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Linux 3.12 Released, Linus Proposes Bug Fix-Only 4.0
An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds announced the Linux 3.12 kernel release with a large number of improvements through many subsystems including new EXT4 file-system features, AMD Berlin APU support, a major CPUfreq governor improvement yielding impressive performance boosts for certain hardware/workloads, new drivers, and continued bug-fixing. Linus also took the opportunity to share possible plans for Linux 4.0. He's thinking of tagging Linux 4.0 following the Linux 3.19 release in about one year and is also considering the idea of Linux 4.0 being a release cycle with nothing but bug-fixes. Does Linux really need an entire two-month release cycle with nothing but bug-fixing? It's still to be decided by the kernel developers."
There have been so many fast and furious features added over the last couple releases, not only to the kernel but also the various and sundry major components (like systemd) that taking a breather isn't going to hurt anything. There is nothing huge waiting in the wings that everyone needs next week.
Take the time to fix everything you can find.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It could be very useful to have the code stabilize for a bit, put it through regression tests, do some auditing, maximize use of static code checkers, and fix the problems. I hope they seriously consider it.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
every other release should be a bugfix-only release
The kernel's bug database shows almost 2500 open bugs right now.
All projects slowly accumulate those hard-to-fix bugs, or the "maybe later" bugs, or the "not interesting right now", bugs. Periodically every project needs to have that cruft cleaned up.
Spending two months fixing those bugs might be a minor annoyance to some of the kernel maintainers but would be a godsend to people who have been waiting a very long time for low priority and low interest kernel bug fixes.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Develop Linux like Intel develops CPUs: first you make a new shiny, then you do an entire release on improving that shiny. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Even better if you have two competing teams working on it. Whichever team comes up with the better product by launch time gets the nod.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I don't know how you can honestly say that there's "nothing huge waiting in the wings that everyone needs next week." You must not understand the current operating system market.
THERE IS BALLS TO THE WALL COMPETITION RIGHT NOW!
The moment the Linux community rests on its laurels, even if just to fix some "bugs" that don't even exist, the competition from Windows and OS X will intensify to an extent that we haven't seen in ages.
Look, Windows 8.1 was just released, and it's a game-changer. It makes the Windows 8 stream a viable option for businesses and home users alike. Windows 8.0 was like Vista was; Windows 8.1 is like Windows 7. Windows 8.0 tried some things out, and some of those were mistakes. Windows 8.1 remedies these, and the result is a powerful, usable operating system.
OS X 10.9 Mavericks was just released recently, too. It took what was perhaps the most popular and widely used Unix-like system and made it even more efficient and powerful.
Then there's Linux. There are major changes underway as we speak. The Ubuntu and GNOME 3 communities, which were once among the largest and most appreciated, shat upon the faces of their users, causing them to seek refuge in other distributions and desktop environments. Now we have Wayland on the way, and it's going to bring so much disruption that there may in fact be a civil war of sorts within the Linux community. X is not going to die easily! And then there's LLVM and Clang, which are kicking the living shit out of GCC. In fact, this is a revolution that we haven't seen the likes of in years.
With so much turmoil in the userland software, it's now up to the kernel to pick up the slack. We're going to need to see the kernel team at least double their efforts to make up for the stupidity of the GNOME crew, for example. We're going to need to see a kernel that offers greater power efficiency on modern systems. We need to see a kernel that'll offer even better process and thread scheduling. We'll need to see a kernel that can scale from the smallest cell phones to the largest clusters. We need to see the completion of Btrfs.
Never forget that when it comes to operating systems, the BALLS ARE TO THE WALL!. This is more true today than ever before. The competition is fierce, and prisoners will not be taken. When there is BALLS TO THE WALL competition, everybody involved needs to bring their best. This includes the Linux kernel developers. They need to be the best they've ever been. This is no ordinary situation; this is a BALLS TO THE WALL situation. And don't you ever forget that!
As Linus also stated,"I've been mulling over something Dirk Hohndel said during LinuxCon EU and the kernel summit. He asked at the Q&A session whether we could do a release with just stability and bug-fixes, and I pooh-poohed it because I didn't see most of us having the attention span required for that (cough*cough*moronic*woodland creature*cough*cough)." It was just put out there.
That ended 10 years ago. Long time to be mad.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Not really. Mavericks did some really cool stuff under the hood. Timer-coalescing, "App Nap", and compressed memory are all pretty big. Take a look at the relevant sections of the Ars review to see what I mean.
Nobody could seriously argue that. Mavericks is a major release adding major functionality. Sure, there are bug fixes (just like with every other release beyond the first), but they're minor compared to the new functionality.
The improved multi-display support is absolutely massive in terms of importance. The new Finder functionality is very important, too. Timer coalescing and memory compression may even be more important than even those important changes, for some users. There are the new iBooks and Maps apps. There are many other UI changes for existing apps. Then there are all of the other changes, which while not as important as those just mentioned, are still very important.
