Linux 3.1 Released With Support for the OpenRISC CPU

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linux 3.1 Released With Support for the OpenRISC CPU

Posted by Unknown on Monday October 24, 2011 @04:50AM from the hardware-wants-to-be-free-too dept.

diegocg writes "Linux 3.1 has been released. The changes include support for the OpenRISC opensource CPU; performance improvements to the writeback throttling; some speedups in the slab allocator; a new iSCSI implementation; support for NFC chips; bad block management in the generic software RAID layer; a new 'cpupowerutils' utility for power management; filesystem barriers enabled by default in Ext3; Wii Controller support; and [the usual] new drivers and many small improvements."

165 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 04:54 · Score: 0

Can opensource projects stop with this utterly terrible use of the major.minor numbering...
1. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by TheSpoom · 2011-10-24 05:04 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Don't feel too bad, from what I remember Linus just randomly decided that a minor number of the 2.6 series was now 3.0 a few months back.
  
  --
  It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
  - E. Debs
2. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Tubal-Cain · 2011-10-24 05:06 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, because it's so much better to spend years adding tons of features but only ever incrementing the bugfix number. Incrementing the minor number every kernel release (approximately every six weeks or so) means we won't hit 4.0 (assuming 3.9 --> 4.0) until sometime near the end of 2012.
3. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Tubal-Cain · 2011-10-24 05:11 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  2.6.39 --> 3.0 instead of 2.6.40
4. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by surgen · 2011-10-24 05:12 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Can opensource projects stop with this utterly terrible use of the major.minor numbering...
  You're right. The sky is in fact falling.
5. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Beelzebud · 2011-10-24 05:18 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If that's your criticism of open source, I'd say things are going fine.
6. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Oswald+McWeany · 2011-10-24 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  My first employer insisted that all software start at version 3.1.
  His theory was that it would be easier to sell software that was version 3.1 or later than starting at version 1.
  Every application we wrote therefore began at Version 3.1 when brand new.
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
7. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  He is probably right.
8. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by aardvarkjoe · 2011-10-24 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  means we won't hit 4.0 (assuming 3.9 --> 4.0) until sometime near the end of 2012.
  That would be a rather silly assumption, since the "." in the version number is not a decimal separator. The version after 3.9 will presumably be 3.10.
  If the 3.x series lasts as long as the 2.6.x series, then 4.0 would happen around 2019. Or if Linus decides to stick with a time-based approach to incrementing the major number, then a sensible schedule might be to incremement the major number every five years. In any case, I would doubt that it would be anywhere near as quick as every 15 months.
  
  --
  
  How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
9. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by willoughby · 2011-10-24 06:14 · Score: 2
  
  He's not the first to think along those lines. One of the most well-known examples is the Kaypro II computer. It was actually their first product but they wanted that magic "II" after the name.
10. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Kjella · 2011-10-24 06:42 · Score: 2
  
  Actually they've been on a steady quarterly release schedule now for years, one month merge window, two months = 8 weeks of release candidates (RC). If they need more or fewer they simply adjust the length of the merge window, that's the period when all new development of the last months is pulled into the main tree. The release candidates are for QA, bug fixing and regression testing, meanwhile new development continues in branches. The merge window and rc1 can be a little hairy, but rc2+ is normally fine, Linus won't allow crap into any release. So 3.9 would be about two years from now but the way versioning works it'll be followed by 3.10 and 3.11 (unless Linus sees a reason for a 4.0, but it won't be related to going past 3.9...)
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
11. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Tubal-Cain · 2011-10-24 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  That would be a rather silly assumption, since the "." in the version number is not a decimal separator. The version after 3.9 will presumably be 3.10.
  If major.minor was going to mean something, sure. As it is, the only reason to go with 3.10 over 4.0 would be for that 3.11 joke.
12. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Arancaytar · 2011-10-24 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  Followed by version 95, 98 and ME?
13. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 08:22 · Score: 1
  
  Or Solaris, which was released by Sun as a successor to SunOS 4.x as "Solaris 2", while retroactively renaming SunOS 4.x as "Solaris 1". Then after Solaris 2.6 Sun called the next version Solaris 7.
  There's other reasons other than marketing saying "higher version numbers are more advanced!", but they're even stupider.
  Windows, for all its BS in numbering, was doing the right thing by naming versions after the release year. But I guess the further they got from the magically futuristic "2000", the more they wanted to to something like Sun did. So now we have Windows 7, even though there was never a Windows 5 or 6 (and 4.x was NT, which had its own version numbers in parallel with non-NT Windows).
  Ubuntu's year.month is good. So of course everyone calls the Ubuntu version by its alliterative animal name, which must be converted into an ordinal number to mean anything. But who's counting?
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
14. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by WorBlux · 2011-10-24 08:59 · Score: 1
  
  The middle number stopped meaning anything a while ago. The only way to get rid of it was to increment the first number up while dropping the middle number.
15. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by bmo · 2011-10-24 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, because Microsoft Windows NT 3.5 had 3 releases behind it, at least, right?
  Oh wait, it didn't? They called the first release 3.5 because it was a larger number than 3.11? Even though it had nothing in common with 3.11 or 95 or anything else but VMS and OS/2?
  Wow, those closed source version numbering methods are so superior.
  Yeah.
  Moron.
  --
  BMO
16. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by notamisfit · 2011-10-24 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  You forgot 3.11.
  
  --
  Jesus is coming -- look busy!
17. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by RCL · 2011-10-24 11:26 · Score: 1
  
  of course everyone calls the Ubuntu version by its alliterative animal name
  I, for one, prefer numbers and often cannot map them to animal names (especially given that names are different for English and localized Ubuntu versions), at least for past releases. Also, I don't remember the last time when someone else around me used animal names in spoken language (well, this can be partially explained by the fact that those names aren't easy to remember for non-English speakers).
  
