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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."
overlord. welcome. yay.
On a more serious note, are these improvements dramatic, or is story featured just because it's the newest Lolnus kernel?
I'm so excited, I wish I could have stayed up until midnight in a huge line for it! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP NOW?!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I think I'll take the opportunity to upgrade to 2.2.26; I don't waste my time with unproven technology.
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
Yes, what they don't mention is that the XEN "guest support" is in the form of a crowbar.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I RTFA and it didn't mention whether or not it was released under GPL v2 or v3. Does anyone know?
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
So has anyone done any "real" benchmarks yet? Hmm? Hmm? What would the robot do!
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
thinkpad-acpi: enable more hotkeys, add input device support to hotkey subdriver
Woot!
Money is the root of all evil?
Unless Solaris is released under the GPLv3 and Linus sees some stuff he wants.
Really, he said that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
...the extra flavor that makes this release a little bit more headline-worthy than usual is probably the whole controversy involving the Completely Fair Scheduler. Between Con Kolivas leaving kernel development, the Really Fair Scheduler flamewar and almost ten release candidates, the whole 2.6.23 development was some kind of geek soap opera.
You can't just relicense code that was GPL2 only. It would all have to be rewritten, from scratch. Linux will NEVER be GPLv3.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Yes, this is a good thing. However, they seem to have missed some: sockets and pipes. Sockets are not close-on-exec by default, so you may pass a sensitive socket to a child.
Windows NT has the same problem: sockets are inheritable by default until you call SetHandleInformation to disable inheritance. Other handles' inheritability is selected at open/create time.
Luckily, there is a workaround for it, if not pretty: use a reader/writer lock with opening handles as writers and forks as readers.
By the way, the linked changelog on kernelnewbies.org has a bad link for the "recommended LWN article".
For the SELinux thing against null pointer attacks, won't that break DOSemu?
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Hello everybody out there using Linux -
:-)
:-(.
I'm doing a (free) operating system based on GPL3 (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like Linux) for x86. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in Linux, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).
I've currently ported bash(3.2) and gcc(4.2.2), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and
I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them
PS. Yes - it's free of any Linux code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have
No, the problem is finding *all* the copyright holders and getting them to agree to GPLv3.
The copyright holder can license the code however he damn well pleases.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
fallocate() is a new system call which will allow applications to preallocate space to any file(s) in a file system. Applications can get a guarantee of space for particular file(s) - even if later the system becomes full
I was about to go and make fun of Linux for creating a feature that's been around in Windows for quite a while - take your pick of SetFilePointer or sparse files. Yes, yes, I understand that reserving space for a file is not the same as growing it and not using that space. Twas meant to be a troll....But, it turns out that a bit of googling reveals that sparse files under Windows are not all that they are cracked up to be:
http://www.flexhex.com/docs/articles/sparse-files.phtml
This is my sig.
I'll bite.
Your point that usability is important is true. However, your implication that progress in the kernel prevents progress elsewhere is questionable. There are plenty of people working on usability and creating new desktop interfaces. I'd argue that a current installation of Ubuntu, installed on cooperative hardware, is quite easy to use. But there's no need to sacrifice the underlying elegance or power of Linux to get there -- the shell shouldn't be "hard to find", just unnecessary for most people.
To drag out some car analogies: 1. There's no reason the engineers can't still work on the engine while the designers are still working on making the "driver experience" simpler and more comfortable. 2. It's a good idea to reduce the regular maintenance that a driver needs to perform, but there's no need to weld the hood shut or lock it just to prove to yourself that they don't need to fiddle with it.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
What Linus said was "I was impressed in the sense that it was a hell of a lot better than the disaster that were the earlier drafts. I still think GPLv2 is simply the better license."
A couple days later, he expresses more angst with the GPLv3 and the FSF.
The bottom line is I consider dual-licensing unlikely (and technically quite hard), but at least _possible_ in theory. I have yet to see any actual *reasons* for licensing under the GPLv3, though. All I've heard are shrill voices about "tivoization" (which I expressly think is ok) and panicked worries about Novell-MS (which seems way overblown, and quite frankly, the argument seems to not so much be about the Novell deal, as about an excuse to push the GPLv3). So... I'd hardly say, as you did, that he doesn't mind the GPLv3. In fact, the FSF shills really ticked off a lot of kernel devs by trying to berate them into switching to the GPLv3 back in June/July.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
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
Slashdot is a technical community so my comment may not be well received.
No, your comment won't be well received because it has nothing at all to do with the article or the Linux kernel.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Dude, if you actually read the kernel mailing list you would know that Linus has said that he can change the license whenever he wants. All he has to do is post a notice to the list, and add the same notice to the license file specifying a date when the license will switch over. Anyone who doesn't agree will have an opportunity to opt-out, at which point their code will be pulled out and rewritten, or opt-in. The ones that don't do either can be assumed to opt-in until such time as they complain.
