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Linux 3.0 Will Be Faster Than 2.6.39

sfcrazy writes "While we were thinking that the announcement of 3.x branch was nothing more than Linus' mood swing, it seems there is more to it. Linus wrote on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, '3.0 will still be noticeably faster than 2.6.39 due to the other changes made (ie the read-ahead), so yes, the regression itself is fixed.'"

179 comments

  1. Marketing by BradleyUffner · · Score: 1

    "Linus earlier said that there is no major change in this release."

    //Sigh//

    1. Re:Marketing by 3vi1 · · Score: 2

      Not marketing. They very well could have been saying "2.6.40" will run faster.

      I love Linux, but the post 2.6.38 kernels have developed in a way as to be completely random as to whether or not they will successfully boot on my x58/i980x motherboard/CPU. All kinds of breakage and improvements hit in the 2.6.39-40 cycle that are going to take a while to even out. So, don't expect the exact same experience as with the 2.6.38 kernel.

    2. Re:Marketing by hairyfeet · · Score: 0

      Obligatory XKCD which I've found in my own exp with Linux to be sadly all too true.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    3. Re:Marketing by Drinking+Bleach · · Score: 1

      Except all of the following are true now: 1. Flash is natively x86 64-bit 2. Flash is accelerated, smooth fullscreen on Intel GPUs. 2. Flash is accelerated, smooth fullscreen on NVIDIA GPUs. 2. Flash is accelerated, smooth fullscreen on AMD GPUs.

    4. Re:Marketing by Drinking+Bleach · · Score: 1

      OK That's what I get for posting soon after I wake up :P

    5. Re:Marketing by 3vi1 · · Score: 1

      When was your experience? I haven't had Flash problems in Linux for about 3 years. Maybe it's my hardware... but you shouldn't expect Flash to run smoothly on your hardware if it wouldn't run Windows but at a snails pace.

    6. Re:Marketing by bonch · · Score: 1

      Flash playback is still pretty choppy on Linux.

    7. Re:Marketing by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      I dunno, man. There's clearly been some improvements lately. A netbook (N270, GMA950) can now play full-screen 480p YouTube quite smoothly. You can see though that it is barely coping, and there might be a slowdown every now and then if the system is occupied with other tasks. But frankly, it's pretty good.

    8. Re:Marketing by bemymonkey · · Score: 1

      Playing back 480p video taking up ALL the system resources on a machine that was probably sold within the last two years is, "Pretty good"?!?!

    9. Re:Marketing by DrXym · · Score: 2

      Most of the problems Flash has had with non Windows platforms are inherent to the platform. e.g. Flash wants to decode video in hardware, convert to RGB, compose with other RGB elements, and present this preferably in a widget / window running inside a 3rd party app. If the OS / browser impedes any of this Flash will fallback on slower methods and performance takes a dump.

    10. Re:Marketing by hairyfeet · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The problem I have is NOT flash, which as you said works pretty good, it is that you can't update Linux because the drivers WILL shit themselves and die!

      Want proof? proof that nobody here can deny? here you go...why does Dell, one of the largest OEMs on the planet, have to disable the repos on every. single. Ubuntu machine they sell and deal with the hassle and expense of running their own repo, even for a small subset of the hardware they sell? Why because if they don't Linux breaks drivers oh fun oh joy!

      It is THIS that I am talking about how mainstream is ignored by the geek brigade. linux is built BY geeks and FOR geeks and as geeks they think because THEY know how to recompile drivers, how to do forum hunts with a list of what make/model/rev of hardware they have, find a fix, and then "tweak" said fix because it was written for hardware B rev f and they have hardware D rev j that anyone can do it, and that is about as far from the truth as from here to Jupiter.

      This is why small retailers like me won't carry your product even though it would save us a fortune it license fees, it is why Walmart and every other B&M that has tried offering your product has dropped it, why a 10 year old Windows beat the latest Linux on netbooks and why early adopters like ASUS has all but abandoned your product.

      When your product is free, yet all these companies, from little ones like mine to fortune 500 giants, would rather pay money than use your product? That should tell you that you have a problem. Nobody cares if you have the coolest most secure low resource OS on the planet if in 6 months when the updates roll out the box shits itself and dies. The average user isn't gonna jump through flaming hoops just to be "free as in freedom!" and I can't afford to give away lifetime support.

      Oh and PLEASE don't say LTS, as long as Linux software is tied to the kernel you might as well call that an out of date unpatched OS, because that is what it is. Oh and please don't say "Use Distro X" where X equals any distro other than the half a dozen I've already tried, since we all know that they are all based on a few "mother sauces" and so far I've tried Ubuntu, mint, PCLinuxOS, and Mepis, oh and Mandriva, and ALL had the same result. Updates roll out/ something breaks. With Windows they get on average a decade of security patches with NO driver issues. I have yet to even update a single machine twice, that equals roughly 18 months of support depending on the distro, without something breaking. Gentlemen that is simply unacceptable.

      Now feel free to call me nasty names and mode me down, as I've noticed that anyone that says anything other than "gee isn't Linux perfect? Why it sure is Biff, and RMS's farts smell like roses!" gets modded to hell and called the Linux equivalent of faggot and nigger, that is shill and astroturfer.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    11. Re:Marketing by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      To be fair, this is mainly the problem of nvidia and ati/amd not doing a proper job with linux drivers, rather then linux.

      Then again, that doesn't really matter for end-user. He's the one that SOL.

    12. Re:Marketing by Kjella · · Score: 2

      Want proof? proof that nobody here can deny? here you go...why does Dell, one of the largest OEMs on the planet, have to disable the repos on every. single. Ubuntu machine they sell and deal with the hassle and expense of running their own repo, even for a small subset of the hardware they sell? Why because if they don't Linux breaks drivers oh fun oh joy!

      First of all, if you go to any OEMs website you will see that they usually offer plenty driver downloads, they're not leaving it all to Microsoft. So what you're complaining about is exactly the same practice they have on Windows. Secondly, Microsoft offers their prerelease patches and service packs to OEMs for compatibility testing before they arrive on Windows update, which Linux doesn't. So if Dell was to provide the same level of compatibility testing as they do on Windows, they have to redirect it to their own repos.

      Sadly most the stuff that breaks is not in kernel space - Linus runs a pretty tight ship with very low tolerance for regressions. To take the whole PulseAudio mess for example, where is it? Userspace. If you have a problem with any USB-connected device, it's userspace as all basic USB I/O works fine - the rest is in userspace. The bluetooth daemon is mostly userspace. Wireless may be kernel space, but just as often the userspace init scripts and tools are fucked. Not saying the problem isn't real, but that it is mostly a problem with the distribution. That also means the choice of distribution will greatly influence your experience.

      Oh and PLEASE don't say LTS, as long as Linux software is tied to the kernel you might as well call that an out of date unpatched OS, because that is what it is.

      No, it's an out of date patched OS, so your customers don't get rooted. Enable the backports repo and a lot of the core software will get updated too, rather conservatively of course. Tell me, does the Windows PCs you sell update themselves from Vista to Win7 or Office 2007 to Office 2010 when it's out? Or does it for the most part just provide security patches, like an LTS release? Speaking of which, Office comes with a new version every 2-3 years. Does it then kill you to ship a 1-2 year old version of OpenOffice? Because even an LTS release upgrades every 2 years.

      I can think of pretty many other arguments for why Linux isn't taking off, but I don't think yours were all that compelling. Like you say, Dell has a pretty good system for this and if that's all it would take the YotLD would have come and gone long ago. It doesn't have the entertainment apps (games, bluray playback, many streaming solution depends on Windows & DRM) for the home user nor Outlook/Office for the business user. And every app is different from what you know.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    13. Re:Marketing by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Because in less than a year a new version of whatever distro i put on will come out and they WILL shit themselves and die if they are updated.