  --
  Coding etudes
18. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by the+linux+geek · 2011-10-24 11:26 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, the first Windows NT release was Windows NT 3.1.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_3.1
19. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 18:50 · Score: 0
  
  I think Windows 2000 was version 5, which merged the win9x and NT codebases, and XP was version 6, and Vista 6.x. But I prefer Ubuntu's numbering of YY.MM, which cuts out all debate about whether something should be 2.6.40, or 3.0.0 or 2.7.0.
20. Re:3.1! and I'm still stuck on 2.6... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 11:18 · Score: 0
  
  I like minor minor numbering or even a somekind code numbering.
  But why not use date+time as numbering?
  2011102815
  2011102909
  Would we loose something amazing from numbers like Firefox 8.0!!!! or Office 14!!!!
  Really?
  If I remember correctly, version numbering was meant to be _version_ numbering, not _marketing_ numbering.
  That is one reason why I like the Canonical choice to use year.month release numbering instead numbers like Fedora. Too bad that people dont get it that Ubuntu release code names are just that, code names what were never suppose to be used to explain what version people had. Normal people dont care about code names or version numbering. They want their product just to work, update it when update is available and clearly written update list of changes to give reason to update or not.
  Version numbering should be easily found from software so you can compare it to newer/older ones by feature list if wanted. Who would make a diff feature to applications so users could pick a two versions (current and older/newer) and check what have changed and when if wanted?
  Even wikipedia have done it very hard as there ain't just timeline of changes.
3.1 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 04:56 · Score: 0

Let's hope it's better than Windows 3.1 was.
1. Re:3.1 by Tubal-Cain · 2011-10-24 05:12 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Can't wait for Linux 3.11 for Workgroups
2. Re:3.1 by unixisc · 2011-10-24 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  followed by Linux NT, Linux XP, Linux Vista and reverting back to numbers w// Linux 7 & Linux 8
3. Re:3.1 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:36 · Score: 0
  
  I'm holding out for Linux 3.11 For Workgroups
4. Re:3.1 by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2011-10-24 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  Can't wait for Linux 3.11 for Workgroups
  followed by Linux NT, Linux XP, Linux Vista and reverting back to numbers w// Linux 7 & Linux 8
  Slow down there, cowboys! You forgot Linux 95, 98, and 2000.
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
5. Re:3.1 by Frenzied+Apathy · 2011-10-24 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  And the beloved Linux ME!!!!
  
  --
  The cake is a lie.
6. Re:3.1 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:53 · Score: 0
  
  What about the "premium", "professional", "ultimate", "super ultimate", and "super-duper ultimate premium professional" versions?
7. Re:3.1 by ice3 · 2011-10-24 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  And don't forget the "Signed by Linus Torvalds himself" edition
8. Re:3.1 by Anon-Admin · 2011-10-24 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  I am waiting for the LSDN
9. Re:3.1 by Gilmoure · 2011-10-24 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget the home versions with Networking disabled.
  
  --
  I drank what? -- Socrates
10. Re:3.1 by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-10-24 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  The term "Workgroup" was hunted to extinction about 18 months ago by the term "Enterprise Cloud", unfortunately...
11. Re:3.1 by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 08:24 · Score: 1
  
  Word for Linux 3.11 for Workgroups for Pen Computing FTW!
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
12. Re:3.1 by unfunk · 2011-10-24 20:02 · Score: 1
  
  personally, I'm holding out for Linux 95. I reckon that'll be when it really starts gaining traction among the general public.
Linux 3.1 == Windows 3.1 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 04:56 · Score: 0

It will perform about the same.
1. Re:Linux 3.1 == Windows 3.1 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:00 · Score: 0
  
  >It will perform about the same.
  Really? That's pretty fucking awsome! That means linux blows other OSes clean out of the water! To think that it can perform the same as an OS made for hardware 20 years ago. Amazing... No wonder it totally flies on modern hardware.
What about the power regression by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 04:58 · Score: 0

When is that going to be resolved?
1. Re:What about the power regression by peppepz · 2011-10-24 07:19 · Score: 2
  
  Ask your motherboard manufacturer.
2. Re:What about the power regression by DaVince21 · 2011-10-25 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  Hasn't it been resolved for quite a while now? I did read about a few of the major power issues being solved months ago...
  Then again, if there are still power issues, I'm sure cpupowerutils will be here to assist in that whole mess.
  
  --
  I am not devoid of humor.
3 series by jbolden · 2011-10-24 05:01 · Score: 1

There have been so many major improvements during the life of the 2 series. I wonder what finally through them over the line to go into the 3 series.
1. Re:3 series by Tubal-Cain · 2011-10-24 05:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Linus got sick of 2.6.really_big_number
2. Re:3 series by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:19 · Score: 0
  
  Because there have been so many changes made to the 2.6 series since its release that, well, putting a sticker on a laptop which says 2.6 compatible is meaningless. It's almost akin to calling every Windows release in the past 10 years Windows XP.
  Let's just hope Linus doesn't jump the shark like Mozilla did with Firefox.
3. Re:3 series by sakdoctor · 2011-10-24 05:20 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  "So what are the big changes?
  "NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Sure, we have the usual two thirds driver changes, and a lot of random fixes, but the point is that 3.0 is just about renumbering, we are very much not doing a KDE-4 or a Gnome-3 here. No breakage, no special scary new features, nothing at all like that. We've been doing time-based releases for many years now, this is in no way about features. If you want an excuse for the renumbering, you really should look at the time-based one ('20 years') instead.
  tl;dr - Nothing happened.
4. Re:3 series by migla · 2011-10-24 05:20 · Score: 2
  
  The model of incrementing the versions had long been incompatible (as far as getting reasonable numbers) with the changed development model. Since the development was now more like a steady stream of whatever features that happened to be developed instead of the old one where bunches of big features were released at once and less often, the mere silliness of a .39 release (as 2.6 had in practice become the "major" version (as opposed to major being 2 and minor being 6) with the aforementioned shift) and there being no technical route to justify incrementing the major version (whether one considers that being 2 or 2.6) as there was not coming any major features at any point, but steadily, whenever, the reason might as well be said to be "for the hell of it" or "because" or "because I can and wanna".
  
  --
  Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
5. Re:3 series by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:40 · Score: 0
  
  The number scheme just reflects what they actually have been doing.
  2.6.X.Y
  Where X was really the version number and Y was some dev specific patch thing. The 2 and 6 were doing nothing and providing no information. Now those place holders provide information again.
6. Re:3 series by jbolden · 2011-10-24 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  Gotcha. So now the minor is going to go up faster?
7. Re:3 series by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 07:09 · Score: 0
  
