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Linux 3.13 Kernel To Bring Major Feature Improvements
An anonymous reader writes "There's many improvements due in the Linux 3.13 kernel that just entered development. On the matter of new hardware support, there's open-source driver support for Intel Broadwell and AMD Radeon R9 290 'Hawaii' graphics. NFTables will eventually replace IPTables; the multi-queue block layer is supposed to make disk access much faster on Linux; HDMI audio has improved; Stereo/3D HDMI support is found for Intel hardware; file-system improvements are on the way, along with support for limiting the power consumption of individual PC components."
So many improvements! Which proves that right now Linux must really suck. It's a good thing then, that Windows, FreeBSD, AIX, Solaris, etc etc can be counted on to suck far worse.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The temperatures in hell are dropping but I am not going to hold my breath as Windows still holds the retailers and manufacturers by the balls to say the least. However with both Intel and AMD actively supporting the Linux kernel this quickly for their most important product lines perhaps a manufacturer like Samsung or Lenovo might actually try to market a real full blown Linux based device for a change instead of just dabbling in Android consumer craptronic devices.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
I still upgrade from time to time, but my attention is more focused on security than any supposed "improvements". I don't want to be the odd guy who is caught with some vulnerability that was fixed eight versions ago.
Some Linux distributors, instead of providing a new kernel that may break old applications or devices, instead backport security fixes to an old kernel.
This is just a cash grab by the Linux developers.
What the next generation actually needs, is to learn to question authority
Apparently somebody's never met a teenager before. :P
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Teenagers don't question authority, by and large. They yell, throw tantrums, stomp their feet, and make a lot of noise, and then once that angst is out of their system, they promptly tend to get to doing whatever it is that the authorities have told them they should do to "get ahead".
In any case, it's not about authority here...the real issue is that to most teenagers, or most people in general, a computer is merely an entertainment device, rather than a powerful tool that can be tailored to one's own needs. It doesn't matter how easy the latest user-friendly scripting language gets, "programming" remains something they envision as involving binary and machine code, purely there for autistic folks and aliens.
What we really need is to integrate programming of SOME kind into the general curriculum of our schoolchildren. And for Christ's sake, leave enough holes open on the local school network for kids to have fun learning to poke holes in the restrictive environment you've set them up in. The classes teach them HOW to do things, and the rebelliousness of getting around the restrictions gets them interested in doing them (and then the combination of heavy handed laws and bug bounty programs bring them back into societal correctness once they enter adulthood...hopefully).
The absolute LAST thing kids need is a user friendly interface. Save those for grandma, give the kid a raspberry pi, a book on Python, and then put them up behind a firewall that blocks most anything their friends will be wasting their time with. Not because you want to keep the kid OFF of such sites, but to make them at least learn a thing or two from time to time in their attempts to waste time in an otherwise purely wasteful manner.
The PS4 is just a low-end gaming PC with a Sony sticker on the front. Of course the games are going to look like something a PC could play a few years ago.
Bcache, merged in 3.11, improves IO up to 100X. Not 100%, 100X, or 10,000%. It may well be worth an upgrade if you're running a distro 2.3x and have random IO on multi TB storage.
When is BTRFS finally going to be declared stable and become default on major distros? Its features were needed years ago. The Copy on Write features are killer features that have been needed on Linux for years, such as to implement a filesystem level versioning, system restore an restore point feature and improved snapshot features. Ext4 is only a stop-gap and Ext is really starting to show its age.