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Linux 2.6.27 Out

diegocgteleline.es writes "Linux 2.6.27 has been released. It adds a new filesystem (UBIFS) for 'pure' flash-based storage, the page-cache is now lockless, much improved Direct I/O scalability and performance, delayed allocation support for ext4, multiqueue networking, data integrity support in the block layer, a function tracer, a mmio tracer, sysprof support, improved webcam support, support for the Intel wifi 5000 series and RTL8187B network cards, a new ath9k driver for the Atheros AR5008 and AR9001 chipsets, more new drivers, and many other improvements and fixes. Full list of changes can be found here."

69 of 452 comments (clear)

  1. Linux 2.6.27 Out by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    Linux 2.6.27 is out, OpenBSD 4.4 is in!

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by AJWM · · Score: 5, Funny

      I've got some, what do you want moderated?

      Oh, wait...

      --
      -- Alastair
    2. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by baeksu · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not to worry, I can help!

      No, wait...crap.

      --
      Gnome: A never ending quest to make unix friendly to people who don't want unix and excruciating for those that do.
    3. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Okay, he can use my mod points because I'm posting AC. Now if only I had a Slashdot account...

    4. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

      One of these days, the admins should give Anonymous Coward some mod points.

      --
      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)
    5. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by fpophoto · · Score: 5, Funny

      One of these days, the admins should give Anonymous Coward some mod points.

      Mod parent up!

      If nothing else, it would just totally blow the AC's mind when he cruised by here. "WTF? Mod points?"

    6. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      One of these days, I'm going to chop you into little pieces.

    7. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by frankm_slashdot · · Score: 5, Interesting

      sad part is i just pre-ordered the openbsd 4.4 cd set... hah. im not sure if i should be proud or ashamed.

      then again, i sometimes think im the last of the right-os-for-the-job heretics... openbsd on my firewall. solaris (with zfs) on my fileserver... mac os x on my main desktop... (i dabble in photoshop and video.. mostly failed fark contests. ha) and windows vista on my macbook pro (along side of os x of course)... because i do a lot of autocad/solidworks stuff on the side. my webserver runs gentoo..

      i guess you could call me a glutton for punishment.

    8. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by RLiegh · · Score: 4, Funny

      One of these days, Coward -POW, right in the kisser!

    9. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by ModernGeek · · Score: 4, Funny

      sad part is i just pre-ordered the openbsd 4.4 cd set... hah. im not sure if i should be proud or ashamed.

      then again, i sometimes think im the last of the right-os-for-the-job heretics... openbsd on my firewall. solaris (with zfs) on my fileserver... mac os x on my main desktop... (i dabble in photoshop and video.. mostly failed fark contests. ha) and windows vista on my macbook pro (along side of os x of course)... because i do a lot of autocad/solidworks stuff on the side. my webserver runs gentoo..

      i guess you could call me a glutton for punishment.

      I am very impressed, your defenses on why you use what you do for your computing needs have foiled my plan to call you a fanboy/newb. It is like you already saw the attacks coming, and preemptively shot them down. You sir, have won three internets.

      --
      Sig: I stole this sig.
    10. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by hdparm · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, that would be Sun Microsystems.

    11. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by adrianwn · · Score: 5, Informative

      For those moderators who didn't get it and modded him Troll: it's the (only) line from the Pink Floyd song "One of these Days".

      By the way, it's "cut", not "chop": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_of_These_Days

    12. Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out by eln · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Masturbating monkey" is what comes to mind.

      Which, coincidentally, is the name of an upcoming Ubuntu release.

  2. Not in upcoming Debian by gringer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's a shame this won't be in the upcoming Lenny release of Debian. The in-kernel support for heaps of webcams via gspca is a very nice user-visible element of this release.

    http://release.debian.org/emails/release-update-200808

    Although, I guess they made the decision for 2.6.26 before they realised that a September release would be an impossible target.

    --
    Ask me about repetitive DNA
    1. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by Kjella · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's a shame this won't be in the upcoming Lenny release of Debian. The in-kernel support for heaps of webcams via gspca is a very nice user-visible element of this release.