      You keep insisting that you must be on the bleeding edge without the bleeding. If you're selling something to a regular not-so-savvy customer IT SHOULD NOT BE UPDATING EVERY SIX MONTHS. Until you get that through your thick skull and pick a sensible distro for your use, you're going to have problems and they're due to the person in your mirror. This is starting to sound like the joke with the patient that comes into the doctor's office saying "It hurts when I poke my eye" and the doctor says "Well, stop poking it then".

      Is there a simple "update drivers" button?

      Yes, same as all the other updates. Of course, unless they fix your problem it won't help.

      A simple and easy way that ANYONE, no matter their level of experience, can get the drivers working?

      No, because they don't intentionally break. There's no magic button they can push that'll fix everything, if there was I'd put any unsupported hardware in my Linux box and push it, then the drivers would write themselves. The only thing that'd work is testing, testing and more testing. By who? Well probably the people who have that exact hardware. That's what all the vendors and OEMs do for Windows, which is why they don't break. They tell Microsoft that hey, this patch breaks a line of computers we shipped in 2007. And until you or someone else starts telling the Linux developers the same thing, well there will be breakage. It only looks like fire and forget to you because the OEMs cover 99% of the problems you would have had otherwise.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    14. Re:Marketing by Wyvern2005 · · Score: 1

      Funny, I've had some 9.4 and 10.4 boxes for quite a while now...and they all run fine. A few have upgraded and I think the worst I've had to fix was a compiz bug.
        I only set them up with the official ubuntu repos though, didn't enable backports and impressed upon them that Update Manager is a good thing.
            I think you're just trolling 'cause you don't check the forums or don't/can't learn command line..
            Free as in freedom also means free as in free to sweat it out for yourself. If you can't or won't, go whine somewhere else.

      --
      Oops..was I supposed to push that button?
    15. Re:Marketing by hairyfeet · · Score: 0

      See? If you dare to point out a SERIOUS problem all you get is called the Linux equivalent of nigger and faggot, aka troll and shill, and get told "You should tell your customers to learn our way, it is leet!" except its not, its a big giant shit sandwich that nobody has the balls to admit.

      And your answer is a perfect example of what I was talking about, because if you had read my first post of this thread you would have seen very plainly I said you can't update Linux because it shits itself and here you are sir admitting you are running a badly out of date distro. Tell me, how much of the software on those machines is out of date? Which kernel do they run? How many of these vulnerabilitiesare your machines susceptible to?

      I just want the community to either put up or shut up. You say that Linux is ready for the desktop? That it can replace Windows in peoples homes? Then prove it. Show me a SINGLE distro I can install TODAY that is guaranteed a minimum of 6 years of security updates without the upgrade death march, just one. No CLI horseshit (Proptip: Home users will not touch your precious CLI, they see it for what it is, a throwback to the 70s which is frankly stupid in the modern era. If you want to write a script for speed fine, but one should never HAVE TO use CLI to fix a problem on a modern OS) and no forum hunts, just an OS I can give to customers that won't be out of date and vulnerable by this time next year without jumping on the upgrade treadmill.

      But the simple fact is you can't do it, because Linux geeks look at the CLI like it gives them mystical gonad powers and they think "its free so you should just upgrade" while ignoring the fact it is ONLY free if your time is worthless. my time on the other hand is a minimum of $35 an hour, so it takes less than 3 hours of forum hunts because Ubuntu Hairy Honky shits its network driver before you have cost me more than a Windows Home license.

      And if it were simply one person trolling then please explain that long list of OEMs that have abandoned you? Please explain why NO retailer in the USA will touch your product? Why every. single. one. that has attempted to sell your product, from little shops like mine, to big fortune 500 companies like Walmart, have run away from your product like the clap after attempting to sell it?

      I'll tell you why, because if you actually stand beside your product, if you actually offer even the teeny tint bit of support after the sale, you find out quickly the Linux driver model is shit. I can post link after link, showing you 10s of 1000s of posts of "update foo broke my driver!" where the ONLY "help" the user is given is a CLI voodoo dance which often needs to be "tweaked" because it was designed for hardware b rev g and they have hardware d rev k. This sir is simply unacceptable for a retail product.

      Fix this and watch the world suddenly bloom with Linux choices. Watch as suddenly all those places that wouldn't give you the time of day suddenly have Linux boxes right beside the Windows ones. Watch as all the B&Ms from little places like mine to the big boys like Walmart carry your product. That is what the community wants right? A year of the Linux desktop. Then make it happen, put up or shut up. Because as it is Linux is a shiny covering over a shit sandwich. Once you get your initial install working it is pretty and all, but quickly the death march and the constant forum hunts will simply make it not worth the effort. And you want what will happen if you tell home users they have to deal with your precious leet CLI? They say "How much for Windows Home again?" and frankly who can blame them. It is 2011, not 1971. Get your shit together and join the rest of us in the 21st century. it is nice here!

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. irc.anonops.li by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    #ANTISEC

  3. Well of course! Just like Firefox by thomasdz · · Score: 0

    Linux 3 will be much faster than Linux 2. Firefox 5 will be much much MUCH faster than Firefox 4. Windows 7 will be much much faster than... uh... oh... nevermind.

    --
    Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
  4. good riddance regression by Tolar · · Score: 1

    good thing the regression is sorted. hope my USB 3.0 works better too ..

    --
    Linux is like a Wigwam. No Windows no Gates but Apache inside
    1. Re:good riddance regression by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      good thing the regression is sorted

      Even the regressions are much faster in 3.0!

  5. What, no major changes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    shit sounds primtime to me! Let's all upgrade then!!!

  6. Faster? by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What does faster mean? What will be faster? Are they talking huge Linux servers or Linux Desktops? Latency? User Interface?

    1. Re:Faster? by petteyg359 · · Score: 0

      What are you smoking? Linux is a kernel, and kernels don't have a "User Interface"...

    2. Re:Faster? by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 2

      Kernel optimizations could result in User Interface improvements. Or it could help batch jobs at the expense of the User Interface.

    3. Re:Faster? by Cwix · · Score: 0

      Whats your point?

      Seriously though, the entire OS is known as "Linux" not just the kernel. Is it correct to refer to the entire os as Linux? Maybe not. It happens though, and you just made yourself out to be a pedantic troll.

      --
      You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
    4. Re:Faster? by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 0

      Basically what benchmarks are the looking at when they say faster? Serving HTML? Boot time? Responsiveness in Quake? Processing reports in a Cron job? What machines are considering will be using this kernel when they ran their tests? Supercomputers? Desktops? Cellphones? Embedded Systems?

      Faster if pretty vague

    5. Re:Faster? by TarMil · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the subject of the news is the kernel, not the rest of the OS.

    6. Re:Faster? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Pay attention to context. This article is about the kernel. You made a mistake, and it doesn't make them a pedantic troll to point out that you got the context wrong.

    7. Re:Faster? by blair1q · · Score: 1

      Sure they do. See /usr/man/man2 ... or wherever your distro has moved the freaking man pages to, because this RH5 I'm on hid the fucking things in /usr/share/man/en...

    8. Re:Faster? by garyebickford · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Strictly speaking, Linux is the kernel - the 'entire OS' is properly GNU/Linux. Most of the core applications and libraries are from GNU. Ask Richard Stallman, he'll provide a couple of hours of instruction this topic, I'm sure.

      --
      It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
    9. Re:Faster? by Cwix · · Score: 0

      Lol I didn't make the original comment.

      Pay attention.

      Good advice, follow it.

      --
      You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
    10. Re:Faster? by DirePickle · · Score: 2

      Obviously it means that Javascript will execute faster! Javascript is the alpha and the omega!

    11. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 2

      Actually the entire OS is the kernel. It's windows and macites who push to redefine the OS as being the entire distribution.

