various optimizations and features. Blah blah blah. So the end result is someone gets a grand idea of "NOW let's give it a version number." BS, finish it and release it or don't. End of story.
At the end of the day, the user probably only cares about a couple of things: is the newer version better than the older version (what are the new features, fixes), is it compatible with my current platform software and hardware, and finally will it break anything or do something to make me very frustrated (dependencies, deprecated features). Version numbers should only be made to address these issues, anymore than that is just marketing. I don't care if it is major or minor in the developer's minds. That tells me nothing. Make the version number useful to the users, not another confusing marketing term.
People who claim that Torvalds should be doing this or saying that should examine their own positions and honestly consider if they're not simply trying to use him and his position within the community to try and further a particular POV.
No.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
This view shows that he has not thought enough about the issues. Linux views people who have a different view as "pushing". If I were to use the same mindset, I'd say he was pushing a commercial agenda that threatens real software freedom. Because many more people look up to and will listen to Linus, whatever he advocates gets much more "push" than anything I say.
Leaving aside that a lot of what you say is unfounded crap, and so hardly likely to have any "push", Linus hardly pushes any views. He expresses them, sure, oh boy does he express them, but he doesn't enforce them on anyone or attempt to proselytise. Instead, he's talking about people precisely like you who like to froth at the mouth and produce absolutely nothing except a lot of sound and fury signifying nohing. And hell, he might well agree with you on certain points, but most likely wouldn't take much pride in the "use free software or die in fire and brimstone" nature of most of what you say.
His aversion to politics has cost him - and that's the sign of a real idealog. (sic)
Um, he avoids politics, so he's an ideologue. What are you on about?
Debian is not hard to use, even for a non technical user like myself. I'd say it was easier than Fedora in all things but adding non free software.
Are you joking? Debian is far easier to add non-free software to. I mean, they've only got a whole friggin APT repository for it hosted on the Debian servers.
Mepis and Ubuntu have excellent compatibilty with the rest of the Debian tree, so you don't lose much more than a little stability and trust for the non free inclusions.
Um, the founder of Debian, Ian Murdock, is on record saying that Ubuntu has diverged too far from Debian to remain compatible. And Mepis only recently switched back to using Debian packages from Ubuntu. So... nice try.
The thing that he should realize is that technical excellence happens when you have software freedom.
It can do, but you can't pretend that there's no technical excellence in closed software either. Both sides have merits.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I kind of knew Linus doesn't feel a compulsion to maintain neutrality in any number of issues, but still in the context of that whole "Is Intel sitting on 30nm chips" or whatever story, it kind of jumped out at me,
Why? The fact is, as far as hardware developers go, Intel has been pretty good about releasing specs to their gear. Perfect? No. But far better than nVidia, ATI, or any of the many WiFi card manufacturers. So, whether you believe in Intel conspiracy theories are not, doesn't change the fact that Linus is right.
So you think his works about specific heat, Brownian motion, stimulated emission, General Relativity and the EPR paradox are all worthless? (And no, I don't claim that list is exhaustive)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Dude, one word- PEDANTIC. You just made his point by highlighting the difference between linux the kernel and KDE/Gnome/whatever else the GUI. There is no unifying vision for Linux (or whatever you technically want to call it) from low level kernel all the way up to the GUI.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
that these days you can install Debian by popping in the disc, booting, and hitting Enter about ten times. Hell, they even brought back tasksel and created a useful set of tasks, so you can select "desktop machine" or "email server" :)
Your kernel does all you need until you get a new motherboard. I had to use an unstable kernel the last time I upgraded, just to get IDE functionality. I sometimes wish the motherboard companies would do their best to stick to a 2.x line.
I think you are right that we would be better off with a unified "Linux for the Desktop" community. This needs not be a single distro, a single vendor, etc. Maybe just an industry organization. Freedesktop.org helps, but only with the technical things. I do agree that we need a central community framework to help avoid user confusion. After all, this is an issue.
However, one of the issues you run into is that no matter what you do, the desktop *experience* will not be unified. Some people like GNOME, some like KDE, and some like Window Maker. And if you start turning these into eachother people are going to be rightly upset. Additionally the desktop-based management tools tend to be different. Part of the reason for this diversity is genuinely different needs, and part is differentiation strategy. SuSE can't be just another Linspire, and Linspire can't be just another SuSE. They have to differentiate themselves.