I don't mean to offend you, but cut out the bullshit arguments, okay? Only somebody with some form of autism would consider it sensible to try to make the argument you're making, but even they'd probably know better.
You are Steve Ballmer, and I claim my five pounds.
Users still can use Gnome 2, it's not like they are forced to us e Gnome 3. It's not windows after all. Many distros, Mint comes to mind. XFCE is not half bad too.
"Then there's Linux. There are major changes underway as we speak. The Ubuntu and GNOME 3 communities, which were once among the largest and most appreciated, shat upon the faces of their users, causing them to seek refuge in other distributions and desktop environments. Now we have Wayland on the way, and it's going to bring so much disruption that there may in fact be a civil war of sorts within the Linux community. X is not going to die easily! And then there's LLVM and Clang, which are kicking the living shit out of GCC. In fact, this is a revolution that we haven't seen the likes of in years."
Wayland is not X competitor, it's logical continuation of Xorg. Same people who did X are doing now Wayland. There will be disruption, it's unavoidable, but not as bad as you say. GTK, base for Gnome was already ported to Wayland. The way i understand, it means Gnome 3 can easilly work under Wayland.(though with Nvidia I am NOT in a rush to test it). At the end of day Wayland is compositor, not not full desktop provider. And in case many people were wondering, legacy support of X based apps is already implemented in Wayland.
LLVM and GCC are already crossplatform tools. Having another big project for competition isn't bad. GCC was stalling anyway. Project can only be as much big. I dont see harm in LLVM, as long as it's permissive license isn't goign to turn around and byte us in the ASMMM...
Are you for real? Who do you think the kernel devs are, JavaScripters? Ruby-on-Railers?
Come on. They are among the premiere open source developers. These men and women don't just know C, but rather they live and breathe it to such an extent that C has become another appendage to their bodies. Software development defined who these people are. They aren't just good, they are damn near the best the entire world has to offer.
They already put the kernel code through strenuous regression testing. They already do in-depth code reviews and auditing. They already use a variety of different static checkers and code analysis tools. They already do a superb job of preventing bugs in the first place, and fixing any that arise.
These people know what they're doing. You're just telling them to do what they've already been doing for so many years now. They aren't JavaScripters. They aren't Rubyists. They aren't idiots. They are intelligent, experienced, professional software developers working on one of the most critical pieces of software around. They are experts at their trade; masters of their craft. To think of them as anything less is petty and stupid.
Will my mouse work with Linux 4.0?
Amazing what someone genuinely passionate about their work and free of corporate pressures can accomplish.
When was the last time you heard about a major version of Windows that was purely for much-needed bug fixes instead of trying to force bullshit "features" like Metro?
There is a reason RHEL uses an older kernel after all. Personally, stability is the #1 feature that converted me from Windows. Best to keep it that way.
All released Linux versions tried to be bug free, that should be nothing as big to deserve a whole new version for 4.0. But probably this "bug fix" goes beyond the normal scope. It must not just work, but work in an hostile environment where governments with plenty of resources try to exploit any "more or less work" vulnerability to plant backdoors and snoop, where hardware, firmwares (the methods that could use #badBIOS to spread could be an example), internet protocols or encryption algorythms are not so trustable, and could had been malicious commits in the past, not just work, but work even with a legion of high profile attackers trying to find some potential hole to sneak in.
The Linux Colonel stayed in the 2.x numbers for many years. I even remember a post by Linux Torvalds on the mailing list saying that there would never ever be a version 3.0. At the time I thought that was pretty weird. I mean, things are going to get a little strange when you get to version 2.99.99.99.99.99.
So,obviously he changed his mind and not only went to 3.0 but apparently he is bored with 3.x and wants to jump from 3.19 directly to 4.0.
Maybe he's jealous of Firefox and Chrome and is trying to catch up to them.
Maybe it indicates a promotion to general.
I had compressed memory on a Mac nearly two decades ago in the 7.5.x days with Connectix RAM Doubler. Did OS X just get native compressed memory after Connectix's patents ran out?