This has been done before.. with the syscall interface exception.
Stop repeating myths and do some research.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Lol.. Unless you are using bleeding edge hardware or some obscure specialty piece, or digging into the dirty server areas, you don't need a shell.
Most people use the shell because it is fast and easy. It is as if they finally get it. Those that don't want to use the shell, don't have to. They just won't be able to do everything as easily. But as for being a user, it is quite simple to configure everything from the desktop, do your work from the desktop, and not even see a shell. Mandrake (mandriva) has had this ability for several years now. Ubuntu seems to be on the same track.
I'm guessing that your experience is a little dated or you were attempting to do stuff that normal users wouldn't need to do. Most package managers like those in mandriva or ubuntu will install everything your need from a GUI. The software repositories offer a little more if you hit a shell usually, but you shouldn't need to in order to do most things. And the newer versions of webmin could pretty much replace most of everything you would think you need a shell for. I recently used webmin to partition, format and mount a drive 15 miles away and I pointed and clicked everything but my login and password.
I think what you asked for has already been accomplished at least to a reasonable degree. Try out the new mandriva release and make sure webmin is installed. Outside of it _not_being_windows, it should quite capable. And I underscored not being windows because linux will never be windows. The sooner people realize that, the less disappointed they become.
the linux kernel has nothing to do with "user experience". it interfaces with the hardware... or in this case, the virtual hardware. :)
You forgot the hardcoded support for Swedish keyboard layout, only.
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.
"But graphic UI's are the future of computing and I think it's high time for a distribution to make it HARD to find the shell in an OS."
You can have my shell when you pry it from my cold dead hands - same as my keyboard!
Most distros come with multiple GUIs, and those GUIs are superior to anything Redmond can put out. Add that to the ability to run Windows in a window (where it belongs, if it belongs at all on your box), and mp3 and dvd installers a click away in the newest distros, 21 gigs of software free for the downloading, faster release/bugfix/update cycles ... if you want a GUI, you can have your pick.
But do NOT take away my terminals. There are a lot of things that are quicker to do in a term than with a clicky interface. Have you not heard of "the right tool for the job"?
Just take OpenBSD and re-release it under the GPLv3!
Linux is a kernel. A kernel's definition of usability involves well documented programming API's.
Usability is a problem for the desktop maintainers ( the KDE or GNOME guys ), not the kernel hackers.
Added bonus, the desktop maintainers can be OS agnostic if they like, so the usability gains that linux sees can easily transfer to BSD or OpenSolaris, should they turn out to be better kernels overall
Thunderbird is not dead, and David and Scott are leaving Mozilla, but retaining their roles as module owners of Thunderbird.
http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2007/10/08/thunderbird-in-crisis-no
http://standblog.org/blog/post/2007/10/08/The-future-of-Thunderbird
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
"It takes a specific type of person to get Linux running and to a point where it can be productive even for nontechnical users (which is the majority of users that use computers)"
WTF???
Linux installation for dummies, PHBs and Windows sysadmins (but I repeat myself)
If you can't follow that, print it out and pay some PFY* in grade 9 $20.00 to help you.
(if you don't recognize the reference, you're obviously new here and deserve to be beaten with a clue-by-four, both ways, in the snow, etc...)
and?
are you implying there is something wrong with re-evaluating circumstances and utilizing other OSS?
The biggest mistake one can ever make is attempting to make simple statements permanent regardless of how the environment around it changes.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
"Can" means a lot of things in this context; in that he is able and free to to declare a license change is not in dispute; however the methodology of the "opt-out deadline" is not quite so cut and dry. There absolutely will be a time cost, a financial cost, and a great coding effort if the license is to be changed. Andrew Morton boils it down a lot more objectively in his public statements about the matter: There is simply no current or anticipated business case to justify the license change in the kernel project.
There have been large projects such as Samba and Asterisk that have had the economic incentive to go through the hassle of changing licenses to something more favorable to their intentions, but for the kernel the hassle is going to be so much greater that the incentive will have to be very high. Something like a court (very unlikely) declaring GPLv2 to be unenforceable, for instance, would be the kind of incentive needed to push this change through the kernel.
Using the syscall license thing as an analogy for a GPXv2 to GPLv3 transition is not really fair as the scope of the latter is so much greater. The syscall changes were an attempt to clarify and explicitly restate an interpretation of the existing license, not to change it.
An exploit with feature-complete proof of concept was released for x86_64 linux kernel ia32syscall emulation by cliph at isec in Poland. Exploit code was wildly popular on milw0rm, indicating that this local exploit has lots of potential.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Linus has outlined a number of possibilities, a lot more favorable than you are suggesting, but yes, there is no motivation at the current time to change the license.
But that wasn't the point of my post.. the point of my post was to stop the meme that the license can't be changed. It can. Or, at least, Linus has said it can, and that should be good enough, cause if he thinks it can be changed and there is a reason to change it, then he will, and we'll be having a different discussion.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It's not yet released, but Fedora 8 Test 3 has been running the 2.6.23 kernel code. I suspect that within days (hours?) the RC labels will be pulled from the RPMs.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
the lguest 'Linux-on-Linux' paravirtualization hypervisor
Linux on linux, that's so hot!
Is anyone else noticing the almost exponential rise in the rate at which new features are being added to the kernel? Linux major release anouncements would dwarf similar anouncements by 'competing' operating systems.
I don't think it can be entirely attributed to the linux kernel merely catching-up with other operating systems.
Of course you realize that no project which launches with that kind of announcement could ever expect to succeed.
I mean, really. What are the chances?
Telling readers that links are meant to be clicked is so 1995!
Richard, is that you?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
You are correct - that is a really bad analogy. A lot of people just drop the new kernel into whatever distro they have if their problem bit of hardware has a better driver or there's a speed improvement somewhere. Remember even a 1% speed improvement cuts over an hour off the runtime of a weeklong numerical processing job.
No. Your wrong there sir. Its binary based, however non-repo packages (Arch User Repository) are compiled via build scripts. You can also compile packages from source with pacman (pacman -Sb instead of pacman -S).
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
As with any other tool this means that it has to be somewhere you can get at it(on your desk) and that you need to know how to use it(ask anyone who has never used a hammer before to pound in a nail and see how many times they stuff it up).
Now you might argue that a computer is a lot harder to use than a hammer, but that's mostly because it's metaphorically a bit more like a toolbox. It has tools within it to perform specific tasks as opposed to doing only one task(historically this has had to do with cost, but as we see comodotized hardware prices this may change). When you have a toolbox full of tools, you not only need to know how to use the individual tools, you also need to know how to find them in the toolbox, how to properly and safely remove them from and return them to the toolbox, as well as how to perform any required maintainence to your toolbox.
In the same way in order to use your finance application(the tool), you need to know how to find it and run it as well as how to actually use it. Someone(not necessarily you) also needs to know how to put the tool where you can get it in the first place(install the software), clean the gunk out of the toolbox(maintain the PC) and to transfer all your tools from an old toolbox to a new toolbox when your old one falls apart, or you need one which can hold more tools.
Not to nitpick, but the milw0rm main page says '2007-09-27' beside that exploit. I'd hardly call that today's Linux news.
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...
Yes. You service the computer, so that the computer can service the rest of us. Until such time as a computer is created that requires no maintenance at all, such will be the way of things. Thank you by the way - my job would be harder without people like you doing yours.
Even adding machines needed oiling and parts replacing sometimes.
why does the computer occupy the center of my desk? why isn't it tucked away in the utility closet?
Well I can't speak for you, but personally I'm a programmer. A large part of my job requires me to be sat at a keyboard, writing and modifying code. I guess it doesn't really matter where the PC itself is, as long as I have monitor, keyboard and mouse on my desk; I hardly ever use the CD drive. But I know that wasn't quite what you meant...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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!
Well, that is kind of the point of virtualization, isn't it?
Aahhh... I love the smell of car analogy in the morning.
Meep.
Unless you have any poorly supported hardware, in which case prepare for hours (if not days) of running google searches, reading mailing lists and forums, downloading tarballs, compiling code, and just general fighting before you get everything to work. SOMETIMES (perhaps even frequently) the install goes very smoothly. But when it doesn't the average user is in way over his or her head. Whether you like it or not, linux still has plenty of serious hardware support issues.
That of course doesn't mean the poster you were responding to was right himself, he wasn't, but then neither is the picture of a linux install always being about as hard as putting in a disk and letting it run.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Installing a Linux distro on compatible hardware is fairly easy.
Keeping it running gets interesting.
I am not a Linux guru, but I've been writing how-to articles on Linux for the last 3 years.
I have a fairly standard sort of setup, a Biostar GeForce 6100 AM2 integrated motherboard with Nvidia chipset and Athlon 64x2/4200 and 2G DDR2.
The normal procedure for installing a new nvidia video driver is:
# aptitude remove nvidia
# aptitude install nvidia[version compatible with kernel version]
Easy enough.
I had to do extensive research to find workarounds that would permit me to install the nvidia driver on the last three kernel upgrades
Last time around, I found out that the new kernel upgrade was compiled on a different gcc version than the version of gcc which had been pushed out via automatic update about a month before.