  Not nothing.
  They're doing the Firefox: Version number changes just for the sake of number changes, and absolutely nothing else. Which means the version number becomes completely meaningless. Which means that it makes no difference to leaving it away. Which means there is no version number anymore. It's more like the decorative squiggle on the front of the box of some "EA $sport $year" game, or of the splash screen of some big application suite. It gives you nothing in terms of how much changed.
  I, for one, will stay on this proper scheme, no matter how many idiots out there grow pointy hair:
  G.M.m.p_bs, where:
  G = Generation. Like Toy Story and Toy Story 2. They are not different versions of the same thing anymore, but are completely new.
  M = Major version. The interfaces changed. File formats and protocols should be expected to be different. This includes the user interface.
  m = Minor version. Functionality changed. While the interfaces stayed the same, they now offer more/better things.
  p = Patch level. Nothing changed, except for bug fixes and other things where the code did not reflect what it was specified to do.
  bs = Build level. The thing got recompiled. Nothing non-trivial changed. Maybe a typo, a small value change, but mostly just a re-build with a newer version of the tool chain / compiler.
  There is no "alpha", "beta", "rc", "pre", "final" or anything like that, since the code is always expected to succeed in the whole test suite BEFORE being committed and compiled for release. In-other words: We don't ship non-"stable" code. Ever. And if you commit something you can't call stable, you get your ass kicked just like when other projects release their long-awaited 1.0, and then promptly notice a big bug.
8. Re:3 series by Goaway · 2011-10-24 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  Which means the version number becomes completely meaningless.
  Unlike "2.6", which was incredibly meaningful.
  Really, for the last decade, the only part of the version number that has had any meaning was the last number. They got rid of one out of two meaningless numbers. They might as well have gotten rid of the first number too.
9. Re:3 series by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 07:40 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, the minor is going to increase when there is minor changes instead of not at all.
10. Re:3 series by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  The version number is useful as long as it's unique to each version, so you don't want them to drop it.
  It's more useful if it increments with each version, though by how much doesn't matter.
  A really useful version number would be a multipart that tracks independently incrementing versions of each of GUI, APIs, and file formats. That way users (and admins, and developers) could use the number to see whether a version is compatible with their people, SW or data. But nobody ever does that, though it's the only reasonable way to number versions. They go the other way, and number versions for stupidity.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
11. Re:3 series by Thing+1 · 2011-10-24 12:50 · Score: 1
  
  "NOTHING. Absolutely nothing."
  Linux (huh, good god), what is it good for?
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
12. Re:3 series by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 13:39 · Score: 0
  
  The next release is apparently going to be Linux 95. Personally, I'm waiting for Linux ME.
Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

Where can I get an OpenRISC CPU and a motherboard that will support it, and how much do they cost compared to Intel/AMD CPUs of similar performance?
1. Re:Where can I get one? by DarkOx · 2011-10-24 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  how much do they do they cost compared to Intel/AMD CPUs of similar performance?
  
  Depends on where you live and what 10 year old PCs go for at your local garage sales.
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
2. Re:Where can I get one? by Tubal-Cain · 2011-10-24 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  Were ARM motherboards (I assume you don't mean embedded stuff) available when Linux added support for it?
  For that matter, are any available now?
3. Re:Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  You can't get one of similar performance to a modern Intel CPU. Think orders of magnitude slower.
4. Re:Where can I get one? by statusbar · 2011-10-24 05:35 · Score: 2
  Where can I get an OpenRISC CPU and a motherboard that will support it, and how much do they cost compared to Intel/AMD CPUs of similar performance?
  OpenRisc is a soft-cpu, defined in the Verilog language, suitable for implementing in many different types of FPGA's of varying price/performance/power.
  Here is one source for boards of all types:
  
  Xilinx Boards and Kits
  --jeffk++
  --
  ipv6 is my vpn
5. Re:Where can I get one? by Surt · 2011-10-24 05:43 · Score: 1
  
  You can't get one with even 10% of a modern intel/amd's performance, and they cost more.
  
  --
  "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
6. Re:Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 06:11 · Score: 0
  
  The hardware existed then, as it does now. It is mostly embedded fwiw.
7. Re:Where can I get one? by vlm · 2011-10-24 06:13 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Where can I get an OpenRISC CPU and a motherboard that will support it,
  http://opencores.org/or1k/FPGA_Development_Boards
  I have not bothered to research why its listed as supporting the Spartan-3A DSP 1800 and not the spartan3 dev board I have sitting at home, probably needs more gates? Or depends on some part of the DSP1800's innards? Or simply the dude who did it owned a DSP1800 as opposed to the board I have at home?
  
  and how much do they cost compared to Intel/AMD CPUs of similar performance?
  Which vegetable has similar price to an apple or an orange? Perhaps a potatoe?
  The thing with FPGAs is... how much do you wanna spend? I know there are simply gigantic FPGA arrays out there, so on one FPGA chip you could probably put a whole Beowulf cluster of a dozen of these things on one chip complete with the ethernet switch that interconnects them. So its kind of meaningless, like debating the weight of a soul.
  The goal of a FPGA system is not to be a generic processor, but to use the field programability... you use the embedded CPU for generic "who cares how fast" stuff like a user interface, or a TCP network stack, or a DHCP client. You do all the heavy lifting inside FPGA hardware itself. If you used this CPU for a FPGA based mythtv frontend, you would not write a H.264 decoder in the emulated RISC processor assembly language, you'd use a hardware one (or at least hardware accelerated one) inside the FPGA written in verilog or VHDL. If you're running benchmarks on the FPGA processor trying to optimize it, you're probably doing it Very wrong, or trying some insane level of optimization / price cutting.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
8. Re:Where can I get one? by vlm · 2011-10-24 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  For that matter, are any available now?
  http://www.embeddedarm.com/ aka technologic systems
  http://beagleboard.org/
  http://www.friendlyarm.net/
  Look in the embedded market, not the FPS gamer enthusiast market.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
9. Re:Where can I get one? by mmkkbb · 2011-10-24 06:22 · Score: 2
  
  TI's OMAP platform uses ARM cores. You can get eval boards for under $200.
  
  --
  -mkb
10. Re:Where can I get one? by olof_k · 2011-10-24 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  Or simply the dude who did it owned a DSP1800 as opposed to the board I have at home?
  You're actually spot on :)
  I think it was a tight fit though, so I'm not sure it will fit on smaller spartan 3 FPGAs. Disabling caches and hardware mul/div and stuff like that could help. It's a pretty common board, so if anyone is interested in trying, just drop in to #opencores on freenode and chat with us
11. Re:Where can I get one? by muon-catalyzed · 2011-10-24 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  You can easily "burn" your OpenRISC CPU into a blank FPGA chip.
12. Re:Where can I get one? by simula · 2011-10-24 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  They are attempting to have an ASIC printed Q1 2012, but they could really use more donations. Here is a link to details about the system on a chip. It is really quite revolutionary in that it would be the first completely open source SOC (all the way from the instruction set to the hardware layout).
13. Re:Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 08:22 · Score: 0
  
  This is not the news you are looking for, move along.
  OpenRISC is not the CPU core you use in non-critical applications. When you need to get the processing time below 1ms from input signal to output and it has to be jitter-free then you could go and look for OpenRISC as a control CPU for you application but I doubt that you will work in a field where this is necessary in this decade.
14. Re:Where can I get one? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 08:30 · Score: 1
  
  Can I implement it on a Zynq-7000? How many gates does it consume (and so how many left over on the Zynq)?
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
15. Re:Where can I get one? by statusbar · 2011-10-24 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  I haven't tried the OpenRISC cpu but apparently it takes more gates than the MicroBlaze soft-cpu that Xilinx provides. BTW you can already run linux on the Microblaze in many Xilinx devices; see my github repo: https://github.com/jdkoftinoff/mb-linux-msli
  --jeffk++
  
  --
  ipv6 is my vpn
16. Re:Where can I get one? by nurb432 · 2011-10-24 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  I know they are still trying to get funded for the 'open' project, but didn't some 3rd party already do this about a year ago? Or did that end up just being vapor?
  