One of the most frustrating things for me is that the frenzy over the past six or seven years has led to some serious annoyances with the kernel's behavior: 1. Linux kernels for i386/x86 can't boot in less than roughly 28MB of RAM. I have tried to make it happen, but the features added along the way don't allow it. Perhaps it's the change to ELF? I'm not sure. 2. Linux x86 can't have the perf subsystem removed. It's sort of pointless for a Turion 64 X2 or a Core i3, but for systems with weaker processors (netbooks, embedded, etc.) every single evicted cache line counts. 3. Some parts of the kernel seem to be dependent on other parts almost arbitrarily. I once embarked on a quest to see what it took to discard the entire cryptographic subsystem. Long story short: good luck. I was surprised at how many different hashing and crypto algorithms were required to make use of common hardware and filesystems and network protocols. Are all of these interdependencies really necessary? 4. The help text for lots of kernel configuration options are in SEVERE need of updating and clarification. Most of the network drivers still say roughly the exact same thing, and some of the help text sounds pretty silly at this point. 5. Speaking of help text, why doesn't the kernel show me what options are forcing the mandatory selection of a particular option? For some, it's simple, but try hitting the question mark on CRC32c and you get a disastrous and impossible to read list of things that force the selection of that option. The help screen should show an option dependency tree that explains how the option in question was forced. 6. ARM is still a disaster. I have a Motorola Triumph I don't use anymore, but I wanted to build a custom system for. It uses a Snapdragon SoC and the only kernel I can use with it is a 2.6 series kernel from Motorola (or derivatives based on that code base) with lots of nasty deviations from the mainline kernel tree that will never make it into said mainline tree. I have a WonderMedia WM8650-based netbook that originally came with an Android 2.3 port and I can't build anything but the WonderMedia GPL compliance kernel release if I want to use most of the hardware in the netbook, even though general WM8650 support exists in mainline. Something needs to change to make it easier for vendors to bring their drivers and SoC specifics to mainline so that ARM devices aren't permanently stuck with the kernel version that they originally shipped with. I'm still using a VIA C7-M netbook which suffers heavily due to the tiny on-chip caches. I also have a Fujitsu P2110 with a Transmeta TM5800 CPU that makes my VIA look like an i7. I also own Phenom II servers, AMD A8 laptops, MIPS routers, a Raspberry Pi, and many Android devices I've collected over the years. What I've seen is that the mad rush to develop for every new thing and every new idea results in old hardware being tossed by the wayside and ignored, especially when that hardware isn't based on an x86 processor. Even then, I'm sure that this frenetic, rapid development process has resulted in a lot of unnecessary bloat and a pile of little unnoticed security holes. It may be time to step back and stop adding new features. I would like to see the existing mainline kernel become much more heavily optimized and cleaned up, and then see the inclusion of support for at least some of the embedded platforms that never managed to make it back into mainline. I know that this is an unrealistically broad set of "wants," but I also know that these are the big nasty unspoken problems in the Linux world that there are no easy answers for.
Linux has had compressed memory for quite some time, originally as Compcache and now as ZRAM. I have managed to use it on low-memory systems even today to get more work done faster. I'm not saying this to attack OS X, but rather to point out that equivalents already do exist. Also, I remember when a company (Quarterdeck?) offered a product for DOS/Windows called "RAM Doubler" that did the same kind of thing.
After version 2.99 would come 2.100.
After that 2.101.
After 2.999 comes 2.1000.
I hope that they fix the kernel bug that obviously stripped all of the paragraphs out of your comment. It was a kernel bug that did it, right?
Maybe it indicates a promotion to general.
Just as long as it isn't General System Failure.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Nah, Slashdot just didn't use a condom.
No, it should be modded exactly what it is. The whole post is a rant about how competitive the whole Desktop Linux OS has to be with OS X and Windows 8.1, but fails to address anything about how the Linux Kernel development relates to Desktop Linux that makes it more competitive with OS X or Windows 8.1 or how fixing bugs in the kernel makes it less competitive to OS X or Windows 8.1
If there was -1 Upvote Bait, I'm sure that's what it would get rated as, seeing as it is a mostly thoughtless desenting opinion type rant that seems to draw lots of +Voters and attention.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Slashdot ate all my line breaks. Apologies.
I know it is completely different from the kernel but I think 4.0 should wait till a mature wayland. If it is half as good as they are making it out to be It would deserve a new linux kernel number to match its change in the linux desktop.
How the fuck is the parent comment deemed "0, Offtopic"?
You say:
Windows 8.1 was just released, and it's a game-changer. It makes the Windows 8 stream a viable option for businesses and home users alike.
Reviewers say:
"that it's an OS not noticeably different from its predecessor, noting that -- despite its versatility -- it still comes with numerous drawbacks."
You got busted, now just wear your downmods like a man, you whiner.
Onto a totally different topic: we're getting to release numbers where I have to take off my socks to count that high again. I'm ok with 3., but I don't want us to get to the kinds of crazy numbers we had in the 2.x series, so at some point we're going to cut over from 3.x to 4.x, just to keep the numbers small and easy to remember. We're not there yet, but I would actually prefer to not go into the twenties, so I can see it happening in a year or so, and we'll have 4.0 follow 3.19 or something like that.
Not sure how that reminds you of rapid-release firefox-style...
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Linus's stated reason for not wanting numbers to go too high is seemingly based on a feeling or personal dislike of high numbers.
Two questions.
1. What happens when there are major changes in the Linux kernel? How are they now represented in selection of version number?
2. What happens when the major digit begins to resemble Firefox / Chromes out of control version madness? How many years before Linux 19.4?
It used to be version numbers actually meant something and conveyed some useful hint of scope or amount of change between versions.
I'm not sure dumping this concept for the sake of political games and or OCD pedantry are worth opportunity cost to the user when contrasted with structured predictable scheme based on commonly agreed and understood guidelines.
I changed to "plain old text" mode. That'll teach 'em.