    12. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Actually in the case of a Macro kernel, the entire OS is the kernel and it is properly referred to as Linux. GNU makes some libs and userspace apps that you can run on the Linux OS though and many distributions package them together... those are properly referred to by the name of the distribution, which may or may not include the word Linux and may or may not include GNU. None of which is at the discretion of Stallman.

    13. Re:Faster? by petteyg359 · · Score: 1

      Not a single thing you just listed is a kernel operation. This thread has been infested by successful zombies (they have eaten your brain).

    14. Re:Faster? by garyebickford · · Score: 2

      Whoof, we're going to get into the semantics of what an OS is here! My reference to RMS was not so much about discretion, but by his reputation for enthusiasm for discussing the topic. :)

      However I will refer to this quote, from Wikipedia to justify my stance that the kernel is not the OS, but a part of the OS. I will add that I've used many operating systems over the years, and the 'OS' has always referred to the complete package - kernel, core libraries, userland applications, IO and other hardware drivers, etc.

      GNU/Linux is a term promoted by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), its founder Richard Stallman, and its supporters, for operating systems that include GNU software and the Linux kernel.[1] The FSF argues for the term GNU/Linux because GNU was a longstanding project to develop a free operating system, of which they say the kernel was the last missing piece.[1] ...
      Torvalds wrote, "Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere [...] Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software."[20] Torvalds also wrote during the 1992 Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate that, "As has been noted (not only by me), the linux kernel is a miniscule part of a complete system".[21]

      --
      It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
    15. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "I will add that I've used many operating systems over the years, and the 'OS' has always referred to the complete package"

      I wouldn't dare to suggest that computer science and not user perception is the best place to define an operating system.

      Feel free to peruse this gem http://www.amazon.com/Operating-Systems-Design-Implementation-Second/dp/0136386776 . It is computer science coursework that explains how to write an operating system... err kernel as you say.

      As it happens, the MINIX operating system... err kernel, was used as the basis for the book. Once upon a time, Linus Torvalds set out to write an operating system and used this material as reference.

      The same author wrote another book, "A History of Operating Systems". You need the history to understand. In the early days all computer operators were programmers and the operating system provided an abstraction between manually controlling the individual hardware components with directly input binary. The drivers, boot system, and memory management were clearly part of that abstraction but since programs weren't even stored but were input one off there was no such thing as a userland program being part of the operating system!

      Later storage became more common and some operating systems included some additional helpful applications to make writing your programs easier and later yet pre-written programs began to spread. In some cases like the later dos and apple systems the operating system wasn't even available separately so it became common to refer to the entire operating system distribution as an operating system for short. Many less informed (which ultimately was most) users didn't even realize it was a shortened term.

    16. Re:Faster? by Cwix · · Score: 1

      My point is that it doesn't really matter in the long run.

      People will call it what they will. Yelling at them that they are calling it the wrong thing will only make you look like an anti-social geek. Its like the people who refer to their tower as the cpu, or the ones who refer to the hard drive as memory. You can correct them all day long, it doesnt matter though. If there are enough people then eventually the term gets redefined. Language evolves, not much a few people can do about it.

      --
      You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
    17. Re:Faster? by garyebickford · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yep, I was there (almost) - some of my first programs were written in IBM 1130 Assembler. :) The machine had 16Kx16bit core, a 1 MB single-platter disk with a one second mean access time. I managed to thrash the poor beast once by nesting too many macros. The key fact is that the control program (pretty close to what we now call a kernel) was on the outside of the disk, the macro-assembler was in the middle, and the user programs were on the inside (or vice versa - I don't recall now). With only 16K of memory, everything the machine did had to be overlaid - except for about 200 bytes or so (I don't recall the number) of code that stayed resident during a job, that basically just knew how to get the next piece off the disk. That could now be called a very primitive kernel.

      I suppose this could be considered equivalent in some ways to a bootstrap loader except it continued bootstrapping the various pieces in throughout the process of running a job. Every piece of code had to be loaded over the previous piece in order to run, and each time what we would now call the machine state had to be written to disk. So for each macro call, the machine had to swap bits of kernel, assembler and user code in and out, moving from the inside, to the outside, to the middle, to the outside, to the inside, etc., rinse & repeat. With a one-second access time the 15 minute maximum run time was exceeded before the assembler even finished assembling my 10 or 15 punched cards into machine code. It was a very compact program, but I never did get to run it in its full macro-bedecked glory. I had to turn the program into 100 or so cards of non-macrofied assembler.

      I also (much later) had the fun of entering entire programs into an early microcomputer by flipping front panel switches, pushing the 'step' button, flipping panel switches, etc. - make one mistake, push 'reset' and start over. Seymour Cray, when he was still at Control Data Corporation (CDC) was famous for being able to enter the entire 6000 word control program into the early CDC machines from memory using the front panel switches.

      So I would say that until we started getting into time-sharing and such complexities, the idea of a kernel wasn't really relevant - there was little or nothing resident in the computer's memory. I think I could safely say that is primarily what a kernel does in a modern multitasking system - provides the environment by which tasks can move safely and efficiently through the system. And the operating system includes all those non-kernel tasks, such as accounting, access control, logging, the many utilities required to provide everything from I/O to temperature control.

      Just to put a stamp on this, Wikipedia on Kernels:

      In computing, the kernel is the central component of most computer operating systems; it is a bridge between applications and the actual data processing done at the hardware level. The kernel's responsibilities include managing the system's resources (the communication between hardware and software components).[1] Usually as a basic component of an operating system, a kernel can provide the lowest-level abstraction layer for the resources (especially processors and I/O devices) that application software must control to perform its function. It typically makes these facilities available to application processes through inter-process communication mechanisms and system calls.

      Operating system tasks are done differently by different kernels, depending on their design and implementation. While monolithic kernels execute all the operating system code in the same address space to increase the performance of the system, microkernels run most of the operating system services in user space as servers, aiming to improve maintainability and modularity of the operating system.[2] A range of possibilities exists between these two extremes.

      --
      It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
    18. Re:Faster? by toadlife · · Score: 2

      Good luck operating your system with just the kernel.

      --
      I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
    19. Re:Faster? by pjbgravely · · Score: 1

      I think you are correct.

      From now on I will use (Hacker, cracker, script-kiddie), (virus, worm, trojan), (kernel, OS, windows) all interchangeably. I even think I am going to believe in a year zero too.

      No really, I give up.

      --
      Star Trek, there maybe hope.
    20. Re:Faster? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2

      You don't browse the web with sysctl?

    21. Re:Faster? by Cwix · · Score: 1

      You don't spit into the wind. Why not its pointless.

      I get your sarcasm, all I'm saying is that people can get mad all they want, its just not going to make much of a difference. Feel free to continue to correct people if you wish. Good luck.

      --
      You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
    22. Re:Faster? by pjbgravely · · Score: 1

      LOL no I actually will try to give up. Even scientists now in reports start decades like there is a year zero. I couldn't care less about the masses, and their modems, I just play along. What I will try to give up on is professionals having any grasp of proper terms.

      --
      Star Trek, there maybe hope.
    23. Re:Faster? by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      It's GPL. That means that as long as I make the source code available when I release it, it is properly called anything I want it to be called.

    24. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Clearly we are going to have to agree to disagree on this point. But really, you need to stop pointing at Wikipedia like its a reference.

      A Wikipedia quote doesn't put a stamp on anything, it isn't any better than a random Slashdot post. In fact, I could edit a Wikipedia article and post it right now as a counter-point.

    25. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure that's what I said?

    26. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Lets give it a true stamp:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_operating_systems

      "Operating systems (OSes) provide a set of functions needed and used by most application programs on a computer, and the linkages needed to control and synchronize computer hardware. On the first computers, with no operating system, every program needed the full hardware specification to run correctly and perform standard tasks, and its own drivers for peripheral devices like printers and punched paper card readers. The growing complexity of hardware and application programs eventually made operating systems a necessity."