  --
  ---- Booth was a patriot ----
17. Re:Where can I get one? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 10:58 · Score: 1
  
  Hey, you don't happen to know where I can get a PIC18F core that'll run on a Zynq-7000? I've got an embedded PIC board with code I'd like to try turning "soft", possibly as a peripheral to a soft CPU running Linux, on the Zynq as a "virtual HW" host. Once it's all in gates I want to try porting Linux and PIC code into straight circuits. Possible?
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
18. Re:Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 11:11 · Score: 0
  
  Can I implement it on a Zynq-7000? How many gates does it consume (and so how many left over on the Zynq)?
  Using a Zynq chip to implement OpenRISC makes no sense. Zynq chips are dual-core Cortex-A9 ARM SoCs (*) with a chunk of Xilinx 7-series FPGA fabric on the side. You're intended to use it as a customizable SoC: Xilinx supplies the CPU and a set of common, wide-appeal peripherals as hard logic, and you add any additional peripherals you need using the FPGA fabric. The A9 ARM cores will provide much higher software performance (probably 10x or more) than a soft processor core implemented in the FPGA fabric portion of Zynq can possibly provide.
  If you want to play around with OpenRISC in FPGA, you can probably do so with a Zynq, but a pure FPGA from any vendor should be a better choice. You should be able to find one with more FPGA logic capacity at the same price (or less).
  * - Dualcore Cortex-A9 is the same CPU used in Apple A5 (iPad 2 & iPhone 4S), Tegra2 Android phones and tablets, recent Samsung phone/tablet SoCs, and probably others I'm forgetting. So this isn't a toy CPU.
19. Re:Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 13:18 · Score: 0
  
  They are attempting to have an ASIC printed Q1 2012,
  Really? I've never seen anything like a concrete schedule from them, or even so much as a sane plan. (There's half sane discussion in the forums but they've never gotten around to actually selecting a plan and committing to it so you have some idea what your donation might actually be used for. Currently it sounds like they're giving up hope on immediately making an ASIC and instead are working on a FPGA version of the SoC as a demonstrator, which they should've been doing anyways.)
  
  but they could really use more donations.
  You don't say...
  (they have less than $20K which is a drop in the bucket compared to what you need to actually get an ASIC taped out)
  
  Here is a link to details about the system on a chip. It is really quite revolutionary in that it would be the first completely open source SOC (all the way from the instruction set to the hardware layout).
  The trouble is it's not clear what it would actually revolutionize. It's not going to compete with commercial ASICs on any front (price, features, performance, whatever). About the only thing it might be able to do is serve as a customizable base for commercial projects, but given its extremely low performance targets there's not going to be many takers. The entire thing has always struck me as a bunch of open source idealists thinking "Everything is better OSS! Chips aren't OSS! We must make OSS chips and then the world will be happy!".
20. Re:Where can I get one? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 13:21 · Score: 1
  
  I think it would be interesting to run Linux on one of the Zynq's ARMs, and run Linux on OpenRISC on the FPGA, and port Linux functions from SW into HW while leaving a complete SW Linux on the ARM. The tight integration on the chip of the two Linux instances could make the tools more effective. But really just fun, I think.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
21. Re:Where can I get one? by olof_k · 2011-10-24 18:54 · Score: 1
  
  Some of the OpenRISC founders started Beyond semiconductors. They have made ASICs of designs based on the OpenRISC. As it is closed-source, I don't know how far from the original OpenRISC they have deviated. Flextronics have also made OpenRISC ASICs about ten years ago. There are many more, but most are under NDAs.
22. Re:Where can I get one? by unixisc · 2011-10-24 19:13 · Score: 1
  
  As the jeffk pointed out below, so far OpenRISC is a softCPU, and its selling point at this time would be for semiconductor manufacturers who would be unwilling to license any existing cores from ARM, Intel, MIPS, et al, but instead take a design where they have the freedom to do anything in terms of tweaks, so long as it is transparent. Right now, one can get cheap ARMs for less than $10, so price is not what's driving this project.
  Also, what helps once this project is complete is that any vendor wanting to use this has a time to market theoretically reduced to zero. Practically, adopting such a design to any fab would take considerable tweaks, thereby dampening that advantage somewhat. That is also the primary reason why most CPU manufacturers ain't fabless - they do need a custom fab that can at least demonstrate proof of concept, before they start tweaking the design to the process parameters in the fab
  Of course, there is no point in having any CPU - soft or hard - unless it has an OS that can run on it. Hence Linux and GCC is being ported to it.
23. Re:Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 19:44 · Score: 0
  
  Are there any FPGAs that have on-board flash memory on them? Something from Microsemi (Actel), whose FPGAs were I believe flash based, rather than RAM based? If there is, that would be a good place to store the kernel. I'm not sure that the Linux kernel is small enough to fit in, but another microkernel, like L4, should work. In that case, if such a product is ever commoditized and made into a CPU/ASIC, the microkernel could be a part of the on-chip flash, which needn't even be moved to L1 cache when it needs to be accessed. Since it is local and on chip, its only interface would need to be the register files and CPU internals. If the microkernel ever needs updating, that's the only time one would need to flash such a CPU.
24. Re:Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 20:26 · Score: 0
  
  The trouble is it's not clear what it would actually revolutionize. It's not going to compete with commercial ASICs on any front (price, features, performance, whatever). About the only thing it might be able to do is serve as a customizable base for commercial projects, but given its extremely low performance targets there's not going to be many takers. The entire thing has always struck me as a bunch of open source idealists thinking "Everything is better OSS! Chips aren't OSS! We must make OSS chips and then the world will be happy!".
  What it would achieve - I wouldn't use the word 'revolutionize' - is that it would be something great for any semiconductor manufacturers who need custom CPUs but one that's already largely designed, thereby reducing time to market. (Time to market wouldn't be zero, b'cos if the manufacturer is fabless, chances are that they would need to tweak the design for the fab in question) They may not want to license it from an ARM or MIPS or IBM. However, one thing that you might be right about - there are other open cores already, like LEON, OpenSparc, OpenPOWER, so one does wonder why this project? Is it just the GPL3 license vs whichever the others use? Or is it just that the source codes for the others ain't available, or have NDA restrictions?
  Also, if this is just a free volunteer project, does anything actually need to be taped out? Or could they just do the Verilog models, and leave it at that, until any adopter tries it out in implementation? That would seem like the way to go for people who are not being paid regularly to do this.
25. Re:Where can I get one? by olof_k · 2011-10-24 20:52 · Score: 1
  
  The spartan3an has built-in flash for storing the bitstream, and I think you can put other stuff in there too and access it through SPI. http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug333.pdf might get you started
26. Re:Where can I get one? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 00:31 · Score: 0
  