Win 7 isn't too bad but if I had to choose between Vista and MS-DOS..........
iPhone's are for hipsters. OSX is certified UNIX running on rock solid, high performance hardware. Don't confuse the two.
I used Linux exclusively for fifteen years. I've contributed to many open source projects, including the Linux kernel, and I'm the maintainer of Linux::LVM and other projects. In other words, I'm a fan of Linux. From one fan of Linux to another, don't dismiss OSX just because the same company makes overpriced toys as well. It's a solid UNIX which will run all of your favorite FOSS software, and do it well.
In absolute numbers, it certainly received more positive reviews than any obscure Linux distro.
In relative numbers, compared to "what a turd" reviews, though...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Please no General. Windows didn't really endear many users by theirs that went by the name of "Protection Fault".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm still pissed that Linus moved away from the traditional development model: Even number x.Y releases were stable branch and odd releases were testing/development.
Linux moved away from that model because of the problems that it caused. There were very long (compared to today) cycles where the current "stable" kernel series was basically in maintenance, and the development kernel was diverging further and further from the stable kernel. So if you wanted to use a kernel with new features, you were stuck using the development branch -- and if you waited until there was a new stable series, then there was a big jump from the kernel you were on up to the new one.
Once Linus decided to change the development model, there was no point in keeping the old format for the version number. The version numbers should be determined based on the development policy, not the other way around.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Rather than just asking if they are necessary, the better question to ask is what are they using the cryptographic subsystem for? For example, BTRFS does checksumming and offers compression. EXT4 uses CRC32 as well. And that use isn't arbitrary, they use it to protect data integrity and, in the case of BTRFS, maximize use of disk space. The TCP/IP stack offers encryption. These requirements aren't arbitrary, they pull it in to accomplish a specific goal and avoid duplicating code.
And it will continue to be so long as every ARM device is its own unique thing. There might be forward progress with AArch64.
Probably lots of board specific details (the board support package) that have no relevance in the kernel. x86(-64) and other architectures have the advantage that once processor support is added, support for every motherboard that CPU gets plugged into is virtually guaranteed. x86 would have the same problem as ARM if not for the use of things like ACPI, PCI, and the various hardware reporting formats supplied by legacy bios/UEFI.
You'll have to blame WonderMedia. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc. all do the same thing: baseline GPL compliance release. Chip vendors will do the same thing, releasing only what is necessary and not bothering to integrate upstream. This is no small part of why vendors abandon Android devices so rapidly.
Something does need to change, however that something is not in the kernel.
And virtually all of that is still supported, with the ARM caveat noted above. Even the Transmeta CPU is still supported. What ends up happening is that the world moves on, and older hardware passes into history and receives less attention.
Mos
Well, when I was naive I was pissed off a lot too. When I had about 10 years of code under my belt all Major version numbers in my codebases indicated a complete re-write / major design overhaul and API breakage as far as the eye can see. That same reasoning was what Linus was going by when he said there'd never be a 3.x.x release -- v3 would mean he when insane and wrote the whole thing in a message passing version of VB; I'm paraphrasing.
What's interesting is that I follow the Unix Way(tm): "Do one thing and do it well"; So my "Applications" are actually just that: Application of multiple smaller modules each with their own names / codenames and version numbers. The Editor application "Sledge 0.4.x" is a UI layer stack provided by Core v3.0.x leveraging Sterling v1.6.x for rendering, Vaporworks v1.13.x for a scripting VM, CFG9000 v5.2.x for INI/.conf persistence, etc. Git submodules makes building other programs that target disparate points in the independent module versions simple. Eg: A server for providing HTTP interface to other game-engines/servers via remote console utilizes Core, Vaporworks, and CFG9k. My code editor, audio assemblers, etc. use a different group of modules, but the same common codebase. So, the major application version of an application may not change even if I use a different subsystem or rewrite a module (eg: to get my rendering engine using Wayland natively); Major module version changes translate to minor Application version changes.
Each of the modules is like a library with its own test suite, but provides a small set of associated (terminal) tools (eg: My "Core" library provides a platform abstraction layer and provides a virtual file/network system where local / remote / archived paths can be mounted and mapped to the installed system, allowing me to "cd", "cp", "mv" across the network and OS barriers; Vaporworks provides a scripting environment, but also provides a compiler / bytecode translator and debugger / profiler tools. For these individual modules and their smaller tools the "Major version change = Rewrite" method makes sense.
However with larger applications (say, a distributed versioned 3D game development environment), or a browser, or a Monolithic Kernel: Full / Majority code rewrites aren't occurring. So after having created some sprawling and immense applications I came around to the idea that it doesn't make sense to require the same level of change for a major version number in the application as the module -- Why even have a major version number if it never changes? The game dev studio always has the same interface: It must always interface at the human / machine level. Eg: There's a few ways to create a multi-threaded event pump, but the API for them all will be the same. There's different ways to handle pointer input (esp. on Win32 vs X11 vs Wayland to reduce input latency), but the pointer API is not going to change (it did have to change years ago to support multiple pointers / multi-touch, and that was a major version bump in Core.UI, and in apps that use it). It's not like I scrapped pointers for eye tracking, context awareness and vocalizations or gestures... yet, but that was a substantial addition to the system.