      Yes, the control program you referred to, what might also be called an operating program or kernel, was indeed the operating system.

      "So I would say that until we started getting into time-sharing and such complexities, the idea of a kernel wasn't really relevant - there was little or nothing resident in the computer's memory. I think I could safely say that is primarily what a kernel does in a modern multitasking system - provides the environment by which tasks can move safely and efficiently through the system"

      Actually I think you quoted a better description in there.

      "The kernel's responsibilities include managing the system's resources (the communication between hardware and software components).[SIC][1] Usually as a basic component of an operating system, a kernel can provide the lowest-level abstraction layer for the resources (especially processors and I/O devices) that application software must control to perform its function."

      The operating system aka kernel is the piece of operating software that provides an abstraction layer over the hardware (you know, the system) in order to allow applications to focus more on logic and less on controlling hardware.

      "And the operating system includes all those non-kernel tasks, such as accounting, access control, logging, the many utilities required to provide everything from I/O to temperature control."

      All of which are useful things and will be included in an operating system distribution but none of them are required for the system to operate and therefore are not part of the operating system. It is perfectly plausible to write an application that rides atop the linux operating system and includes none of those things.

    27. Re:Faster? by drb226 · · Score: 1
    28. Re:Faster? by pandrijeczko · · Score: 1

      I will add that I've used many operating systems over the years, and the 'OS' has always referred to the complete package - kernel, core libraries, userland applications, IO and other hardware drivers, etc.

      In which case, please explain at what point the kernel, as you add tools and applications on top of it, becomes an Operating System?

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    29. Re:Faster? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no, but those things depend on kernel operations..

    30. Re:Faster? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It means it will be hacked faster by LulzSec... ;-)

    31. Re:Faster? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't you draw a distinction between self-hosted and externally-hosted operating systems? To me the whole distribution is the OS, or at least the parts that you need to rebuild the distribution, specifically because it is possible of doing this.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    32. Re:Faster? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Article says 0.5% faster when traversing any linked list that uses the kernel builtin macros.

    33. Re:Faster? by iiiears · · Score: 1

      Linux grammar Nazis hijack Slahdot thread film at 11:00...

      Next up: Consumer choice Xbox or PS3? -- Is 4chan the same as anonymous?

      --
      15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
    34. Re:Faster? by naasking · · Score: 1

      He's right, a kernel is not an operating system. For instance, consider the Unix OS. There is no "Unix" kernel, there are only compatible implementations of the Unix operating system interface, which is defined entirely at user-level. Some of the Unix interface may be provided in the kernel, like Linux, Solaris, AIX, and some implementations are purely in userland, like Unix binary compatibility layers for microkernel operating systems like KeyKOS, L4, and Minix.

      The kernel merely forms the core part of an operating system, which includes the drivers (which may or may not ship as part of the kernel), and the userland for operating system services. Minix drivers are entirely outside the kernel for instance, so if the Minix kernel itself were a complete operating system, all you could do was boot to a blank screen. No console, no disk, no networking. Not much of an operating system.

      Finally, we wouldn't invent separate terms in computing for "kernel" and "operating system" if they were synonyms. The kernel is exactly that, the "kernel/core" part of an operating system, but not synonymous with it.

    35. Re:Faster? by naasking · · Score: 1

      Actually in the case of a Macro kernel, the entire OS is the kernel and it is properly referred to as Linux.

      This is not correct. The Linux kernel defines hardware abstractions, and you have to invoke its services using system calls by placing certain values in hardware registers, and certain values on the stack, and executing an assembly instruction to transfer control to the kernel. But apps never actually do this, they instead call the kernel services via a C library which does this for them. The Linux operating system is the Linux kernel + the userland C library. The kernel itself is never standalone, and always comes with a userland library to interface with it, and when that library is glibc, and particularly when the other userland tools are the GNU tools, Stallman is adamant in calling it GNU/Linux. He's not technically wrong either.

    36. Re:Faster? by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      Actually in the case of a Macro kernel, the entire OS is the kernel and it is properly referred to as Linux.

      I'm pretty sure it isn't.

    37. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "or at least the parts that you need to rebuild the distribution"

      The "system" would be the hardware platform. The kernel operates the hardware platform and therefore the system. Everything else operates via the kernel, even the low level libraries if they operate the hardware it is only as the kernel has exposed said hardware.

      "Wouldn't you draw a distinction between self-hosted and externally-hosted operating systems?"

      What difference does it make if the OS is loaded off a disk via a short path of copper or storage connected via a network link? Unless you mean browser based OS which really isn't an OS at all, it is an alternate gui being loaded on the same OS.

    38. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "Finally, we wouldn't invent separate terms in computing for "kernel" and "operating system" if they were synonyms."

      Your post can pretty much be summarized as "your wrong and he's right, because I the great authority says so." However, to address this point, we have separate terms for kernel and operating system because a kernel is not ALWAYS a complete operating system. We were discussing a macro-kernel, and specifically discussing the Linux kernel. Unix is not an operating system, Unix is a trademark first and second a set of specifications used by similar yet distinct operating system distributions.

      "Minix drivers are entirely outside the kernel for instance, so if the Minix kernel itself were a complete operating system, all you could do was boot to a blank screen. No console, no disk, no networking. Not much of an operating system."

      On the contrary, it provides the facilities needed to load a console, disk, networking, and many other goodies. Everything you need to build a feature rich operating system distribution.

    39. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "The Linux kernel defines hardware abstractions, and you have to invoke its services using system calls by placing certain values in hardware registers, and certain values on the stack, and executing an assembly instruction to transfer control to the kernel."

      There is nothing preventing apps from doing this. The library is part of the userland application, along with every other library used by said app.

      "The kernel itself is never standalone, and always comes with a userland library to interface with it"

      What someone chooses to ship with the operating system is irrelevant and beside the point. Once you combine the OS with something else, like a library it becomes a distribution built on the Linux operating system and what that distribution is called you have to take up with those packaging and distributing it.

    40. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Did you have some content to add to the discussion?

    41. Re:Faster? by naasking · · Score: 1

      There is nothing preventing apps from doing this.

      I already acknowledged this in my post. If you ship an alternate C library with Linux instead of glibc, it's no longer GNU/Linux, it's BusyBox/Linux, or what have you.

      The library is part of the userland application, along with every other library used by said app.

      Except it's not. The standard C library is part of the operating system used to interface with the kernel. Just because it's linked into the same address space does not mean it's somehow part of the application.

    42. Re:Faster? by naasking · · Score: 1

      Unix is not an operating system, Unix is a trademark first and second a set of specifications used by similar yet distinct operating system distributions.

      Unix was an operating system first released in 1969.

      On the contrary, it provides the facilities needed to load a console, disk, networking, and many other goodies. Everything you need to build a feature rich operating system distribution.

      This is basic logic. If you take X and add Y to make Z, that does not mean X is Z. The kernel is defined by what executes in privileged mode, and an operating system is defined by the kernel AND whatever executes in user space.

      That Minix defines the interfaces needed to build and run consoles, disks and networking makes it a kernel. When combined with actual services that provide disks, networking and consoles, then it is an operating system.

      In the case of monolithic kernels like Linux, the same argument applies to its drivers. Without drivers, Linux is not an operating system. Further, a userland must almost always be present to accomplish anything useful and thus qualify as an operating system. You can certainly run everything in kernel mode, even applications, and then the kernel happens to be the operating system, but this is almost never the case, and certainly isn't the default.

      We have standard terminology to make meaningful distinctions and if you're not willing to make distinctions, terminology is meaningless. These are standard terms.

    43. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "Except it's not. The standard C library is part of the operating system"

      Lets assume for a moment that you are not some special and magical higher power whose word we take for this. What is the basis for your claim?