Before that, I found out based on a web search on the error message that the kernel developers decided to make a kernel call relating to paravirtualization unavailable to non-GPL proprietary drivers, some digging found me a patched kernel with the fix.
Would you like to talk a MCSE or your grandmother through what I just described?
I don't take the assertion that "Linux is ready for the masses" seriously yet and neither should anyone else. This delusion is bad for the Linux community as a whole, as it reduces the pressure on developers to fix the remaining problems.
Getting there? Certainly. I'd be far more surprised than not if Linux is to the point where a member of the general public can use it without having a Linux guru available to provide hands-on help by this time next year. But that time is not now. Do you want 20 or 30 million people running into trouble they can't handle, reformatting their boxes for XP, and telling their friends that Linux is shit? I certainly don't.
Tech Public Policy stuff
And I just finished compiling 2.6.22.9 :( Fuck!
Upgrade to 2.6.23 right now? Are you out of your mind? Everyone knows you're supposed to wait for the SP1 release before upgrading to a new operating system!
I can't see the more legally paraniod distros accepting a change in license without the permission of the original authors of the code.
pulling legally dubious licensing crap (e.g. the xfree86 non GPL compatible license which is a problem because nearly every X app links against X libriaries and the shift of large parts of cdrtools to the GPL incompatible CDDL while the rest was still under the GPL) is a damn good way to get your project forked and lose your influence.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
As a non-drinker, that sounds great to me.
You can compile your kernel from source in almost any distro.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The new kernel also includes ALSA support for the Dreamcast sound device (for the first time - an out of mainline OSS driver did/does exist for 2.4).
More dreamcast support is on the way - expect some more stuff in 2.6.24 and 2.6.25 and I (the author of the code) would love to hear from willing testers, etc
If meant that you want a precompiled kernel, you should wait until your distro offers a package.
On the other hand, if you want to try the new kernel now, you have to build it yourself.
Many users complain that the "make-based" compiling is too difficult, hence distros usually offer some kernel building facility. Check your documentation - or google.
Here's how I'm building the new kernel right now on a Debian system: cd
ketchup -r 2.6
make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=`date +%d%m%y` kernel_image
You might not need some of these features, but the programs you like to run might. Thats what a OS does, provide all these things for other programs to access, so you don't have to care. The hardware is getting more complicated too.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
And that is the cool part. dont compile what you dont want.
Try that with windows or OSX. It cant be called bloat until they force it on you.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You do realize that many of the options in the kernel are mutually exclusive? You use the slab or slub allocator...only one of them gets included when the kernel is built.
The CFS scheduler actually *simplifies* the code as compared to the old one, as does the new readahead code.
Sure, the size of the kernel source code is continually increasing, but most of the increase is for hardware drivers. Also, the running binary doesn't increase in size nearly as fast as the source does...and as others have mentioned, you can always turn off the stuff you're not using to shrink it back down.
Unless you have any poorly supported hardware, in which case prepare for hours (if not days) of running google searches, reading mailing lists and forums, downloading tarballs, compiling code, and just general fighting before you get everything to work.
Funny, the same is true of Vista.
Maybe you should be laying blame where it's due: the hardware manufacturers.
I'm not saying "x OS is easy to use". I'm saying there's not such thing as "ease of use". It's not an argument about how easy it is for *me* to use Linux, it's an argument about how easy or hard is to get used to something new, especially if you're a non-techie.
To put an example, my grandfather was used to Windows 3.11. He had AutoCAD for his tailoring business, and it was wonderful. It did everything he needed, and his productivity was excellent. He was used to it. My father came in one day and replaced his old 486 with a new PC and put Windows XP on it. My grandfather went crazy, he didn't understand a thing. He was so used to 3.11 that XP's "user-friendliness" meant nothing to him. It took a couple of months till he could finally get used to XP.
Another example, and a much more radical one: My translation teacher was telling us the other day about the days when she worked with a manual typewriter. She was really good at it. But then there came the PC and the graphical word processors--she also went crazy. She wasn't used to typing straight without manually breaking the lines! This also took a certain amount of learning time.
How many people are there that actually used something other than 9x based Windows OS? I was raised with DOS, my first GUI experience was with the old Mac OS, then I passed through Windows XP and ended up today in Linux. I'm used to figuring how things might work in different systems. Most people aren't. Most people were introduced to computers in the 9x or NT era, and don't know anything else. How can you expect them to find something completely different to what they're used to "easy to use"?
I'm not saying people should move to Linux. I'm just countering the "ease of use" argument. That's it, nothing more, nothing less.
There's no reason you can't have 2 or more compilers on the same machine. I used to have both 2.95 and 3.something_or_other, no problems (I kept 2.95 around for a while because of the bugs in 2.96)