The Linux Kernel is in the same boat. It's to the point now that it's got to provide largely the same interface to its users i.e. programs; ergo: ABI stability; There's not going to be a full rewrite because that would be death -- It wouldn't be "Linux" anymore. Nothing that depends on it would be able to function, and all the dependent applications / modules / systems -- A huge chunk of the ecosystem -- would have to be rewritten given the level of change that warrants a rewrite. Especially if we actually want to improve on operating systems -- Say, eschew POSIX in favor of Agent oriented operating environment with byte-code program modules linkable into machine code at install time, or runnable via VM if untrusted (sandboxing that actually works
even if just to fix some "bugs" that don't even exist,
Let's see, Linus thinks there are bugs needing to be fixed, and some random AC says they don't exist.
Decisions, decisions.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Did anyone else hear the fox football analyst in their heads while reading this?
If you end up there then I doubt the "I know what I am doing" bit. If you're building your own kernel, the best ways to do it are either make oldconfig if you have a known good one or make modconfig if you're using a pre-built kernel and want to use only what's loaded. I'm not sure how you end up in "dependency hell" when building the kernel because it will autocorrect missing dependencies.
Nonsensical how?
Overall, it speaks to the simple fact that, if the agenda is to improve things vs make money, improvements are the things that make money in the long run.
FYI: I run a bunch of different OSs: Apple, Linux - 4 or 5 distros, Win 8x, 7x, Vista, 2003 (server)
It's been a long, long time since I've had Linux crash or become unconfigurable - whether I upgrade from a previous version or do a clean install. Way to go, Linus!!
*** Don't be dull.***
2. What happens when the major digit begins to resemble Firefox / Chromes out of control version madness? How many years before Linux 19.4?
3.0 was released on 21 Jul 2011. Given the expected timeframe for 4.0 (if he decides to go through with this proposal, of course), then that's roughly 3.25 years per major version. So the answer to your question would be sometime in 2061.
It used to be version numbers actually meant something and conveyed some useful hint of scope or amount of change between versions.
With this proposal, it does mean something. It means that a 4.0 release is the result of focused testing and bugfixing of the changes and features added in the 3.x series. If the model seems to work, then 5.0 would probably be the culmination of the work put into the 4.x series. Sure, the meaning is different than is used for most projects, but that doesn't make it worse.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
You're not kidding - things I've found wrong with it so far (less than 5 hours of use):
- Takes 1-2 hours to install [facepalm]
- Corrupts some Win8 Xbox game saves
- Adds UEFI watermark which can only be removed by installing an update (requires reboot too)
- Changes your folder/theme settings without permission
- Changes the folders setup in Windows Explorer to promote Skydrive (ya right!) and buries everything useful at the bottom
- Re-installs all the garbage you've spent hours uninstalling (bing/news/finance/etc)
- Doesn't restore the start button, just adds a button to bring up the full screen start
- Creates interface lag/"hiccuping" across all programs
- Removes the lease offensive drop corner\
- Enabled touchpad clicking on my mouse, despite the ELAN options showing it as disabled
- Forces powder blue backgrounds on tiles which make reading difficult (no personalization option to change it)
- Pins IE to the taskbar
Everything in Win8/8.1 is counter to productivity and just makes me want to switch to a new OS...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4407441&cid=45322021
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Correction, that should be make localmodconfig. The build system will then prompt you for any missing/new options.
4.0 should consist of the following: The ability to decipher the hardware that it is installed into and then an automated optimization and re-compiling process for that hardware à la Gentoo with a bloated fall-back option in case of failure. Realistically, how often have ANY of you ever changed a bus, processor, network card, drive controllers and other hardware - especially on boards with much of that built in?
*** Don't be dull.***
Drive the parent AC troll into the ground.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Now it's not that I bump up against many bugs but this is a very smart move. So many times you see feature upon feature added, maybe crash a bit blah blah. But sometimes you just have to stop, take a deep breath and just fix what is there rather than pile on new stuff. A brave decision but essential for the OS itself which must be rock solid above all else.
Bitter and proud of it.
I heard monster truck "racing" ads.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I definitely hope 4.0 is a bug-fix only kernel..
It opens up the possibility of providing support for the kernel for sufficiently longer periods, and essentially, it could act as an LTS kernel for distributions. Linux is not that stable at this time, and the experience is still very much a hit or miss on systems. Whilst things are certainly better than they used to be, there are still many cases where I come across systems which should work, but don't (ie, they might stutter a lot, sometimes occasionally kernel panic or in one case, I suspected it lost data).
Furthermore, fixing some of these existing bugs may significantly aid Linux development further down the line (ie, fixing some bugs may actually eliminate many other intermittant ones unknowingly simultaneously)
This is a great idea.