      Debian never paid much attention to desktop features, may I suggest Ubuntu 8.10?

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 4, Funny

      may I suggest Ubuntu 8.10?

      You have my permission.

    3. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by martin-boundary · · Score: 4, Funny

      Not so fast. Has he signed form WQ-37 and initialed C12-B first?

    4. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by WK2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Although, I guess they [Debian] made the decision for 2.6.26 before they realised that a September release would be an impossible target.

      Yeah. Nobody could have predicted that a Debian release would be late.

      --
      Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
    5. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by martinw89 · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, he's only filed a TPS report. He also missed that memo we all got.

    6. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by Kjella · · Score: 5, Informative

      I believe you have my stapler?

      No, this one isn't red.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by CrazedWalrus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Right. Because it's impossible to do on Windows and Mac. You need to wait until the next version of the entire operating system comes out, and then pay for that.

      So yes, please switch so you don't even have the option of doing what a Linux user mentions casually in conversation. Less is better, right?

      (WTF?)

    8. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by BlackCreek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So? Download and build your own kernel..

      Or get Windows or Mac and never have to hear that.

      I bet you buy your LEGO preassembled too.

      I bet he bought his TV and refrigerator preassembled too.

      (don't flame me bro, I also use Linux all the time, but you asked for it ;-))

    9. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To be fair, if it was Windows or a Mac, adding support for a webcam would be as easy as installing a binary driver blob. I like Linux, but compiling drivers in to the kernel (and hence needing to compile it yourself, at times) has always been one of it's biggest annoyances.

    10. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by Bent+Mind · · Score: 5, Interesting

      To each their own. However, I always preferred having the driver just be there when I need it. I always found it annoying, under Windows, to have to hunt down drivers. Especially when you have a hundred similar devices that have the same binary driver blob (same chipset) but require a hundred different INF files because every company that assembles a board insists on having a unique driver download. Then you can throw in driver signing that makes life even more difficult.

      Linux drivers are much easier to deal with.

      --
      Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
    11. Re:Not in upcoming Debian by somersault · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's nothing wrong with wanting things to 'work' sometimes. Some people have better things to do in the evening than trying to get working. Especially when they spend their day fixing other people's problems.

      Sometimes it's fun to mess about with stuff like that sure, but sometimes you just want to know that your hardware to work with your OS. That's part of the reason that I use OSX at the moment.

      Linux is a lot better these days than 5 years ago obviously: wireless support, and now improved webcam support. Those were 2 of my major issues last time I tried to move to Linux as my primary OS. I used Skype for videocalling a lot back then. The whole thing is a virtuous cycle - better default support means more users, means more OSS developers, third party application and driver support, and so on.. I'm looking forward to the day I can use Linux to play the latest games or use the latest devices as soon as they are released, rather than having to wait a couple of years for WINE or driver support to catch up enough.

      --
      which is totally what she said
  3. This is a huge amount of work by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In only 3 months, all of this code has been completed and reviewed by multiple developers. This happens *every* three months. The pace at which the Linux kernel is moving and yet still maintaining quality is incredible. It is clearly the case that the Linux kernel has hit a new kind of critical mass and is now a form of software development that has never been seen before. The sheer number of people involved changes what is possible. If you suggested that every single change to the codebase be reviewed by multiple developers in a traditional proprietary software development house you would be, rightly, laughed at. There simply isn't the resources.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:This is a huge amount of work by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, yes and no. The old LK dev model had unstable releases where bugs were expected. Now every release is stable, and bugs are truly anomalies.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    2. Re:This is a huge amount of work by FooAtWFU · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you suggested that every single change to the codebase be reviewed by multiple developers in a traditional proprietary software development house you would be, rightly, laughed at. There simply isn't the resources.

      Where I work, it's called "pair programming".

      (If two programmers is enough to count as "multiple". Also, bug fixes are supposed to get an additional diff check.)