  Hi, The OpenRISC ASIC plan is still ON :-)
  We are now developing an FPGA-development board that are 100% targeted for an OpenRISC System-on-Chip design, and we will then launch a first release-candidate to the community, so that all can help with verification and to provide feedback on what functions that should be included. This way we also prove to the rest of the world that we are "serious with this project", and then hopefully we will get more people on-board helping out with donations/design/verification etc.
  Marcus Erlandsson, OpenRISC-team
27. Re:Where can I get one? by olof_k · 2011-10-25 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  License is a big thing. In most cases you want to put your own IPs in the same ASIC, and many companies are afraid of putting GPL code together with their own stuff. The leon and opensparc are available as GPL and as a commercial license that cost quite a bit, while the OpenRISC is LGPL only, which makes it more suitable for commercial interests in this case.
Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by steevven1 · 2011-10-24 05:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

Now they just need to fix support for Intel Sandy Bridge processors...
1. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:09 · Score: 0
  
  Who needs that!
  http://xkcd.com/619/
2. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:25 · Score: 0
  
  ?? It's been working fine on my wife's Sandy Bridge i3 since 3.0 (including the onboard graphics). Actually the stock 2.6.39 released with Natty ran okay on it; I built a 3.0 kernel and ran that which worked better, particularly in conjunction with a recent Mesa and libva. I've since dist-upgraded her to Oneiric and everything still runs fine (still on 3.0, and I gather there are some further improvements planned for 3.1) - but I wouldn't exactly say it was broken before.
3. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by Knuckles · 2011-10-24 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  ?? It's been working fine on my wife's Sandy Bridge i3 since 3.0 (including the onboard graphics). Actually the stock 2.6.39 released with Natty ran okay on it; I built a 3.0 kernel and ran that which worked better, particularly in conjunction with a recent Mesa and libva. I've since dist-upgraded her to Oneiric and everything still runs fine (still on 3.0, and I gather there are some further improvements planned for 3.1) - but I wouldn't exactly say it was broken before.
  There are serious power usage regressions, making many laptop users suffer. Compare, e.g., https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/834037
  
  --
  "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
4. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by goldspider · 2011-10-24 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  I'm guessing that GP was referring to support for QuickSync, which is only available in the i5 and i7.
  
  --
  "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
5. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by Andy+Dodd · 2011-10-24 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  Y U NO FIX? requests are pretty useless without knowing what's broken.
  Even older versions of Linux (such as the kernels included with Ubuntu 11.04) work just fine on Sandy Bridge - I just upgraded and it's great.
  So whatever's broken for you is obviously some specific corner case which you haven't bothered to specify.
  
  --
  retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
6. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 07:34 · Score: 0
  
  Stop whining and fix it yourself.
7. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 10:08 · Score: 0
  
  I don't know about the OP but with 3.0.7 I still experience the same bug as here.
  Properly reported but hard to fix...
8. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 11:13 · Score: 0
  
  What bugs? I've been running Sandy Bridge since launch on Gentoo just fine.
9. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by steevven1 · 2011-10-24 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, I filed a bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/834037 (and another directly with the Linux kernel devs) and started an ubuntuforums thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1822629 . I did as much as I was able to with my skill set to gather information about the bug, and it looks like MANY others are experiencing the same problem. I would guess that you are also experiencing it, but just have not noticed (do an experiment and find out, and please report back on the bug). Thanks for the comment though -_-
10. Re:Cool, Now Fix Sandy Bridge by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 13:29 · Score: 0
  
  Thank you! I didn't know about that site (although I've admittedly never really searched for it before). This looks very promising...
Marketing by Colin+Smith · 2011-10-24 05:03 · Score: 1

Basically, it's the beginning of the end.

--
Deleted
1. Re:Marketing by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:14 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  In January 2012 they will release Linux 3.11
  In March they will release Linux 95
  In May they will release Linux 98
  In July they will release Linux Me
  In September they will release Linux XP
  In November they will release Linux Vista
  In January 2013 they will release Linux 7....
  and then it will be the year of Linux on the Desktop!
2. Re:Marketing by jamiesan · 2011-10-24 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  I think it will go faster than that. Linux 13 will be out in December of 2012, and it will bring about the destruction of the planet.
3. Re:Marketing by wintercolby · 2011-10-24 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  The year of the Linux Desktop will have to officially begin on December 21, 2012. It comes immediately following the removal of the "Start Menu" from in Windows 9 and the ubiquity of Bluetooth monitors, TVs, keyboards and mice that transform our phones into full size computers.
  
  --
  Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
4. Re:Marketing by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 10:28 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, Microsoft looks quite weak with its inability to implement search bar in mmc.exe for nearly 20 years...
How well do openrisc cpus compare? by the_humeister · 2011-10-24 05:05 · Score: 2

Against other open cores such as the SPARC cores?
1. Re:How well do openrisc cpus compare? by olof_k · 2011-10-24 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  The OpenRISC is a lot smaller and simpler than the OpenSPARC and probably a bit slower, as it is a single issue CPU. Haven't seen any benchmarks comparing them though. The advantage is that you can buy a $50 FPGA dev board and start hacking on the OpenRISC. The hardware required for an OpenSPARC dev board is significantly more expensive
2. Re:How well do openrisc cpus compare? by gr8_phk · 2011-10-24 09:26 · Score: 1
  
  I think a better question is how well it compares to ARM.
3. Re:How well do openrisc cpus compare? by the+linux+geek · 2011-10-24 11:29 · Score: 1
  
  SPARC T1/T2 is also single-issue.
3.11 by leromarinvit · 2011-10-24 05:06 · Score: 5, Funny

I for one am holding out for 3.11. I heard it will be for Workgroups!

--
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
1. Re:3.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:18 · Score: 0
  
  I for one am holding out for 3.11. I heard it will be for Workgroups!
  It also has wonderful improvements to video compression, I hear.
2. Re:3.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  Alas, Linux 3.11 on the desktop will have us pining for our old Windows 3.11 80486 box. 2012 will not be the year of Linux on the desktop. Not that much of this is the kernel's fault.
3. Re:3.11 by Archangel+Michael · 2011-10-24 05:36 · Score: 2
  
  LUSER ... I'm holding out for 3.14159265...
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
4. Re:3.11 by plankrwf · 2011-10-24 06:55 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, comparing Linux to Windows is more funny then comparing Linux to TeX. Or at least, I think so ;-0
  Kind regards,
  Roel
5. Re:3.11 by saint0192 · 2011-10-24 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  Will Mosaic work on that? If it doesn't I might have to hold out for Linux 95... Rumor is it will be 32-bit...
6. Re:3.11 by fran6gagne · 2011-10-24 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  Did you saw this? http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTg5Nw
7. Re:3.11 by martin-boundary · 2011-10-24 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  I hear Don Knuth's LiNuX is nearly there already...
8. Re:3.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 22:58 · Score: 0
  