No. Mavericks has a huge number of improvements with the VM subsystem (compressed memory to avoid swap at all costs for better performance and power consumption), timer coalescing, etc. I am seeing a "no bullshit" battery life improvement of 15-20 percent on my 2011 MacBook Pro 15" - and improved performance.
Mavericks is the biggest improvement in OS X performance since Snow Leopard.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
2. What happens when the major digit begins to resemble Firefox / Chromes out of control version madness? How many years before Linux 19.4?
3.0 was released on 21 Jul 2011. Given the expected timeframe for 4.0 (if he decides to go through with this proposal, of course), then that's roughly 3.25 years per major version. So the answer to your question would be sometime in 2061.
I was going to post exactly the same thing, you would think that after 20 years we could go from 3 to 4 without someone whining about it.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
One of the most frustrating things for me is attempting to read a single paragraph of about 500 words.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Oh, and I was booting ELF kernels on my 486 in 4 megabytes of RAM back in 1995, so it wasn't the ELF change.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Just compile drivers/extra features as loadable modules, and get on with your life? The whole obsession with recompiling the kernel and stripping things (rather than just building as loadable modules) is (for 99% of users) just making work for yourself when you discover that "oh, crap this software i'm trying to use needs the frumble-mumbo kernel feature".
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I think for this to work he has to say something like "We won't move on and merge new features until X bugs have been fixed." In other words if you want the merge window to reopen for features, fix some bugs. X has to be high enough that a good many developers have to work at it. Kinda like making sure you hit your target heart-rate before getting off the treadmill.
I want this account deleted.
OSX is indeed a real Unix... but the user world has moved on to Linux where things don't just work but are also easy to setup and control.
If you are used to a Linux install, going to OSX will be a shock. For one, there is no native package system, you will have to install one of several on your own. They are not nearly as reliable as say the debian system. It is do-able but for young people it pays to remind yourself that there is a reason UNIX never took off. That BSD never took off. Linux (the whole eco-system) did far more then make a Unix compatible system, it made Unix usable for the average geek. The "real" unixes were bastards to work on with each system just totally different enough to not make them at all compatible. Not like the way you can google a red hat fix and apply it to ubuntu or the way a arch-linux wiki page is useful to a gentoo user.
OSX made Unix usuable for the average hipster but crossing from geek Linux to once touched a girl OSX will be a shock, just how many things are different and just how much of OSX overrides the Unix way of doing things.
You can run FOSS software but it is NOT as easy as with a debian system. Before you buy a OSX machine to replace your ubuntu install, get an OSX user to show case their FOSS capabilities. Let them show you how they install an apache upgrade not yet released by Apple. Then go and hug your Ubuntu box and swear you will never ever look at an other system again.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
These days, kids will relate every first-number-before-the-dot version increase with Chrome and Firefox.
Quite honestly, their versioning schemes wouldn't even be all that bad for Linux, the "3." or "4." are totally meaningless numbers anyway. At the same time, it provides some buffer zone for people that expect X.Y schemes represent significant new versions whenever Y is increased.
If anything it might increase power consumption because every memory access has to run through a cpu bound compressor/decompressor..
Essentially it means that the OS can keep from using swap. Spinning the drive up and remaining awake to page in and out takes a lot longer (and thus the CPU, disk, etc. must be powered up and in an active state for far longer) than compressing the memory and staying off swap. The compressed memory isn't the only power saving feature Mavericks has obviously, but it does contribute to keeping parts of the system asleep as much as possible to save power.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Oh and by "spinning the drive up" that includes SSDs. SSD is obviously not a moving part, but waking it up, reading/writing data and remaining awake while waiting for the SSD (which is hundreds of times slower than RAM) still uses power.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
userland desktop UI development has little to nothing to do with the kernel. What do you expect the kernel devs to do to make up for gnome? Where is the kernel deficient on modern hardware? BTRFS is meant for large multi disk arrays, hardly something you see on typical user desktops.
The reason you were downmodded is because you don't know what you're talking about.
It's still a shitbox. Windows 7 wasn't much different from vista, but it magically got rave reviews. It makes me wonder about the validity of a lot of these review sites. Were they paid off, or did they just hop on the bandwagon to get hits?
I've run into this before, and I've gotten modern (late 2.6) kernels running on systems with 8MB of ram. I have not tried with 3.x, and it's difficult to get the kernel size under 3 or 4MB these days. In processor type and features, try disabling the 'build a relocatable kernel' option, and setting CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START (shown in menuconfig as "physical address where the kernel is loaded") to a value less than the default 0x1000000 (16MB). This is a worked-for-me status solution.
It is just not odd/even anymore. Rather, it now follows the Linux stable release model, which is basically the "patchlevel" model of release numbering.
So, for the X.Y kernel, a subtree of the form X.Y.Z is created for the stable releases (which are almost "fix-only").
https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html has the gory details.
I suppose the major version number could be bumped every OSDL longterm release (those that are taken care of by Greg KH). But that would get confusing fast, for several reasons.