      In addition to clear, direct, consistent, and self supporting logic I've provided references to solid third party computer science experts with particular specialty in operating system design and theory. Do you have anything new to add other than "nu uh?"

      "Just because it's linked into the same address space does not mean it's somehow part of the application."

      Solid argument. I mean why wouldn't my code become a magical and distinct construct immediately upon being put in a separate file. I mean sure, the application can't function without that code and that code would function in the same way if placed in the same source file as the rest of the application but... But wasn't it GNU who claimed that linked libraries ARE part of the application and therefore derivatives subject to the GPL?

      "If you ship an alternate C library with Linux instead of glibc, it's no longer GNU/Linux, it's BusyBox/Linux"

      I'd go with Bob Linux, or Linux + glib, etc but that should be up to the 'you' doing the shipping. In call cases it remains the Linux operating system plus some other stuff.

    44. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "We have standard terminology to make meaningful distinctions and if you're not willing to make distinctions, terminology is meaningless. These are standard terms."

      Terms which you are using incorrectly.

    45. Re:Faster? by naasking · · Score: 1

      For which we have only your word, despite every internet indexed source agreeing with my use. I think you're the one with the credibility issues frankly.

    46. Re:Faster? by naasking · · Score: 1

      Lets assume for a moment that you are not some special and magical higher power whose word we take for this. What is the basis for your claim?

      Because the C library is part of the definition of the Unix operating system, and POSIX-compatible systems. It's further part of every Linux system currently deployed.

      In addition to clear, direct, consistent, and self supporting logic I've provided references to solid third party computer science experts with particular specialty in operating system design and theory. Do you have anything new to add other than "nu uh?"

      Excuse me, but you've provided no such thing. You've linked to Tanenbaum's textbook and claimed that it supported your definitions, but you didn't cite any of the content to support your claim. Are we supposed to just take your word that these experts agree with you? Because frankly, I've been active in the microkernel community for over 10 years (search the EROS lists and you'll find me), so I'll take my direct reading of the research literature and direct interaction with these researchers as stronger evidence than your unsupported claims.

      I mean sure, the application can't function without that code

      Except it can by linking in a different but compatible library.

      But wasn't it GNU who claimed that linked libraries ARE part of the application and therefore derivatives subject to the GPL?

      Legal and technical definitions are completely distinct. Sometimes they overlap, and sometimes they don't. What constitutes derivative works according to copyright is an argument that is completely separate from a technical argument about modularity.

      and that code would function in the same way if placed in the same source file as the rest of the application

      Except it's not linked directly with your code, or even exclusively with your code, it's dynamically linked with every other program in a running system, and is a necessary component for any fully portable application that can run on any platform the OS can run on. The only platform-specific code are in the kernel and in the supporting OS userland library, which is why they collectively form the OS.

    47. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      In other words, no, unlike myself who has provided external references, you have none.

      In fact, you prove yourself false by claiming EVERY internet indexed source supports you, since I have already provided sources supporting the contrary your claim is literally impossible.

    48. Re:Faster? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      "You've linked to Tanenbaum's textbook and claimed that it supported your definitions, but you didn't cite any of the content to support your claim."

      I'm sorry but you might have to read said text, or at least the summary. The textbook outlines the design and implementation of the minix kernel and while minix includes other bits such as a cli the text clearly states they are included for no other reason than to provide a workable system, not because they are part of an operating system. As any programmer can tell you, the entire text (operating systems design and implementation) regards the design and implementation of a KERNEL. There is no need to reference specific lines, the entire work is by definition a reference that by its very existence supports my argument and as an added bonus is the basis for the design of a linux kernel/operating system. If you didn't know that Linus was inspired by this book to design his operating system, and that he did so, basing his work upon this reference. Perhaps you should leave this discussion to those who understood the reference.

      "Except it can by linking in a different but compatible library."

      Of course I could bottle up the entire api into function calls and call them all from the main loop, and then, according to you, my application is the main loop (which does nothing but call deps) but according to you, the deps are part of the OS and my main loop is the app despite containing no content. No programmer would be foolish enough to claim this point (i'd hope). Are you sure you want to?

      "Legal and technical definitions are completely distinct."

      Except that legally, GNU claims that technically, there is no distinction.

      "Except it's not linked directly with your code, or even exclusively with your code, it's dynamically linked with every other program in a running system"

      Maybe it is, maybe its not. Functionally it makes little difference.

      "and is a necessary component for any fully portable application that can run on any platform the OS can run on"

      On the contrary, Glibc offers no additional portability, across hardware platforms, that is not offered over writing your own functions via system calls to the linux kernel. The linux kernel provides an abstraction layer upon which glibc is entirely dependent and anything that targets said layer has the same potential strength as glibc including portability.

      "The only platform-specific code are in the kernel"

      Sure, that is part of what makes it an OS/Linux Kernel. Other apps CAN target the OS rather than the hardware.

      "and in the supporting OS userland library"

      There is nothing about a user land library that requires it target the platform rather than simply targeting the kernel.

  7. Windows 8 by carlosap · · Score: 1

    will be faster than windows 7, and iOS 5 would be faster too.

    1. Re:Windows 8 by Annirak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Windows Vista was slower than Windows XP.

      You win some, you lose some.

    2. Re:Windows 8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      windows 7 was faster than vista due to the catchup in hardware by the time windows 7 came out but also but optimizations made
      windows 8 will "seem" faster than windows 7 but only due to hardware catching up. otherwise little else has changed.

      iOS5 will 'seem' faster due to initially being deployed on new hardware
      (and heavily displayed / marketed / shown running on said hardware)
      like other iOS upgrades, running it on an older iphone/ipad will be slow

      so the only real improver over time was the vista to win7 jump
      where win7 actually resulted in a relaxed hardware requirement

    3. Re:Windows 8 by swalve · · Score: 1

      On shitty hardware, yes. On good hardware, it was just fine. It was a new, upgraded, more bells and whistles thing. Why shouldn't it be slower? You ask something to do more, you expect that it is going to take up more resources. It wasn't perfect, and I didn't like it very much, but saying it was slower than a lower featured, 10 year old operating system with a straight face is kind of ridiculous.

    4. Re:Windows 8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you really want to blow your mind, load Windows 3.1 or Linux 1.x (like an ancient Slackware release) on a modern workstation. Holy. Fucking. Shit. It's fast as hell. Two second boot time, apps open instantaneously, etc.

      Generally speaking every release of Windows, Linux, or OSX is slower than the last (OSX is kind of funky, sometimes they make it faster because OSX is slow as hell in general). Vista was exceptionally bad but just because Windows 7 is faster than Vista doesn't mean it's faster than XP (it's not).

      Bloated slowass software, it's what we have to live with. Modern programmers have no clue what morons they truly are.

    5. Re:Windows 8 by westlake · · Score: 2

      Windows Vista was slower than Windows XP.

      When, where, why, and by how much?

    6. Re:Windows 8 by aeoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On shitty hardware, yes.

      When you compare two versions of the same operating system to determine which version is faster, you always use the exact same hardware configuration for both.

    7. Re:Windows 8 by McNihil · · Score: 1

      You know its bloated when even

      ls -la /usr/bin/vim
      2819728 /usr/bin/vim

      +5MB for the system libs.

      Sure just 0.5MB when it is running...

      I remember like it was yesterday that I complained vehemently that the text editor used up more than 17k.

      "We are all bloated now"

    8. Re:Windows 8 by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Since the vista service pack, windows 7, runs nearly as fast as XP when given enough hardware I guess some of us would have expected at least that level of performance at initial release.

    9. Re:Windows 8 by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Good luck running dos 6.22 (that was the OS, not the 3.1 gui) on a modern workstation.