      If you do it right, you not only save time by not-writing bugs you don't have to fix later, but you can also avoid wasting all sorts of time (writing the feature wrong, going down paths that could lead to disaster, or spinning your wheels and banging your head when you can't figure out something stupid like feeding rrdtool deltas when it expects raw counters...), and you can bring new developers up to speed on a code base very very quickly.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    3. Re:This is a huge amount of work by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Now every release is stable, and bugs are truly anomalies.

      Or so the theory goes. Some of the early 2.6 releases were a bit dubious and I had my doubts when they announced there'd no longer be a development kernel but it seems to have settled in nicely now, don't know if it's developers making better code before including it in the kernel, Linus being stricter, closer cooperation wtih distros or more testing feedback but all the later ones have been quite good from what I understand. At any rate, the kernel isn't the most exciting part for me as it seems to have all the parts to run a nice desktop already - it's userspace drivers, X+extensions, Compiz and Gnome/KDE that make up most of my improvement wishlist...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:This is a huge amount of work by cryptoluddite · · Score: 4, Informative

      In only 3 months, all of this code has been completed and reviewed by multiple developers. This happens *every* three months. ... It is clearly the case that the Linux kernel has hit a new kind of critical mass and is now a form of software development that has never been seen before.

      Intel HDA audio still has static noise in the left channel since at least 2.6.20 kernel (probably before). This is a known problem and the solution is 'try random settings of some undocumented (outside the kernel source code) module parameters and hope it maybe works'.

      This is on Dell hardware. model=dell3stack, position_fix=1(?). This hardware works perfectly under Windows, with no tweaking whatsoever. It worked under older linux kernels, which means they probably broke something.

      The linux kernel is good, but just having a bunch of people look at the code means nothing unless they are actually finding and fixing problems people care about.

    5. Re:This is a huge amount of work by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Do you have this hardware? Any chance you could narrow down the versions it works on and the versions it doesn't?

      This is a general problem with kernel development.. if you don't have the hardware, it's a bitch to test. Please do contribute your findings.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    6. Re:This is a huge amount of work by cryptoluddite · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Do you have this hardware? Any chance you could narrow down the versions it works on and the versions it doesn't?

      Same hardware as this guy:
      https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/266927

      System is at work... I would test except there are not any easy options for doing so there. Also, I realize that you can't be expected to fix hardware problems where you don't have the hardware... in fact I've personally seen code fail on one system and run perfectly on the exact same spec hardware sitting right next to it, with exactly the same software (ghosted).

      Mostly I'm just pointing out that there are longstanding problems in linux... the original fanboy post was way over the top.

    7. Re:This is a huge amount of work by RMingin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As far as I see, the real change is that what was the 2.4 and what was the 2.5 trees are now kept very close together. Active work (was 2.5) is done on the XX.YY.ZZ-preNUM kernels, it's all polished/troubleshot/reviewed in the XX.YY.ZZ-rcNUM kernels, and then it gets released. What was once 'stable tree' (2.4) work is now done on the XX.YY.ZZ.1 .2 .3 releases, and the developers move to XX.YY.ZZ+1-preNUM.


      It seems to work quite well, and now you no longer have to meddle with dark arts and unsupported known-broken dev kernels to get recent hardware working. Win win all around IMO.

      No more backporting/sideporting/up/down/leftporting to get current hardware code into current kernels, just all the dev community working on one codebase. Makes progress a lot more straightforward and apparently better/cleaner/less buggy.

      --
      The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
    8. Re:This is a huge amount of work by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 5, Funny

      But you can only waste time on Slashdot if you *both* agree to cover for each other. This is an unacceptable solution.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    9. Re:This is a huge amount of work by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you suggested that every single change to the codebase be reviewed by multiple developers in a traditional proprietary software development house you would be, rightly, laughed at.

      When I was at Microsoft, that's exactly how it worked. All code had to be reviewed and approved by the feature owner and the PM. There was also a team that reviewed any changes to the common libraries, in addition to the PM.