Again, an industry organization could help get people to cooperate to provide common tools so that certain markets can be more consistantly reached. Distros could continue to experiment with whatever they like in order to differentiate themselves from the pack. Etc.
At the same time, the open source "community" always has one interesting feature-- it iterates over every possible path. Thus such an organization would not preclude others from trying to forge their own way, nor would it prevent a fragmented user experience, but it is also our strength, that people can make the software whatever they want it to be.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"At least that is my hope in the enterprise, that the combination of commodity hardware with a commodity, high powered and stable OS can be coupled with increasingly powerful database engines such as mySQL"
Or could you use an already powerful and free database engine like Postgresql.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I know a lot of people who use gentoo (me included) and performance is such a poor reason for using gentoo. Unfortunately whenever there's a thread mentioning gentoo on /. someone jumps right in with a fat target on his rice bowl.
The best reason for using gentoo, and the reason I've been using it since 1.4 is maintenance. I've had the box I'm writing this on for over three years and it still has the same root file system on the same drive. When the drive dies I'll probably copy right over to the new one.
So, yeah, I see the reviews on how gentoo isn't really so much faster than a binary distro, or how it takes so long to install. I wouldn't know anymore because it's been years since I had to install Linux. If I were using suse I'd have to wipe everything and start over every 18 months, and yeah you really have to because pretty soon it becomes impossible to find anything built against your tool chain. When I first abandoned suse I thought they were doing it on purpose to make me buy a new box set, now I know better but still, why should I have to reinstall my desktop over cause [distro]-10.3 RELEASED!
Anyway please ignore any gentoo users that start bragging about "performance and optimization".
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
He doesn't "understand" it probably because it exists only in the heads of a few people like yourself who think they're in a holy crusade to change the ways of the heathen unbelievers.
Of course no "technical excellence" ever came out of anywhere other than GNU. But then like your hero Stallman once said with that curiously petulant demeanor of his, "there are thousands of non-free programs, and most merit no special attention other than to develop a free replacement" You've been sucking on that pipe a little too hard. Come to think of it, you are identical to him - trapped in a crippling fog of social ineptitude, misguided extremist dogma and complete lack of awareness and any sense of measure whatsoever. Although you can add infantile hatred to the list as well.
No one, and certainly not me, discard the value of freedom or the social significance of what Stallman has done. But to quote someone else, it's not God that scares me. It's his fan club that scares the shit out of me. Design and implementation are two very different things. You suck at the implementation.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Just tell them the distros are like the many variations on Windows. The home edition, pro, enterprise, server, etc.
He IS the OS developer. It's just that now people think that a solitaire game is part of the operating system - which is as incorrect as thinking that "lose" and "loose" have exactly the same meaning. Now I suggest you lot look at a book on operating systems to find out what userspace and an application is (hint: even the shell is an appication) and get off my lawn!
Consider the "iceweasel" stupidity. Politics for the sake of it waste a lot of time and will hold things up until those playing with it get bored and go away. Gnome was a prime example of this and now it's Debian's turn - IMHO this is one reason the derivatives of Debian are usually improvements.
Guilty. Hope you don't think that has anything to do with the validity of my argument.
I did no such thing.
Why on Earth do you think there needs to be some "unifying vision"? It's a modular system on purpose. Compare to OS X. In my opinion it's the slickest OS ever. Do you sincerely believe that some Darwin hacker gives two shits about Coco implementation details?
Even if we stipulate this absurd position, any vendor that uses Linux as their kernel may make any and all changes necessary to bring the kernel in line with their "vision" of a complete system. Be it Ubuntu or TiVo.
-Peter
"Compile everything by hand" ones simply weren't interesting to me,' ...I guess he's getting old too.
I totally understand his point of view...
It used to be cool to compile everything, there used to be time to compile everything. But then something happened - a decade or something...
We got older and if not wiser, at least found out that there is more to life than compiling kernel. While compiling kernel is still fun, it's just not always convenient. You have other things on your mind now, and you've actually come to realise that the other things are just as fun and important. - I guess that's what they call growing up?
But hey, you younger nerds: Keep on compiling! Keep on hacking those all nighters! We older DO need your enthusiasm. You have all the time in the world to grow old and growly - and you will, like it or not.
