Slashdot Mirror
Linux Kernel 2.6.31 Released
diegocgteleline.es writes "The Linux kernel v2.6.31 has been released. Besides the desktop improvements and USB 3.0 support mentioned some days ago, there is an equivalent of FUSE for character devices that can be used for proxying OSS sound through ALSA, new tools for using hardware performance counters, readahead improvements, ATI Radeon KMS, Intel's Wireless Multicomm 3200 support, gcov support, a memory checker and a memory leak detector, a reimplementation of inotify and dnotify on top of a new filesystem notification infrastructure, btrfs improvements, support for IEEE 802.15.4, IPv4 over Firewire, new drivers and small improvements. The full list of changes can be found here."
Enhancements should come as a part of the OS, not the kernel. The main function of a kernel is to get along with all the hardware devices on the system. Drivers should be given a high priority.
Face your daemons!
Keeping binary compatibility limits infrastructure improvements that can be made. You're limited in what you can do to the kernel because of drivers that are sitting out there that expect binary compatibility. If we have drivers that can be loaded with little regard to the kernel version, we get into the quagmire that is Windows, where devices over 7 years old have a low chance of working. My scanner hasn't worked in Windows since XP SP1. It still works perfectly in the brand-spankingest new Linux distros.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.