Maybe the maintainers will be taking a vacation. Everyone thinks that their own house is "clean enough." What you are doing is confirming the law of diminishing returns, not worth the effort.
It was much less annoying and slow than Vista. Of course that doesn't mean it should have got rave reviews when it took Microsoft 8 years to come out with a better version of XP.
No. The "compressed memory" is effectively just a swap region in RAM, instead of on disk. The kernel doesn't need to decompress all VM access any more than it needs to read and write all VM operation to disk just because it uses a swap file.
Pages which aren't currently being used and which would previously have been swapped out to disk are instead compressed and stored to another region in RAM.
Nothing ground breaking. Just not necessarily intuitive because, without actual benchmarking, you can't be sure such shenanigans would cost more in power than it saves. But, apparently, it saves power. Good for Apple.
If Apple didn't charge you 3x the nominal price of memory, perhaps more people would order their Macs fully loaded with RAM, and then they wouldn't need to worry about swapping, anyway.
I only have a 300D so I only work with pretty small images, but I have plenty of room in 8GB to not even need swap on my Linux system. Consequently I have none. Don't need it, don't want it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1. What happens when there are major changes in the Linux kernel? How are they now represented in selection of version number?
Nothing in particular happens. Major changes are no longer represented in the selection of version number, and haven't been since quite some time now.
2. What happens when the major digit begins to resemble Firefox / Chromes out of control version madness? How many years before Linux 19.4?
I suspect it will be many years before we get to that point. About 50 years or so, given the current pace and reasonable deviations from it. If it picks up speed, for some odd reason, then they can always return to a three-part version number, say at major version 10.0, and from there on go 10.0.x with x from 0 to 19, 10.1.x and so on. That'll buy them another 50+ years, which should be ... enough, probably.
It used to be version numbers actually meant something and conveyed some useful hint of scope or amount of change between versions.
There are a lot of changes in every new version of Linux, typically. There is no point in clinging to the concept of "The Grand Release X" any longer. That kind of thinking is mostly for marketing people, anyway. You'll see it in the distribution releases, where it belongs. Leave the kernel out of it, please.
Why the insecurity with Linux? No one is attacking Linux. People are pointing out that OS X Maverick is more than a bug fix release.
I'd thought the fact that Mavericks introduced a couple of new bugs to the mix would be proof enough that it was not a "bug fix" release.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Plenty of people with macs run 16 GB or more, myself included. Mavericks is typically getting an extra 50% into RAM before hitting swap. So 24 GB on a 16 GB system, as tested by Ars.
The bigger your workload and the more RAM you have, the more effective this will be.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
You mean General Failure. The same guy who reads your drive A. I hate that guy.
I'm so used to kernelnewbies having a great changelog that it's surprising to not see it updated for 3.12. I hope everything is going OK for the maintainers there!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You do realize that there are lots of "switches" that turn on simply by virtue of the option "CONFIG_X86=y" right? The DS booting (an older 2.6 uClinux kernel) with 4MB and an ARM chip is irrelevant. I am aware that Linux can boot on MIPS and ARM routers with 8MB of RAM, but the relevance is nil when compared to x86. In fact, I dare you: compile an x86 kernel with almost nothing in it but console drivers and whatnot (I've build gzip-compressed kernels at ~800K compressed), make a minimalist BusyBox+uClibc initramfs, fire up QEMU/KVM with the "-m 16" option and boot your kernel. It won't work. Someone here suggested changing an advanced setting I didn't try yet, so that might make a difference, but it doesn't change the fact that ARM and x86 are two different worlds and a lot is forced in x86 that is optional in ARM.
Also, perhaps you should consider being less of an asshole when you fire off a knee-jerk response like this one. You are capable of questioning information without being condescending.
I didn't have Slashdot set to handle my line breaks correctly. Sorry.
What does any of that have to do with the kernel? I don't think that people comparing desktop operating systems for their next PC are looking at anything in the kernel.
I've got 16GB and don't bother with a swap file/partition at all so everything is cached in ram anyhow. I/O bound apps don't take any longer to load then before and once loaded, the relevent section tends to remain cached instead of written out to swap anyhow - speeds things up quite nicely.
Normal loads only see a total of 8GB in actual use (4GB active - 4GB Cached) with the remainder of the ram free for what ever.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Mavericks introduced some "really cool" bugs, like graphics redrawing issues.
I now regularly have all sorts of static, black borders, and other artifacts around various screen elements. I'm not alone, if you google around.
Please help metamoderate.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use version;
my ($small, $large) = (version->parse('1.4.5'), version->parse('8.7.8'));
print "larger\n" if $small > $large;
print "smaller\n" if $small < $large;
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9941891/perl-compare-operators-and-stringified-numbers
You're complaining that it's not easy to compile your own kernel? I am simultaneously both kind of sympathetic, and not. What is the use case that the average-to-slightly-power-user needs to compile their own kernel for, anyway? (I am actually curious. Hardware support?) And if you're a legit power-user, shouldn't you already know more or less how to do it?