    10. Re:Windows 8 by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Could be worse, could be emacs.

    11. Re:Windows 8 by luke923 · · Score: 1

      iOS 5 would be faster too.

      I thought Cisco was calling their operating systems NX-OS. Even still, isn't that like a really old release? I remember working on IOS 11 back in the late 90's.

      --
      "Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925
    12. Re:Windows 8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Always, Everywhere. Because Vista was more bloated and buggy (more then XP. yikes).
      'This' much.

      In fairness, XP and Vista both blows. But in different ways.

    13. Re:Windows 8 by habig · · Score: 1

      "eight megs and constantly swapping" used to be what emacs stood for. Imagine how svelte it would be if it were only eight megs today! Typed in a 173 meg firefox process, which is indeed positively svelte compared to the 700+MB it was yesterday - "firefox 4 is better and faster" my butt.

    14. Re:Windows 8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think they're talking about NT 3, but whatevs.

    15. Re:Windows 8 by TheLink · · Score: 1

      Firefox keeps telling me to upgrade to Firefox 4 but are there still memory consumption issues?

      Firefox regularly uses more memory than a whole windows/ubuntu virtual machine :).

      --
    16. Re:Windows 8 by Osgeld · · Score: 2

      problem was good hardware for vista came out 3 years too late

    17. Re:Windows 8 by Per+Wigren · · Score: 1

      On shitty hardware, yes.

      When you compare two versions of the same operating system to determine which version is faster, you always use the exact same hardware configuration for both.

      Yes. With modern hardware, Vista is (usually) faster than XP on the same hardware. Windows 7, more so. On old (or very cheap) hardware, XP is (usually) faster than Vista. Result vary between components and benchmarks though.

      --
      My other account has a 3-digit UID.
    18. Re:Windows 8 by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      And /bin/true is 29kB. :) A program whose only purpose is to return "1". Some binary bloat there...

    19. Re:Windows 8 by syockit · · Score: 1

      It's at least better than 3.6, but the problem is never eliminated.

      --
      Democracy is for the people; you only vote once per season and we'll do the rest of the work for you don't have to.
    20. Re:Windows 8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy reality check batman. DOS 6.22 will run _just_fine_. Windows 3.1 (the thing you think will work flawlessly) won't have any drivers and will, at best, suck ass.

    21. Re:Windows 8 by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Holy reality check batman. I didn't say Win 3.11 would run at all let alone flawlessly. DOS 6.22 will NOT run at all, it won't even boot on anything newer than a P2. Also, the drivers would be for DOS 6.22 not windows 3.11 because windows 3.11 is a GUI not an operating system, it doesn't have drivers!

      For extra fun you can try, and fail, to run Win95 (aka DOS 7) on a new system and crash and burn at the incompatible instruction set!

  8. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by FooBarWidget · · Score: 2

    Your cynical undertone that software only get slower and slower is not true. Firefox 4 *is* faster than Firefox 3. Haven't used Firefox 5 yet. Phusion Passenger 3 is 50% faster than Phusion Passenger 2.

  9. It should have compelling features by BlueCoder · · Score: 0

    A major version should always have compelling features or a shift in model such as drivers.

    1. Re:It should have compelling features by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 2

      A major version should always have compelling features or a shift in model such as drivers.

      The Linux development model no longer makes that a useful way to designate version numbers. Why should we be so dead-set on the tradition of version numbers that we can't even break out of that mold when it's useful to do so?

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    2. Re:It should have compelling features by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      No, it should mean whatever the Linus decides it means. It is his to do with as he likes. If you want you can fork Linux into Bluenix and use your version numbers.

    3. Re:It should have compelling features by badboy_tw2002 · · Score: 2

      Because some people on the autistic spectrum react badly to changes in established patterns. Remember when Rainman didn't get to watch Whopner? Same thing here. It doesn't make a lot of sense to most folks, but it helps to see it from their viewpoint.

    4. Re:It should have compelling features by EyelessFade · · Score: 1

      It may, but since Linux has been time driven rather then feature driven for the last 6 years it shouldn't be so. Also 3.0 marks Linux 20 year Anniversary

    5. Re:It should have compelling features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Wapner.

    6. Re:It should have compelling features by blair1q · · Score: 1

      A major version should show up every six months with whatever we feel like dropping into it at that point.

      Signed,
      Mark Shuttleworth

    7. Re:It should have compelling features by SteveFoerster · · Score: 1

      Wapner. Definitely, definitely Wapner.

      --
      Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
  10. Copypasta by Gothmolly · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Nice way to be a simple news aggregator, Slashdotitors. Is Roland Piquipaille on your staff?

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
    1. Re:Copypasta by blair1q · · Score: 1, Funny

      RSS is a news aggregator. /. is a news aggravator.

    2. Re:Copypasta by Greyfox · · Score: 0
      That guy's still around? I heard a rumor he died of anal warts.

      Horrible way to go. Tsk tsk tsk...

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    3. Re:Copypasta by Briareos · · Score: 0

      Contrary to popular belief Slashdot's editors at least pretend to have a pulse, as opposed to the late Roland...

      --

      "I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole

    4. Re:Copypasta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His wikibituary tells of his frequent contributions to Slashdot:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Piquepaille

      Someone should post as him to scare the living

  11. linux 3.0 by wizardforce · · Score: 1

    Linus earlier said that there is no major change in this release. This version comes with the usual two thirds driver changes, and a lot of random fixes.

    please tell me he isn't thinking about adopting firefox and chrome's release model...
    in all seriousness, it still looks like this is more of a rumor than anything that is going to be done for a while.

    --
    Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    1. Re:linux 3.0 by Kufat · · Score: 3, Informative

      They're currently on 3.0 RC4. So I imagine that what will and won't be in the release has pretty much solidified by this point.

    2. Re:linux 3.0 by billcopc · · Score: 1

      To be fair, they've been introducing some pretty big changes in 2.6.38 and 39, enough that I am reluctant to upgrade from 2.6.36 on any servers because it's just been changing TOO quickly and I'm afraid of new bugs.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    3. Re:linux 3.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, more like Linus decided it was time to finally increment the major version number. It will probably stay at 3.x about as long as it stayed at 2.6.x.

    4. Re:linux 3.0 by blair1q · · Score: 1

      Hell, he coulda gone to 2.7 if he was tired of feeling old.

    5. Re:linux 3.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haven't been able to boot 2.6.39 as someone broke support for my old ATA chipset.

    6. Re:linux 3.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2.7 would be the development branch iirc. Frankly this should have been 2.8.

    7. Re:linux 3.0 by shaitand · · Score: 1

      It marks the 20th anniversary of Linux. It really isn't that hard to understand wanting a major release to mark it.

    8. Re:linux 3.0 by Kjella · · Score: 1

      The kernel has long been on a quarterly release schedule. One month merge window, two months of weekly RCs. If Linus is feeling very generous maybe you can sneak into rc1 or rc2 but don't count on it. So every feature is known roughly two months before release, unless it's backed out because it causes too many regressions. So it's actually Firefox that is changing to releases every 3 months, even though they call them 4, 5, 6, 7 while the kernel will be 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3... just like they've been 2.6.35, 36, 37, 38... The reason they haven't moved to a yy.mm format even though it's time-based not feature-based is because there's stabilization teams adding another layer of releases. If you go to kernel.org you'll see that in addition to 3.0-rc4 the current versions are:'

      2.6.39.2
      2.6.38.8
      2.6.37.6
      2.6.36.4
      2.6.35.13
      2.6.34.9
      2.6.33.15
      2.6.32.42
      2.6.27.59

      Distributions that aren't rolling just skip releases, a six month window means skipping one release and a two year cycle 7 releases, give or take. The difference is that Linux doesn't just drop support, you see every release back to 32 is still supported and even 27 - that's 12 releases or three years ago is still managed by a team. In addition the distros like RHEL will support it even longer for their releases. So the release frequency is the same but the support vastly different.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  12. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by billcopc · · Score: 2

    Well, Windows 7 *is* much faster than Vista.

    Sarcasm fail.

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
  13. prefetch() by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to LWN article about removing prefetch, the linux kernel 3.0.0 will have a bunch of prefetch() calls removed from the kernel.

    Apparently they were supposed to provide hints to the CPU to prefetch the next item in linked lists, but the hardware does a superior job of it without the hints. Especially in the case of the next item being NULL, which was the majority of the cases.

    A very small speedup to be sure, but it's not like there are many low hanging huge wins left.

    1. Re:prefetch() by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 2

      So it should be slightly faster on new chips. Slightly slower on outdated or specialized embedded chips. (No big deal they can use an version or a custom kernel)

    2. Re:prefetch() by Annirak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If this is the case, wouldn't CONFIG_USE_PREFETCH be a better solution?

    3. Re:prefetch() by blair1q · · Score: 2

      It ought to be controlled by a CPU #define, if it makes that much difference.

    4. Re:prefetch() by swillden · · Score: 1

      If this is the case, wouldn't CONFIG_USE_PREFETCH be a better solution?

      It seems likely that any CPU which has the prefetch instruction also does hardware pre-fetching.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    5. Re:prefetch() by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      A very small speedup to be sure, but it's not like there are many low hanging huge wins left. Perhaps then the devs can turn to stuff like not having devices change names when hardware is added, or a filesystem/volume manager that isn't stuck in the late 1980's?

    6. Re:prefetch() by kondor6c · · Score: 0

      It should be up to the user, as modifying the source is much harder than just changing an option in the kernel config.

  14. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course Windows 7 is much much faster than Windows 6, can't you count to 10? jeez

  15. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by obarthelemy · · Score: 1

    there still people who care about speed ? the same ones that care about dick size ?

    Mine are both are "good enough, now go do something interesting with it"

    --
    The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
  16. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Lennie · · Score: 2

    Getting past Vista isn't a big achievement though.

    --
    New things are always on the horizon
  17. Stronger but safer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was wondering if the new kernel was going to be more secure and stable then previous releases. Certain modules crash for now reason on the current release. Anyone know?

  18. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by blair1q · · Score: 2

    The second cake is even more delicious than the first.

  19. Obviously by vga_init · · Score: 3, Funny

    What with the shorter version number, the kernel should now load faster, use less memory, and execute more quickly.

    1. Re:Obviously by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Totally, every single time a system call that returns the version string is run it will load faster, use less memory, and execute more quickly!

    2. Re:Obviously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, like how Vista is shorter than Millenium, and 7 is shorter than XP. . .

    3. Re:Obviously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also think that every single time a system call that returns the version string is run it will load faster, use less memory, and execute more quickly!

  20. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by sortius_nod · · Score: 2

    True, but moving us die hards past XP was a big challenge. I use 7 now on my win box (for gaming).

  21. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The question is:
    Is Firefox 4 faster than Firefox 2? Or Firefox 1.5?

    Or are we just giving 50% discounts after markup of 250%?

  22. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by creat3d · · Score: 1

    Just as there's STILL people out there that care about how big their HDDs are, how fast their GPUs are, etc. I think you just might have a small penis.

    --
    Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
  23. The english language isn't not hard by rush2049 · · Score: 1

    That article has so many spelling mistakes.... relese? What is that?

    1. Re:The english language isn't not hard by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      english is one of the most complicated languages, not by design but by exceptions to the rule

      you can not even go 1 hour in any direction without hearing a totally different dialect

      so keep assuming you know everything about written language there duck butter

    2. Re:The english language isn't not hard by mcswell · · Score: 1

      All natural languages are hard. Perhaps you mean that English spelling is not hard? If you do, I think I'll disagree with you.

      Then again, I noticed your thread's title has a double negative (not to mention failing to capitalize the word "English"). So maybe your posting is a joke, in which case I should laugh with you!

    3. Re:The english language isn't not hard by rush2049 · · Score: 1

      Of course it was a joke. English is very difficult, but still, a spell check would have caught that simple mistake.

  24. Of course! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux 3.0 will be roughly 15% faster than Linux 2.6.

  25. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by shaitand · · Score: 0

    Especially since Windows 7 is just a vista service pack...

  26. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, it depends what speed aspect is tested. FF4 and 5 are more bloated then FF3.6 .
    Most benchmarks on mid-RAM and low-RAM machines favors 3.6.

    (you may now skip any "go out and buy more oh-so cheap RAM" -speech)

  27. "Greener" not faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think the focus should be be on energy efficiency rather brute force speed. Intel and AMD have come to realize this rather late in the game, what with the ARM line of mobile processors now lording it over the x86 line of faster but less energy efficient desktop and laptop CPU's.

    If I understand correctly, Linux has has major regression when it comes to energy use.

    1. Re:"Greener" not faster by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      The problem with ARM, is that many people are locked into closed source applications which have only ever been compiled for x86... ARM is great when you have sourcecode and can compile your applications for it.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  28. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, the machines that ship with Windows 7 are much faster than the ones that shipped with Vista - and even then, only on the low end.

    Having just switched from a 4 year old laptop on Vista to a brand new one on Windows 7, I see no noticeable difference.
    99% of Windows 7's performance improvements over Vista are the Emporer's New Clothes effect.

    The bloggers said it was, so it must be, because you wouldn't want to disagree with _The Bloggers_ now, would you?

  29. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am glad you're happy that RAM requirements are increasing. My computer is just fine and it will never be able to use more than 1 Gigabyte. I have a laptop which will never use more than 100 Megabyte, can't play you-tube, but can play DVD's just fine. There is no reason to require more RAM for the same set of features.

  30. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by rjch · · Score: 1

    Especially since Windows 7 is just a vista service pack...

    Windows 7 is a Vista service pack in the same way that XP was a service pack for 2000 - there were significant visual and under-the-hood changes. The visual changes were more noticible in XP since they introduced themes, but if you turned them off, XP looked about as similar to 2000 as 7 does to Vista.

    In other words, they're more than just a service pack. Granted, not much more, but your statement is an oversimplification. In the case of Windows 7, it made an unusable OS something that didn't make you want to smash your computer into thousands of pieces.

  31. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by GooberToo · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you should learn to read. They has some regressions in performance from a specific kernel version forward. They have a fix for the regression; well, mostly so. Thusly, when the fix is released in the 3.x, Linux version 3.x will be faster than the window of Linux kernel versions in which the regression appeared. Saying Linux 3.x will be faster than 2.x is completely false and even acknowledged in the original Linus comment.

  32. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by johnsnails · · Score: 0

    Biggest load of bull crap ever!!!! Vista was shat and only became usable after SP1. W7 was amazing from the RC.

  33. Really? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    First, at least the Flash I get on Ubuntu with Chrome is 32-bit. There was an x86_64 experiment for awhile, but have they actually kept it up, and is it actually stable? If so, I might install it manually, but I do like how my package manager keeps me up-to-date -- but it does so with 32-bit and nspluginwrapper.

    Second, define "accelerated". It sure as hell isn't accelerated the way it is on Windows. Two major things seem to be lacking: First, my video card can do native H.264 decoding, but Flash doesn't appear to be taking advantage of it. Second, even when it isn't being choppy as hell (480p is fine, 1080p is noticeably slower), it's still using much more CPU -- take the exact same video and play it with mplayer or VLC, and it plays perfectly, smooth as butter with minimal CPU usage.

    It's possible you're right, but if so, this hasn't actually solved the problem, and the problem certainly isn't the Linux kernel or my video drivers, as other video players work just fine, which is why if a video is particularly cool and actually 1080p, I'll find a way to download it and play it natively instead of watching my machine overheat itself to hell with Flash.