  This will be followed by Linux 64s, for better 64 bit support, and Linux G, so you can finally run games better on Linux than Windows!
  However, full 64 bit support will be reserved to Linux NT...
  And then they will bring out Linux 95, which will be a huge success with consumers despite its crappiness and bloat. But no fear, as Service Packs will solve all those problems and create new ones just for fun. In a decade Linux XP will be released, followed by Linux 7, while old-timers will reminiscence about how great Linux 98SE was, and Mac users will point out how they had all those cool features toted as "new" in Linux 7 two decades earlier.
  Meanwhile, Microsoft will have brought out Windows 10, claiming that it is the PC experience 2.0!
9. Re:3.11 by unixisc · 2011-10-24 23:09 · Score: 1
  
  A few days ago, there was the news on this site about some Japanese student computing pi to a trillion decimal places. So let's say the current version of Linux is 3.1, the next should be 3.14, followed by 3.141 and so on. Then Torvalds can do revs w/ Firefox like frequency, and still have enough versions to last the age of the earth ;-)
10. Re:3.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-27 11:30 · Score: 0
  
  You're gonna be waiting a long time, at an average release rate of every 3 months it'll take 2 1/2 years to get to 3.11 and 3539816 years to get to 3.14159265.
And nothing of value was gained by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:14 · Score: 0

Seriously. Nobody cares.
1. Re:And nothing of value was gained by Beelzebud · 2011-10-24 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, that's why you bothered to troll the post, right?
2. Re:And nothing of value was gained by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:32 · Score: 0
  
  Yep, that's why you bothered to troll the post, right?
  No, his gain was your response.
Re:Active Direcotry Support by nhaines · 2011-10-24 05:17 · Score: 1

Okay, those are all important things but nothing you described has to do with the kernel.

plus I want me Email client to have full Exchange 2010 support.
And did you not want to download your email client as a third-party application along with that? But the graphical framework, the desktop manager, and the widgets framework will all be third-party apps as well.
The kernel takes care of hardware support and basic I/O such as file systems and things. Everything else is a "third-party" app.
Re:Active Direcotry Support by Tubal-Cain · 2011-10-24 05:20 · Score: 1

Active Directory is something that happens in userland, not in the kernel.
More vibrant colors? by perpenso · 2011-10-24 05:24 · Score: 1

I for one am holding out for 3.11. I heard it will be for Workgroups!
It also has wonderful improvements to video compression, I hear.
Will it have more vibrant colors like the Intel CPUs?
Wiimote support built-in by Windwraith · 2011-10-24 05:27 · Score: 1

Whoa, I didn't expect that.
Some can argue it's unnecessary and that stuff, but I have a classic controller and it's damn good to use with my computer. (I actually use it more with it than my Wii......).
What is that "barrier" for ext3, btw?
1. Re:Wiimote support built-in by dcowart · 2011-10-24 05:40 · Score: 2
  
  From the Changelog linked to in the article...
  1.3. Filesystem barriers enabled by default in Ext3
  Hard disks have a memory buffer were they temporally store the instructions and data issued from the OS while the disk processes it. The internal software of modern disks changes the order of the instructions to improve performance, which means that instructions may or may not be committed to the disk in the same order the OS issued them. This breaks many of the assumptions that filesystems need to reliably implement things like journaling or COW, so disks provide a "cache flush" instruction that the OS uses when it needs it. In the Linux world, when a filesystem issues that instruction, it is called a "barrier". Filesystems such as XFS, Btrfs and Ext4 already use and enable barriers by default; Ext3 supports them but until this release it did not enable them by default: while the data safety guarantees are higher, their performance impact in Ext3 is noticeable in many common workloads, and it considered that it was an unnaceptable performance regression to enable them by default. However, Linux distros like Red Hat have enabled barriers by default in Ext3 for a long time, and now the default for mainline has been changed aswell.
  In other words: if you use Ext3 and you note performance regressions with this release, try disabling barriers ("barriers=0" mount option).
  
  --
  www.rdex.net
2. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Meneth · 2011-10-24 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  WHY did they put this in the kernel? It's just a custom Bluetooth device. Afaik, the driver worked perfectly well in userspace. Also, as far as I can tell, this new kernel driver doesn't do anything.
3. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 06:02 · Score: 0
  
  Also, as far as I can tell, this new kernel driver doesn't do anything.
  You're looking at the commit of the stub, there's been more code added since.
4. Re:Wiimote support built-in by iroll · 2011-10-24 06:04 · Score: 2
  
  This, >9000 times. I don't understand why this would need to be in the official kernel... if somebody really wants/needs it in the kernel, shouldn't they be compiling it in themselves? Why should people have to choose to exclude it?
  Doesn't this mean that future security audits have to include this wii driver? Do bloat-conscious or security-minded people have to cut this out?
  I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I'm genuinely curious, and I'm well aware of how wrong 'common sense' can be when one steps outside of their own field (as I am here), so please feel free to point out how ignorant I am. I really would like to hear a convincing explanation that isn't "Why not? Somebody put the time in and it works."
  
  --
  Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
5. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Max+Romantschuk · 2011-10-24 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  The Wii controller is a very nice set of sensors in a cheap package. Researchers have already done cool stuff with it.
  I'd say it's anything but unnecessary, even if most people likely won't use it.
  
  --
  .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
6. Re:Wiimote support built-in by tibit · 2011-10-24 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Since it is a modular driver, it will IIRC execute nothing at all until the module is pulled in by udev. So there's no need to audit much if you're not using the hardware in question. And if you have physical access to the server, there are ways of subverting it other than hooking up hardware that has security holes in the drivers. So no need for paranoia.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
7. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 06:17 · Score: 0
  
  Drivers go in the kernel. That's just the way it is.
  
  if somebody really wants/needs it in the kernel, shouldn't they be compiling it in themselves?
  That's already the case. No one's going to build this in by default. There are a million drivers in the kernel that aren't built in by default. People can compile them as they need them.
8. Re:Wiimote support built-in by harrkev · 2011-10-24 06:38 · Score: 1
  
  Since it is a modular driver, it will IIRC execute nothing at all until the module is pulled in by udev. So there's no need to audit much if you're not using the hardware in question. And if you have physical access to the server, there are ways of subverting it other than hooking up hardware that has security holes in the drivers. So no need for paranoia.
  Ummm. Isn't this sort of like saying "Don't worry about the screen door on this submarine. As long as nobody uses it, we are OK."
  