On the other hand, documentation always sucks. ALWAYS. Which is NOT to say that we shouldn't try to make it better.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Far too coherent to be Ballmer.
All your ghosts are just false positives.
So each release can have a structured number to please the geeks and a high number of please the marketing people.
BTRFS is meant for large multi disk arrays, hardly something you see on typical user desktops.
BTRFS work with large multi-disk arrays, but it also has quite a few features suitable for single-disk systems and "typical user desktops", like subvolumes, snapshots, reflinks, data checksumming, compression, online filesystem checks, and optimizations for SSDs. And you never know when you might want to add a new hard drive to an existing desktop; with BTRFS it's trivial to extend an existing single-disk filesystem to include the new drive.
There are still some rough edges, of course, but I think we'll see BTRFS as the default filesystem for at least some user-oriented distributions before too long.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
No, normally - in a sane world - the buggy-as-hell version with all the new features is the x.0 version and the bugfixed version is x.y where y gets bigger as the bugs get smaller.
I wouldn't call the dependencies "nonsensical." My complaints about dependencies are that they aren't sufficiently tunable for expert users without editing the code directly. Features constantly and quickly being added means dependencies brought in to support those features. Some features can't be turned off in the source at all, like TCP fast open. TFO is also a prime example of what I have a problem with: not only is it not removable, but also forces the inclusion of a bunch of encryption options JUST FOR INCLUDING TCP/IPv4.
No, normally - in a sane world - the buggy-as-hell version with all the new features is the x.0 version and the bugfixed version is x.y where y gets bigger as the bugs get smaller.
Only where "sane" is defined as "what rseuhs is used to."
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I'm no stranger to compiling kernels, and my complaints are not that it's "not easy." I build Linux kernel/initramfs combinations that we use in-house, and one of the experimental projects we're working on would require distribution of the smallest possible combination of those two (primarily due to serving customers with crappy rural DSL connections). We still have customers with Celeron machines in the three-digit MHz ranges and much smaller caches than the CPU in a new $300 laptop, so decreasing the kernel's size is helpful, especially with some of the disk-intensive stuff we may run on top of it. Features bring bloat and the work to remove that bloat is not "fun," so developers don't want to do it (and who could blame them?)
Another use case where a tighter kernel may be helpful is one running in a virtualized environment. Since kernel-mode code (even with KVM acceleration) will frequently trigger fallbacks into the hypervisor, we theoretically can minimize these expensive triggers by "running a tighter ship." VMs tend to amplify cache line evictions since two or more kernels are often running on the same physical chip with at least a shared L2 cache between them, and less code in the VM means less cache line evictions.
Where do I go to find the +1 Deranged mod?
For future reference, I found the message for the commit that changed CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START to 16MB from 1MB: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-tip-commits/msg02353.html
Obviously, the One True Version Numbering System is to pick an irrational number, truncate it to an integer (for version 1), and then append a digit to it for each release...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I like the Windows Update ones where it gives you a hex code with the message "an unknown error has occurred". If you know enough about it to give it a code then how can it possibly be an "unknown error"? My first senior programmer would have beaten me with a deck of punchcards for doing something like that. Lazy kids today.
From your description, that's clearly the +++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR +++ +++ REDO FROM START +++ .
Simple, really.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Did anyone else hear the fox football analyst in their heads while reading this?
I heard "Big Balls" by AC/DC.
Follow-up to the minimum RAM aspect:
After changing CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START and its respective alignment parameter from 16MB to 1MB, I can boot a reasonably capable kernel (1975KB gzip, 5MB vmlinux.o) with a BusyBox + uClibc initramfs in QEMU with RAM limited to 13MB. 12MB locks up silently (likely a fault of my initramfs scripts) and 8MB panics due to running out of memory, though I could likely hit 12MB if I just dropped more drivers like CIFS and ethernet controllers. "free" shows 8MB used once the system's up and running from tmpfs, so there's room for most of my shell scripts to get some work done.
It's still nowhere near running in 4MB, and never will be. I do understand that it's not relevant to the vast majority of x86 users, and the main reason I want this capability is so I can play around with (and maybe even USE) an old Compaq Contura Aero 4/25. Fortunately, that was upgraded by the original owner to 12MB of RAM, and if I boot from floppies and don't use initramfs, it'll probably work fine. There's something to be said for an OS in 2013 that can still be used on 1994 hardware! Maybe I can interface the RS-232 port to the SPI-to-ethernet interface I bought a few weeks ago. Hmmmm...
Or you could be thinking of the 5 star General Protection Fault...
You mean, aside from the
etc.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Win 7 isn't too bad but if I had to choose between Vista and MS-DOS..........
I don't understand all this Vista bashing. At least with current updates it is just fine, I use it on an old laptop for heavy (relatively speaking, there's only so much latest browsers can do for modern web sites with 2GB of memory, no matter the OS) web browsing. It's a bit clunkier than Win7, but a lot better than XP ever was.
Yeah. General Protection Fault.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife