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Linux Kernel v2.6.23 Released
diegocgteleline.es writes "After 3 months, Linus has released Linux 2.6.23. This version includes the new and shiny CFS process scheduler, a simpler read-ahead mechanism, the lguest 'Linux-on-Linux' paravirtualization hypervisor, XEN guest support, KVM smp guest support, and variable process argument length. SLUB is now the default slab allocator, there's SELinux protection for exploiting null dereferences using mmap, XFS and ext4 improvements, PPP over L2TP support. Also the 'lumpy' reclaim algorithm, a userspace driver framework, the O_CLOEXEC file descriptor flag, splice improvements, a new fallocate() syscall, lock statistics, support for multiqueue network devices, various new drivers, and many other minor features and fixes. See the changelog for details."
Guys, that's an honest question from the new user! Don't slam on the Troll mod the second someone says GPL3 and Linux in the same post!
For the foreseeable future, Linux will be under the GPLv2 license. A lot of Linux code is only available under that license, and isn't forward compatible without developer permission. Given that many Linux devs either won't give permission or can't be located (died, stopped contributing, whatever), relicensing will be a major effort, even if leaders were so inclined. Basically, if Linux goes GPLv3, you'll hear about it at least 6 months in advance, and probably weekly during those 6 months if you read Slashdot.
You needn't worry about the kernel in this case, because the applications aren't paying any attention. Mozilla happily passes all open file descriptors (sockets, pipes, and files of any kind) to subprocesses like Adobe Reader. There's been a bug open on it for eons. Other applications have the same problems. It may be convenient to have O_CLOEXEC in open(2) calls, but it won't help of the application writers don't know what they are doing, or if they have "abstracted" their platform interaction to such a degree that they can no longer interact with any platform services (*cough* jvm *cough*).
personally, i think, that the height of computing was 'cron'. you needed a report every morning, put it in cron. you needed to analyze data every week, put it in cron.
;) i mean, heavily under the influence.
computing was supposed to automate. supposed to make everyones lives easier by helping the person. now look at it. walk into any corporate office and you'll see countless people (myself included) clicking on this and that to satisfy what the computer wants out of you. it feels like you are there to help the computer achieve uptimes, or defragged disks, getting rid of viruses, blocking ports, unblocking ports...
am i there to help the computer do it's job? or is the computer there to help me do mine?
why does the computer occupy the center of my desk? why isn't it tucked away in the utility closet?
but that's a more philosophical discussion to be had - under the influence
I just think in order to get Linux adopted by the populous, it's going to take more than kernel enhancements to see that through.
But see, the problem is that nobody's arguing that kernel enhancements alone *are* going to result in the rise of desktop-Linux-for-the-masses. What you're doing is akin to walking into a university campus that's just expanded a bit and proclaiming how they're not doing enough to save the baby whales. Yes, some of the facilities and information dispersed therein may be getting used by people looking to save the baby whales, and some of the staff may even be interested in saving the baby whales themselves, but the university is not in fact there to save the baby whales, but instead serve as general resource that can be utilized in a number of different and often drastically divergent ways.
Would it surprise you to find out that most of the community agrees with that statement? .. With one caveat, however: You're confusing Linux, the opreating system kernel, with the rest of a complete system. If we were discussing one of the *BSDs, I'd not balk, but there is a huge difference between Linux and what you're talking about. Linux runs behind the scenes and has nothing whatsoever to do with usability or even UIs.
The last thing you want to do is hide functionality - especially necessary functionality - from users. All Apple did was wrap a Mach kernel under a NeXT-ish facade and hide the majority of the more "advanced" features. IMO, there's no reason to make the shell go away, but rather to set it aside in a non-intrusive and logical place - exactly how most current distributions set it up. You can still get to a terminal emulator in OS X - it's harder, sure, but it's still trivial to make it readily accessible - and it uses BASH, a powerful and quite useful shell. By contrast, on Windows, it's not obvious where the shell is right away, and once you know where it is, you quickly find it's limiting and hard to use - if you're an advanced user, it's useless.
It's quite unified. There's surprisingly little fragmentation in the community (save for Vim/Emacs and KDE/Gnome zealots), and a lot is accomplished daily. We have, right now, not one but ten (more?) advanced, powerful, and very usable desktop environments (including Gnome and KDE); a constantly improving graphical server that now supports advanced 3D effects, render acceleration, compositing, and multiple pointers (new! for multi-touch displays and the like a la iPhone); powerful multimedia features that audiophiles and videophiles are turning to in droves; multiple complete suites of office-targetted applications (KOffice, AbiWord, OpenOffice.org, and others); and many, many other programs that most users will always find that meet their immediate needs. And that's just in the stable repositories.
My question for you is this: What do you think is missing? We'll get somebody on it.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!