  --
  "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
9. Re:Wiimote support built-in by slimjim8094 · 2011-10-24 06:42 · Score: 1
  
  Try this link
  
  --
  I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
10. Re:Wiimote support built-in by tibit · 2011-10-24 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  Nope. Not at all. You can't really randomly run into this issue without attaching a device first, and if you can do that you may as well own the server in other ways.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
11. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 06:50 · Score: 0
  
  Not only that, it will most likely be disabled in the default config from kernel.org and even if it weren't, distro makers can easily choose not to compile it. Ubuntu might end up with native Wii Remote support, but you can bet the likes of Red Hat never will.
12. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Microlith · 2011-10-24 06:50 · Score: 1
  
  Well, if it concerns you the module can be removed from the system completely. I would also expect the driver to not be built as part of RHEL or SLES distributions, seeing as how it probably has little to no use on a server platform.
13. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 07:05 · Score: 0
  
  So Ext3 doesn't handle NCQ properly?
14. Re:Wiimote support built-in by harrkev · 2011-10-24 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe, but the point still stands: don't throw stuff in the kernel without a very good reason to do so.
  
  --
  "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
15. Re:Wiimote support built-in by tibit · 2011-10-24 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  Since there's on the order of a 100 million wiimotes out there, I'd think just that is a good enough reason. There's plenty of drivers for way less popular hardware in the linux kernel! Less as in an order of magnitude or two less popular.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
16. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Vairon · 2011-10-24 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  This is how the Linux kernel development process works. If someone writes a Linux driver for a piece of hardware they can usually get that driver into the main kernel tree if they follow the proper process. The Linux Kernel Mailing List FAQ covers this here: http://vger.kernel.org/lkml/#s2 It says that the driver must be tested successfully by other people. The code has be written against the latest kernel. Coding standards and best practices have to be followed. This driver has just as much right to be there as the SpaceTec SpaceBall 6dof driver or the Xbox gamepad driver.
  In your opinion, under what circumstances should Linus incorporate a hardware driver into his kernel?
  Generally when you compile the Linux kernel you have to choose which drivers you want to compile support for either as a module or inside the kernel. The addition of this wiimote driver just means an additional choice you don't have to choose. There are many joystick and gamepad drivers in the Linux kernel.
  A bloat conscious person probably wouldn't compile support for any hardware he or she doesn't have.
  As for security audits, I'm having trouble imagining who would do security audits of hardware they don't use or have. A corporation or individual hobbiest wouldn't. More than likely only the users of that hardware or the developers of that driver are going to be interested in auditing it. Possibly the distribution makers might but I doubt it. Can you describe who you had in mind that would be inconvenienced by the existence of yet another driver? Please remember this is a development kernel we're talking about. Between now and the time when distribution makers include this kernel could be considerably long. RedHat and Novell probably won't include this kernel for more than a year from now. In that time most of the serious bugs will work their way out.
17. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Vairon · 2011-10-24 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  There is a reason to do this. The hardware exists. People want to use that hardware with the Linux kernel. The inclusion of the wiimote driver within Linus' development linux kernel tree just means that driver has become good enough for Linus to redistribute it.
18. Re:Wiimote support built-in by BitZtream · 2011-10-24 08:42 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, if you're in a sub that doesn't have a screen door installed, then you don't have to worry if it can hold water out/air in, which is basically whats going on here.
  The code doesn't get pulled in without the hardware being detected. No hardware, no udev, no exploit. If the hardware is there, then you'll have a udev and an active driver, at which point you can do something about it, since you are aware of the hardware in your machines generally when you're that paranoid about security.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
19. Re:Wiimote support built-in by WorBlux · 2011-10-24 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  Dude it's and HID driver. Linux has more device drivers than any other OS and the standard kernel ships with all of them. If you need a really secure sever you should compile a custom kernel with only the needed drivers built in and disable module loading, and setup some sort of TPM or secureboot to load only that kernel. Plus putting it in the kernel makes sure it the controller has a fast response time.
20. Re:Wiimote support built-in by LWATCDR · 2011-10-24 09:52 · Score: 1
  
  True but I would love for Linux to add a standard interfaces for SPI, GPIO, and ican. That could help embedded developers a lot.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
21. Re:Wiimote support built-in by sjames · 2011-10-24 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  Typically, the module will be deleted from the server since it isn't supposed to be used. That done, there's no need to further audit it.
22. Re:Wiimote support built-in by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 16:34 · Score: 0
  
  I don't understand why this would need to be in the official kernel... if somebody really wants/needs it in the kernel, shouldn't they be compiling it in themselves? Why should people have to choose to exclude it?
  I take it you have never compiled a kernel. It will most likely be an unticked option that you can find and include, it will not be on default. Its up to distro if they want to build it in.
  Having to waste a few kb downloading source code is a massive issue though.
23. Re:Wiimote support built-in by mirix · 2011-10-24 16:50 · Score: 1
  
  SPI and GPIO support exist (i2c too), it's just very hardware dependent and needs to be configured with board-specific bits at compile time.
  GPIO
  SPI
  Not exactly easy at first. There are userland extensions to all of the above too, which is fine for blinking LEDs and such, but has some limitations... spidev only has certain modes and data lengths, /SS lines are defined in board config (so kernel compile to change), things like that.
  
  --
  Sent from my PDP-11
24. Re:Wiimote support built-in by LWATCDR · 2011-10-25 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  I knew that i2c was around but the dev board I used all had proprietary interfaces to the GPIO and SPI.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
25. Re:Wiimote support built-in by LWATCDR · 2011-10-25 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry to double post but that is really handy. Now IAMFT I just need to write code to convert a Centronics port to GPIO and and bit banged SPI
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
26. Re:Wiimote support built-in by k8to · 2011-10-25 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  How is this any different from an ethernet card driver you aren't using?
  
  --
  -josh
Re:Active Direcotry Support by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-10-24 05:34 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure that even in Windows, neither AD binding nor Exchange 2010-compatible MAPI communication are kernel functions...
Re:Active Direcotry Support by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 05:39 · Score: 0

As others have pointed out, active directory support is supposed to be in userland not in the kernel, just as it is on windows, I bet. It's just that the microsoft windows distribution bundles it, so to speak.
What do you mean by third party, btw? Kerberos, along with all other open source apps are part of the same big happy free software party.
To rephrase your question so as to perhaps be better: "Is there a distro that comes bundled with one or more AD clients and works out of the box and has commercial support for it?"
Where's the git repo if it's released? by Sipper · 2011-10-24 06:17 · Score: 1

Linus Torvalds did indeed release Linux 3.1, but where are the git repos for all the kernels that are on the front page of http://www.kernel.org/ ? Linus's development tree is there, but none of the release trees are, so all of the "gitweb" links are broken links. Specifically, I'm really looking for the git "stable" trees, and I have not been able to find where they've gone.
1. Re:Where's the git repo if it's released? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 06:54 · Score: 0
  
  http://git.kernel.org/
  linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git
just give me good 'ol ... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 06:43 · Score: 0

1.2.13... i just loved having to recompile the kernel to get a new sound card working!
gitweb links broken, but git repo still available by Chirs · 2011-10-24 07:06 · Score: 1

The stable repo appears to be at:
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git
September 1991 by xororand · 2011-10-24 07:48 · Score: 2

Linux entered its 3rd decade with 3.0.

"This is a free minix-like kernel for i386(+) based AT-machines," began the Linux version 0.01 release notes in September of 1991 for the first release of the Linux kernel.
1. Re:September 1991 by jbolden · 2011-10-24 11:02 · Score: 1
  
  Oh good time to make the flip. IC
Here we go by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 07:59 · Score: 0

Let the LINUX-fanboy circle jerk begin....
OpenRISC on FPGA? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 08:15 · Score: 1

Is there an FPGA big enough to implement the OpenRISC on it? Has anyone done that yet?

--
--
make install -not war
1. Re:OpenRISC on FPGA? by olof_k · 2011-10-24 08:26 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, there are several ports for different development boards with FPGAs from Actel, Altera or Xilinx.. Here's a list of some boards that are supported by ORPSoC (The OpenRISC Reference System On Chip) http://opencores.org/or1k/FPGA_Development_Boards Most of them contain UART, Ethernet, GPIO, SPI and in some cases HDMI, USB and Flash.
  MinSoC support even more boards (http://opencores.org/project,minsoc) but there are less supported peripherals there. Ethernet and UART IIRC
  The cheapest ones are about $50 or $60. Think the de0-nano is cheapest
  If you want to try out some OpenRISC developing without having to buy a dev board, there is also the OpenRISC architecture simulator or1ksim http://opencores.org/or1k/Or1ksim It supports UART through xterm or telnet, ethernet with TUN/TAP and a framebuffer
2. Re:OpenRISC on FPGA? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 09:32 · Score: 1
  
  OpenRISC/FPGA seems like an interesting platform on which to study converting OS functions from iterated CPU code into parallel circuits. Device drivers come to mind, and all the OS functions that lookup DBMs or /etc config params, but any kernel module might be a candidate. Is anyone grinding away at the OS to move it off of the CPU and into circuits?
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
3. Re:OpenRISC on FPGA? by Ion+Berkley · 2011-10-24 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  There have been FPGA's big enough to implement OpenRisc on now for at least 13-14 years. I designed an OpenRISC based system that included additional logic many times the size of the OpenRISC on an FPGA in 2002 and designed and manufactured an ASIC with most of the same logic in 2003. These repeated "Someone just built the first opensource chip/system/board/hardware etc" threads on Slashdot make me laugh. Does anyone do any research anymore?
4. Re:OpenRISC on FPGA? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 12:16 · Score: 0
  
  OpenRISC/FPGA seems like an interesting platform on which to study converting OS functions from iterated CPU code into parallel circuits. Device drivers come to mind,
  Have you ever coded a device driver, or coded the Verilog/VHDL RTL model for a device which needs a driver? There has to be a hardware/software interface somewhere. You can move the boundary but it'll still be there.
  
  and all the OS functions that lookup DBMs or /etc config params, but any kernel module might be a candidate. Is anyone grinding away at the OS to move it off of the CPU and into circuits?
  Yes and no. No because I don't think they're doing it in the sense which you mean, yes in that it's routine to do hardware acceleration where it makes sense.
  A classic example would be various levels of acceleration in network interfaces, starting with hardware packet checksum. Or even the very notion of DMA -- it's been a long time since a driver had to poke bytes into a NIC one at a time to transmit a packet. These days a NIC driver just constructs a linked list of DMA buffer descriptors, points the NIC at it, and goes to sleep until the NIC fires an interrupt to say it's done processing the descriptor chain.
  Drivers for high performance peripherals usually serve as a relatively thin translation layer between OS and HW command list formats. E.g., aside from configuration stuff, the runtime job of a SATA driver is mostly to translate OS block IO command lists to the descriptor chains an AHCI SATA controller understands.
  In theory one could make the HW understand a particular operating system's internal data structures directly, but this tends to be a Bad Idea. What if the OS changes? (it will!) And it tends to be a pointless optimization since usually the driver isn't burning a lot of cycles doing the translation anyways.
5. Re:OpenRISC on FPGA? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-24 13:18 · Score: 1
  
  I have coded device drivers, though I have not coded Verilog or VHDL for devices. I know there will be a HW/SW interface, but I'd like it to be FPGA configs that put most of the logic into circuits that don't consume CPU cycles - but can be changed digitally as the devices and OS change around the needed interface. I'd like the OS driver to be the minimum interface to the processes accessing the device. Mapped registers that "virtualize" the device into just an API that's almost all reconfigurable HW would be good. The runtime driver logic translating protocols between the HW the OS runs on and the HW that is the device can be mostly in HW. Not so much to accelerate the device IO but to make the whole IO layer more flexible and parallel. Like if I want to plug more devices into the CPU, I can just plug in more device connectors to FPGA pins behind a header, and reconfig the FPGA to present more registers. It's more complex than that to implement, but not as complex as managing multiple drivers and the bottleneck of only so much IO port HW.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
6. Re:OpenRISC on FPGA? by olof_k · 2011-10-24 19:01 · Score: 1
  
  I'm very interested in that area, but haven't had time to look at it in details. One way to move forward could be to profile drivers and see if there are any heavy number-crunching parts that could benefit from being moved to hardware. In the short run this would require patched drivers to interface the hardware, but in the long run I would like to see completely new interfaces, just as OpenGL defined a HW/SW interface for something that was traditionally done in software
Fixed that for you Re:3.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 08:24 · Score: 0

LUSER ... I'm holding out for 3.141592654...
There's no reason to forget the 4 if you can remember all the way to 5 :)
Fourteen, fifteen, ninety too, six, five, four, start at three you do ^_^
*does geeky spasm dance*
1. Re:Fixed that for you Re:3.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-24 08:46 · Score: 0
  
  And 4 is 35 because it ate ate ate to nine:
  3.14159265358979
  (second "ate" becomes a nine when it noms the third eight to seven and it all stops at nine).
  14 decimal places starting with 14 :D
OpenRISC at FSCONS2011 by juliusbaxter · 2011-10-24 08:57 · Score: 1

For anyone who is uninitiated with working with open-source CPUs on FPGA, one of the first ever OpenRISC workshops will be held at FSCONS in Gothenburg, Sweden, in November. http://my.fscons.org/schedule/session/24/ Anyone wishing to get up to speed on how to play with OpenRISC should come check it out. We'll for sure be going through getting the kernel up and running in simulation and on hardware.
Donations needed by bWareiWare.co.uk · 2011-10-25 00:30 · Score: 1

They desperately need more funding to produce a ASIC version required for Linux support to mean much:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/04/30/172214/help-build-the-worlds-first-community-funded-cpu-asic