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Bad Lockup Bug Plagues Linux

jones_supa (887896) writes "A hard to track system lockup bug seems to have appeared in the span of couple of most recent Linux kernel releases. Dave Jones of Red Hat was the one to first report his experience of frequent lockups with 3.18. Later he found out that the issue is present in 3.17 too. The problem was first suspected to be related to Xen. A patch dating back to 2005 was pushed for Xen to fix a vmalloc_fault() path that was similar to what was reported by Dave. The patch had a comment that read "the line below does not always work. Needs investigating!" But it looks like this issue was never properly investigated. Due to the nature of the bug and its difficulty in tracking down, testers might be finding multiple but similar bugs within the kernel. Linus even suggested taking a look in the watchdog code. He also concluded the Xen bug to be a different issue. The bug hunt continues in the Linux Kernel Mailing List."

7 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But guys... by multisync · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought open source software was supposed to be better because everyone could see the code and spot problems.

    It is, they can and do.

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    I don't care why you're posting AC
  2. Re:But guys... by itzly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's why having a bug is worthy of a news item.

  3. Re:But guys... by itzly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is not unique to open source software. Closed source code also is complex, and lacks developers. Bugs that aren't reported by big customers are easily ignored.

  4. Re:What's happening to Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Linux support in a nutshell: blame the user.

  5. Re:Upgrade to Windows for improved stability! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You must be an idiot then. Windows is "dumbed down" for idiots that can't think.

  6. Re:Come on Slashdot, get your news current by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A Microsoft bug, proof of the incompetence of closed source.
    A Linux bug. Either point to some closed source factor, or claim its solving a victory in the flexibility of open source.

    So much this. I know every time I report a bug to Microsoft, I have a fix from the lead Windows architect in under three weeks. I don't understand what these linux wankers are on about.

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    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  7. Re:What's happening to Linux? by brantondaveperson · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Linux is for embedded, and for servers. It excels in both areas, and should rightly be admired for what it has achieved. Linux on the desktop though, is an exercise in futility. The reason is that a desktop user interface is at least an order of magnitude more complex and nuanced that writing a server OS. Not to mention the fact that building a coherent desktop user experience requires pretty solid leadership - something the Open Source community necessarily lacks.

    Sorry guys, but that's just how it is. Carry on playing with your desktops, and your Unity and your Pulseaudio and all that. I'm sure it's fun, and I'm sure that I'd have been pretty into it when I used to write code as a hobby. But it's probably best if you just stop trying to pretend that what you're building is in any way comparable to either Windows or OS X.