      In addition, to actually get code checked in, it had to pass FxCop (code standards verification tool), not break the build, and not break any of the build verification tests (BVTs).

      Mind you, I worked in the test team. Developers have to go through all of the same steps, and then their code also gets tested by the test team.

    10. Re:This is a huge amount of work by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting

      When I worked at VMware we had to get code reviews for every checkin. Code reviews are literally the only thing that has been shown to consistently improve quality. Of course, it's not just code reviews.. it's also attitude. If you're accepting of stuff being broken because it is "in development" then that's what you'll get. On the other hand, if you have a tight knit small team working on the same stuff then you can get similar quality by just maintaining pace and having lots of communication through the code.. but that doesn't scale.. this does.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    11. Re:This is a huge amount of work by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Did you bother reading the bug report:

      ...it seems linked to the HDA Intel chipset, although I do not have this problem in Fedora or PCLinuxOS."

      Its a ubuntu problem not a kernel problem, i would have guessed it was pulseaudio/alsa problem and not a kernel based problem too.

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    12. Re:This is a huge amount of work by paulbd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are also longstanding issues with Intel HDA hardware ... this supposed "standard" isn't really a standard at all. It has huge amounts of slop for mobo makers to futz around with the pinouts, and indeed, there are at least as many variants on HDA h/w as seen by the kernel as there are major laptop models. The windows drivers work because of collaboration with mobo makers who provide the info about how they specifically wired up the pinouts. The linux ones are a case of trial-and-error. There are thousands (or even millions) of Intel HDA users on linux who do not have your problem, another whole set who do, and and even bigger set who have different problems with this godforsaken "standard" h/w.

  4. AR5008 by log0n · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Excellent! Macbook & Pro users can finally have wifi support.

    1. Re:AR5008 by Ian+Alexander · · Score: 4, Informative

      Some do, some don't. It depends on the revision and particular model you're using. I'm on a Santa Rosa Macbook with Broadcom, but earlier revisions used Atheros.

  5. Change naming scheme by reaktor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    W00t lots of goodies in this one. So... about time to change from the 2.6.infinity_and_beyond scheme to something else. What say you? I think the 2.6.x should have been left behind when the scheduler changed.

    1. Re:Change naming scheme by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, they can't release a 2.7, as SCO has already declared that that's the kernel that has the proprietary code in it. (Y'see, the Master, who cunningly disguised his alien identity by calling himself Darl, made an error in the time calculations and ended up traveling back in time too many years. Now's our chance to really screw up the space/time continuum.)

      --
      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)
  6. 'pure' flash devices by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Before you get all excited about running UBIFS on your USB drive, take note: UBI is not for consumer flash media. These devices already incorporate hardware to hide their flash nature so they look like a plain old block device to your OS. UBI is for pure flash devices that directly expose the quirks and distinct characteristics of the underlying media.

    So what kind of flash hardware is this for? Embedded devices, apparently. But maybe as flash storage becomes more common, more devices will support raw access?

    1. Re:'pure' flash devices by moosesocks · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So what kind of flash hardware is this for? Embedded devices, apparently. But maybe as flash storage becomes more common, more devices will support raw access?

      Olympus' xD card format essentially specifies a direct connection between the NAND flash chips and its external interface.

      It's weird and proprietary, yes. However, it's already being done, and there are arguments to be had for minimizing the amount of circuitry on the memory card itself. Interacting directly with Flash isn't as uncommon as you might think it, and can be of huge benefits for portable/embedded devices that require low power consumption.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    2. Re:'pure' flash devices by schwaang · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It seems quite likely that OLPC will largely replace jffs2 with UBI for the internal nand on the XO. Good news. Maybe this will apply to the Asus eee as and other solid-state drives as well.

    3. Re:'pure' flash devices by 21mhz · · Score: 4, Informative

      Naturally upcoming Maemo (Nokia Internet Tablet) releases will feature ubifs, since much of the work on it has been done by Maemo Software kernel team.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
  7. Re:Barely on v.2.6.27? Sheesh, Windows way past th by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 5, Funny

    what number is Vista?

    666

  8. Embedded devices for sure by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah, embedded devices definitely. It'll be awfully nice to see simple flash chips soldered onto a board rather than someone bolting an SD or compact flash socket onto them just so you can have a boot device.

    Fragile, more expensive, and adds another physical item that can break. And not only that, but you can drop about 20-30 dollars worth of non-essential hardware from your design and still be on target. If you do any embedded work you know how big 20 dollars worth of hardware savings is. This new driver is *huge*.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  9. ACPI by Detritus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Any chance that this will fix some of the ACPI problems with Linux? I recently had a terrible time trying to install Linux on a new Intel motherboard, mostly related to ACPI problems. I'm not blaming any of the Linux developers for this mess. I get the impression that ACPI is a disaster area and even Intel is unable to get it right on their own boards.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    1. Re:ACPI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      > Any chance that this will fix some of the ACPI problems with Linux?

      Just to be clear, ACPI problems are motherboard problems, not Linux problems.

      If the ACPI function of your motherboard is correct and compliant with the ACPI specification, Linux will work just fine.

      Part of the motherboard ACPI problem is that Windows expects, and uses, some functions within ACPI that are not compliant with the ACPI specification ... you know the drill: embrace, extend, obscure, try to screw the opposition ...

      Fortunately with ACPI we have not quite yet got to the "extinguish" phase.

    2. Re:ACPI by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Part of the motherboard ACPI problem is that Windows expects, and uses, some functions within ACPI that are not compliant with the ACPI specification ... you know the drill: embrace, extend, obscure, try to screw the opposition

      Yet Windows works around more 'crap' ACPI implementations than it 'takes advantage of' non-compliant specifications.

      This is really a goofy argument, as there is very little mainboard ACPI implementations that are Windows specific, let alone off spec to be Windows specific.

      Instead you find crap Motherboards that still have exceptions for OS/2 RAM usage, non-Windows features like VGA palette crawling, cobbled Sx states, and horrid USB support for 'legacy' OS methods that Windows hasn't used in 10 years. (Yes we know these are not all ACPI specific)

      I'm sure it is fun to blame windows for ACPI sucking and Linux's support of ACPI sucking.

      The bottom line is, ACPI tends to suck, and Linux doesn't have the development resources to make it work in all circumstances, even though it does a pretty good job. Apple has trouble with their hardware, yet have few model, moved to EFI and still have some of the same inconsistent behavior Linux and Windows users encounter or messed up combinations of hardware.

      As for ACPI, MS tried to push the industry on ACPI and move past it back in the 90s, and it was hobbists that were using non-Windows OSes like Linux that screamed and stopped EFI type suggestions from taking hold. MS shoved for legacy free BIOS concepts, and there is some hardware even out there that used a generic proprietary EFI type of legacy free BIOS system, go look at Toshiba laptops from 2002 that required OS level drivers, as there was no traditional BIOS. They also didn't have legacy ISA or older device support and could boot WindowsXP in less than 10secs on some machines, and return from a full hibernate in under 2 secs because of no BIOS time delay.

      Just to blow your argument to the side, crap like this link would not exist if Windows did have more control over ACPI compliance as you suggest. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/831691

      Specifications and variations in the specification is an area that 'logic' would dictate that the OSS model would be supreme; however, in reality, the complexity and diversity of the implementations favors larger production OSes like Windows where exceptions have to be implemented, and a large vendor like Microsoft can force Motherboard companies to clean up their crappy implementations or work around them, as Windows often does.

      One of the biggest bitches users had with Vista and hibernation and Standby were because of Vista adhereing to the specifications and trying to force vendors to do the same, so that S1,S2,S3 etc were consistent. Instead MS had to write a bunch of 'exception' code for motherboards and even up until SP1 was still adding code to deal with crappy motherboard implementations to get the hibernation and standby back in line so that hybrid sleep could work consistently.

      Microsoft doesn't have control over the hardware markets like people assume they do, and never really have. If they did, they would not have had to resort to proprietary hardware for the XBox 360, as some of the hardware specifications in the console are things MS shoved for in the PC market years before. Just an example would be unified shaders, and this didn't finally get shoved to PC users until Vista's DX10 required them, even though the benefits of a more agnostic GPU shader system was known years and years ago.

  10. Re:Did Bill Gates pay Shuttleworth to create Ubunt by oatworm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If viruses were unique to Windows, we wouldn't have "root"kits. Instead, they'd be "Administrator"kits or perhaps "SYSTEM"kits.

  11. Re:Current Limiting? by jd · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here's a thought. If they're using Gentoo on a 386SX, using the -git kernel tree, and having it auto-rebuild whenever there's a change, they'd never actually get far enough in recompiling to ever be able to boot up a new kernel.

    --
    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)
  12. Re:Did Bill Gates pay Shuttleworth to create Ubunt by fpophoto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You are clearly one of those arrogant assholes since you think there is such a thing as a pecking order in cyberspace.

    As an arrogant asshole, you need to know you are one of the core reasons why Linux is only slowly gaining acceptance by the masses because you're too good to stoop to a "newbie's" level.

    That being said...nah, you're still an arrogant asshole.

  13. Re:Huh??? by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 4, Funny

    We already have 9.0 here in the office.

    That's pretty old now, and was crappy at the time. You really should look at upgrading to OSX. The discussion at hand is about Linux kernels though.

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
  14. Re:Huh??? by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wasn't that destroyed in the Time War?

    That is will been destroyed in the time war. So nothing is stopped him from about to post that.

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
  15. Re:Did Bill Gates pay Shuttleworth to create Ubunt by oatworm · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know this is going to get modded as "off topic", but let's cover this...

    SYSTEM and Local System are basically one and the same, and are almost perfectly synonymous with root. Network Service would be the equivalent of the "nobody" user - i.e. an account that you can use to run low-privilege services. Administrator would be the same as a user with administrative privileges in Linux (perhaps someone in the sudoers list). The trouble, of course, was that, until Vista/2008 came along, it was trivially easy for an Administrator to escalate to SYSTEM - you just had to run a scheduled job in interactive mode (think of a cron job with no password required) and you'd not only have root access, you'd also have access to the current user's console. For an administrator, this came in handy - of course, what was handy and convenient for an administrator was just as handy and convenient for someone else.

  16. Re:Did Bill Gates pay Shuttleworth to create Ubunt by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You should probably learn the difference between a root kit and a virus before you post to Slashdot in the future.
     
    A fair number of people here actually have a clue, and thus do know the difference.
     
    Might I recommend digg so that - in context - you sound like you have a clue?

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  17. Oh yeah. by Almahtar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It'd be the best April Fools day ever.

    1. Re:Oh yeah. by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Meh, why not? It's not like slashdot could get any less useful on April Fools anyway, where other sites run one story slashdot is all wacky all day long.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  18. Re:Thank you Linus. by __aardcx5948 · · Score: 5, Funny

    How much of the code is from Linus himself nowadays? I thought he mostly reviewed/rejected patches, and occasionally, once every to or so years, accepted a patch or two. ;-)

  19. Building your own kernel these days ain't easy by Viol8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Last time I looked about 9 months ago there were well over 3000 build options for the 2.6 kernel. Thats probably gone up a lot. I used to build my own kernels , anything up to 2.4 was do-able. But 2.6 is so complex with so many options which frankly mean nothing to me , that you would end up with a right dogs dinner thats far worse than anything the distributions could produce and you'll probably find you missed out some important functionality and/or dependency for something to work correctly and have to start again.

    1. Re:Building your own kernel these days ain't easy by Godji · · Score: 5, Informative

      I see your point, but consider the fact that every option (if you use "make menuconfig" at least) has a context-based help message. For the most part, they are actually very useful. Just go through all the options and think whether you need something or not. If you're not sure, there's a recommended safe default right at the end of the help message.