It took a while, but I got there. - I'm actually older now!
If all else fails, pull the plug and get out...
The Life is out there...
(Run-on sentence alert...)
Additionally, Linux audio is a failure. Even ALSA. There simply should not be any blocking of audio I/O at this stage. Relying on a happy coincidence between the app developers' sound server choice, Distro-X's favorite sound server, and/or the presence of premium multi-channel (instead of single-channel) soundcard HW just to keep sound apps working, accessibility aids speaking, softphones and calendar alarms ringing when they should be (instead of sitting mute because a Flash animation was left running in a minimized web page somewhere) is just not cutting it. Or how about a call not going through because an email or calendar alert went off or watching a video/audio stream at the wrong time?
Here are some wrong answers that are often repeated to me by the clueless:
* User was supposed to buy the premium sound hardware (which doesn't even claim Linux compatibility)
* User should pay attention to what apps are using which sound servers, and juggle the apps accordingly.
* User only has to visit ALSA development site, open a CLI and read Howtos.
* User can install and configure the mixing OSS driver any time they want (its free as in beer until the trial expires).
* User clearly did something wrong if Skype for Linux is either silent or echoes like a tin canyon on every single PC + distro they've tried.
* User deserves it because they haven't given up their real life to get in touch with their inner penguin.
* Blocking sound output is appropriate default behavior.
* User is accessing the wrong mixer panel: Run alsamixer from the CLI instead.
* User lazily ran their app from the supplied icon instead of from the CLI using an esddsp, artsdsp or similar wrapper.
Clearly this mountain and a half of BS and misdirected blame stems largely from Linus' inability to tackle this crucial problem after all these years. Neither he nor his delegates are capable in this area, although somehow I wouldn't be surprised if they rationalized it by thinking the issue of smooth audio output (icky desktop feature) was beneath them.
The future of Linux as a environment -- either desktop or server -- is out of the hands of the kernel developers and has been for some time. They can make things slightly better, or make things worse (which means we'll stay with an older version), but...
In all seriousness, how many here think that changes in the kernel are really going to be the big news for "the future of Linux" for the next decade? The revolution is going to happen elsewhere.
Linus is an interesting guy, but as long as he's focused on git and the kernel he's not going to be the guy who takes us somewhere new.
This really caught my eye in the article:
>> So instead of having two or three years between stable releases, we now have two or three months. Which means that the vendor kernels are much closer to the development kernels, and avoids a lot of the problems we used to have. Everybody is happier.
Oh. Oh, my. Pleae, please tell me this is going to be true. I am so very tired of under-experienced kernel developers who get a fetish about a particular kernel, turn it into an entangled and never documented proprietary mess, then force other people to backport things from the next major kernel release. I'm also very tired of the profound pain of major kernel upgrades.
Keep the upgrades small and frequent: small changes mean small mistakes, even if it breaks major OS vendor models of "the kernel we released with version 2.0 is the kernel we still support for it seven years later".
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The response to them was the same as the response to the wine/cedega issue.Linux had fewer issues, so I don't understand your complaint.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
The guy above called you a troll, but what you said has merit.
I bought a desktop with Intel graphics for my Linux-only box. As it had the best Intel graphics on it, I thought I'd be able to play Guild Wars, which is not terribly demanding. -sigh- Didn't happen.
The Intel graphics chips are great for desktop use, and I even use it for Beryl... But games are still a no-go for anything in the last few years.
If I was still trying to make my Linux box play games, I'd have slapped a good nVidia card in it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Linus was asked to list areas where Linux has a technology lead. He came up with portability, memory management and filesystems. Now it is possible that at some time in the dim and distant past Linux provided the best filesystems technology and the state of the art memory management but neither of these assertions are true today nor have they been true in the recent past.
As for portability, well yes Linux has been ported to a lot of platforms it is however a bit of a stretch to conclude from this that Linux is inherently more portable than Solaris or BSD.
So his three claims for technology leadership are mostly plain wrong or arguable at best.
Linus did however help introduce the concept of good enough technology probably not the technology leadership he was asked about hence the reluctance to claim it on Linux's part.
I run Theo's OS, so you take a guess. 8)
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
How does it feel, to be so painfully obsessed by Microsoft that you have to work them into everything you say and do? Your life must suck so much.