    I'm not convinced HTML5 is better right now. It's better in that it has the potential to be better, but Chrome dropped H.264, and in any case, I don't currently have an implementation that has an easy fullscreen button with smooth playback -- though I seem to remember that being the case for Safari (mobile or otherwise).

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    1. Re:Really? by cynyr · · Score: 1

      My video card can do it as well, but Adobe hasn't decided to leverage VDPAU yet, this is not a linux problem. Adobe could also target VA-API, which would allow them to have a large amount of supported systems in one go.

      --
      All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
  34. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    Youtube isn't "the same set of features" as a DVD. Granted, there's no reason it should require as much more than a DVD as it does, but it certainly should require more.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  35. Something interesting... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    Playing videos on my laptop without killing battery life and burning my lap would be interesting. Granted, that's Flash's fault, not the kernel's fault, but still.

    But some examples:

    I just played Angry Birds in Chrome -- I don't have a smartphone. Before JavaScript got fast (thank you, v8!), the choices would've been Flash (which is even slower on Linux than elsewhere, and 32-bit), Silverlight (really only works well on Windows and Mac, other OSes get screwed), or a downloadable binary (more work to port, so who knows if it'd even support the Mac). I also didn't actually have to install anything -- I did install the "Chrome app" anyway, but it worked just fine, much easier than buying an app or downloading an installer.

    And as a game, I don't care if it or any data I've associated with it are up in the air.

    But until Chrome shook things up with V8, this wasn't possible. JavaScript, even with Canvas, was simply too slow for something like this to be practical, which also discouraged people from adding interesting features or developing interesting things for it.

    So it does fit what you described. It's "good enough" -- as far as I know, it didn't require a browser plugin, or Google's "native client", or any hacks like that. JavaScript is good enough now. But it wasn't before, and making it faster only means more options open up.

    That's one example. I'm sure you can think of more. There seems to be this recurring cycle where we think we have enough performance in some area, and that more is just making things faster -- or in the case of games, just giving you a bigger e-dick by having hundreds more frames per second when your monitor can only handle 60 anyway. And then we get just enough that something which wasn't possible before, or which we had to fake or work around before, now becomes a real possibility.

    Take Doom 3, for example. Previous games had mostly static shadows -- Quake 3 had this interesting trick where every fan you saw was synchronized to a spinning shadow texture on the wall behind the fan, all of which was pre-computed so it didn't have to do any sort of shadow stuff in realtime. Doom 3, we finally had enough hardware to give the player a flashlight and let them make their own shadows.

    I could go on, but I think you get the point.

    The same is not true of penises, by the way. There may be an ideal size, and it may be bigger than yours, but there is such a thing as too big.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  36. Yeah, but will it run... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...Windows 8?

  37. Cool by zer01ife · · Score: 1

    That's awesome. He's fixing some bugs and making the kernel execute faster. Brilliant work, Linus Torvalds.

  38. Linux Flash playback is NOT hwaccelerated on Intel by Sits · · Score: 1

    I have the native 64 bit Flash plugin I can tell you that it is not THAT smooth and accelerated on many Intel GPUs. You may wish to qualify your statement with some links (the PenguinSWF blog talks about the issues). On the same machine that struggles with certain Youtube Flash videos on Linux, the performance is fine under Windows. I believe you will need your GPU to have at certain GL features for support for significant Flash acceleration under Linux and if your GL driver returns SGI string it will typically default to not turning acceleration on to avoid problems for those with weak GL implementations.

    This is well known and is not a conspiracy. For a while OSX was in a similar position.

  39. Lack of hard evidence by Sits · · Score: 1

    I'm going to parrot what ds2horner said on LWN - there needs to be evidence that the prefetching is still a benefit to somebody. If not enough people come forward with this then it's a maintenance burden for an uncertain benefit (for what it's worth it is apparently a win to keep PREFETCH on K7s).

  40. LFW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    What about LINUX 3.11 for Workgroups ?

    1. Re:LFW by pandrijeczko · · Score: 1

      I think I just felt a great disturbance in The Force.

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    2. Re:LFW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      :))) That was good.

  41. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

    Firefox 3 is faster than Firefox 2. Firefox 4 is faster than Firefox 3. You do the math. If you don't believe, download Firefox 2 (don't forget to clear Firefox's caches and history) and compare it for yourself.

  42. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

    Where are these "most benchmarks"?

  43. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    problem is what most programmers think is interesting retards the performance of the things I find interesting noticeably.

    the captcha for this is 'bloated.' how fitting

  44. In this thread Linux means the Kernel, period. by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    "Seriously though, the entire OS is known as "Linux" not just the kernel. Is it correct to refer to the entire os as Linux? Maybe not. It happens though, and you just made yourself out to be a pedantic troll."

    ROTLMAO. The title of this article is "Linux 3.0 Will Be Faster Than 2.6.39. This means that in the context of this topic Linux refers to the kernel and only the kernel. Actually understanding the context of a conversation and remaining consistent with it is not pedantic trolling.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  45. it will be faster on Linus' laptop of course by Lazy+Jones · · Score: 1

    ... Linux on servers has been screwed since the terrible ext3 regression around 2.6.25 ... ;-)

    --
    "I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
  46. Woohoo! Speedy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will I finally be able to watch flash? OMG 256 cores!

  47. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by iiiears · · Score: 1

    ^^^^
    Experts predict Multi core desktop SUPER COMPUTERS! will be on your desktop in 2006 12 cores expected in 2010. ...
    Developers disregard user requests in favor of Gigabyte sized operating systems. ...
    User base shuns bloat and adopts boutique operating systems developers perplexed.
    android, tinycore,puppy, OpenWRT, WattOS, Vector, linux.
    ---
    USFF is shunned by all for lack of a clear upgrade path users spend billions on new OEM machines every year.

    --
    15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
  48. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by iiiears · · Score: 1

    Adobe bows to political pressure. users are obligated to encrypt-decrypt-rencrypt-decrypt. Content owners and hardware providers are finally satisfied.

    Analog hole discovered in recent browser Adobe required to close it using adaptive camera monitoring technology.
    MIT researchers hard at work implementing it..

    --
    15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
  49. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, well, um... the size of the dick influences the oscillation speed.

  50. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    How much of this has anything to do with YouTube? I think YT uses the DRM on actual movies, but on individual videos, I can trivially capture the stream -- and often, I can use HTML5 instead.

    Also, how much of this has anything to do with politics? It's my understanding that it has much more to do with the demands of content owners, rather than politicians.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  51. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by pandrijeczko · · Score: 1

    ...and I think you might have a Mac.

    And given the choice, I would still stick with Linux and a small willy.

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  52. Adoption by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 1

    Faster Linux adption, of course! :)

  53. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what is the /proc for capturing files deleted from tmp? ;-)
    shh! they aren't not encrypted - yet - vlc plays videos beautifully on my ancient machine.

  54. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Politics one definition is from the word polis = people It isn't exclusive to elected officials. at least originally. - sry i shouldn't of used that word.
    It's just the initial excitement of learning a little perl script.

  55. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    That works, but the simplest mechanism I've found is just to watch the HTTP traffic. Chrome makes this easy -- open dev tools, refresh the page, watch Flash try to stream that video, copy the URL, and often wget will work. (At which point, I close the Flash player to save bandwidth.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  56. Proactor by selfredemption · · Score: 1

    can the latest version of Linux now fully support the asynchronous I/O represented by some IOCP-like mechanism that the Proactor pattern can be suitable for it?

  57. Re:Well of course! Just like Firefox by creat3d · · Score: 1

    Ha! I never touched a Mac and never will but nice try. My point is that there are very good reasons why one would "care about speed"... I couldn't edit in HD until I got my present RAM and CPU upgrade, others will want more FPS in their games (GPU, CPU), whatever. Enjoy your small willy!

    --
    Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.