      And you really need to do this once. After that for each new version, you just do "make oldconfig" against the old .config file (the one that stored your choices) and that's typically 10-20 options tops for new major versions.

      Changed hardware? New PC? Just reconfigure the "Drivers" section in a few minutes and you're golden. That's assuming of course you stripped down everything you don't need - if you left it in, you don't evenhave to do as much, it will just work.

      BTW, if you're into tinkering, go all the way and try Gentoo. That project is alive and kicking, regardless of what the media have been saying recently.

    2. Re:Building your own kernel these days ain't easy by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The whole point of builing your own is to get a lean efficient kernel, not one that has everything including the sink bundled in plus hundreds of modules to build after.

      You know, I spent most of a decade building "lean efficient kernels" a ruthlessly stripping them down to their minimal components.

      Then I started benchmarking the results.

      Now I just run with whatever Ubuntu ships with, knowing that it's 99% as "lean and efficient" as my best efforts and I automatically get new versions without screwing around with "make oldconfig".

      If you want to build your own kernel for the sake of building your own kernel, great! It's fun and instructional. Just don't delude yourself into thinking it makes a measurable difference outside some very specific cases (like targeting an embedded system).

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    3. Re:Building your own kernel these days ain't easy by Godji · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're looking for an attractive single woman that is also an OpenBSD core developer and would be willing to mate with a Gentoo core developer. And you're looking for her on Slashdot.

      Good luck with that. :)

  20. I out source by Freaky+Spook · · Score: 4, Funny

    I bet you buy your LEGO preassembled too.

    I actually pay a LCSE(Lego Certified Systems Engineer) $150 per hour to assemble mine for me, its the only way to be sure.

  21. Re:Thanks for the hard work....but...my wifi.... by Ash-Fox · · Score: 4, Informative

    My wifi hardware is based on the rt2500 chipset series and is quite common on most laptops and until recently were reliable. As far as I remember the drivers were being rewritten for the kernel - which is fine but if it breaks hardware (which until that time had been reliable)
    then people should have been made aware of this or even work with the distos for a interm fix.

    Try out one of the wireless driver packages from http://linuxwireless.org/ (for hardy http://wireless.kernel.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-old.tar.bz2 ).

    You will need to install your kernel source headers and the build environment

    sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential build-common

    Then it's simply,

    tar jxvf compat-wireless-old.tar.bz2
    cd compat-wireless-old
    make
    sudo make install
    sudo make unload
    sudo make load

    This will install the latest wireless drivers for your system and will not conflict with your distribution's package manager, should you want to remove the install and restore your previous drivers:

    Make sure you are in the directory where the wireless driver installer is.

    sudo make unload
    sudo make uninstall
    sudo make load

    (It would probably be a good idea to reboot after that).

    Normally I would never, ever recommend people compile stuff on Linux, however, in your case, it seems this would be the only way to get good support and this is really a last resort (a resort that you couldn't do under Windows if you ran into this problem).

    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  22. Re:Re-buying peripherals by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Informative

    To pick a random example from my collection of incompatible hardware, Microtek isn't helping the SANE project make drivers for its ScanMaker 4850 flatbed scanner.

    That's OK. It looks like they're doing you a favor. If it makes you feel any better, they don't support Vista either.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  23. Re:Did Bill Gates pay Shuttleworth to create Ubunt by jabithew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because you did it in a bad way. Let's see how to explain this...

    Every Linux user was a Linux newbie once. Being new to Linux does not make someone a bad person, nor does being confused by piles of jargon or the 20 different version numbers you have to face to understand the OS.

    What you're doing is like going into a preschool and yelling, "Call that writing? You're such a n00b!" and then slapping the kids. It's not pleasant, necessary or acceptable, not even on the internet.

    Besides, I'm not even sure the poster was even wrong, he may have just been using a weird terminology (Ubuntu 2.6.27 for the version of Ubuntu to use the 2.6.27 kernel).

    In essence, you've not broken taboo, you've just been arrogant and uncivil. I suggest you break both habits forthwith.

    --
    All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.