Slashdot Mirror
Linux Kernel 4.4 LTS Officially Released
prisoninmate writes: January 10, 2016, will enter in the Linux history books as the day when the Linux kernel 4.4 LTS (Long-Term Support) has been officially released by Linus Torvalds and his team of hard working kernel developers. Prominent features of Linux kernel 4.4 LTS include 3D support in the virtual GPU driver, allowing for 3D hardware-accelerated graphics in virtualization guests, a leaner and faster loop device that supports Asynchronous I/O and Direct I/O, thus increasing the system's performance and saving memory, and support for Open-Channel Solid State Drives (SSDs) through LightNVM. Phoronix also took a look during the newest kernel's development cycle, and has an overview of 4.4's new features.
play crysis?
Be or ben't
3D support in virtual machines is kind of nice though, I like that.
I don't even know what Open Channel SSDs are, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
For a more complete changelog:
http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux...
I know you're joking, but if I ever have plenty of free time, I'll go here and spend some time figuring out how to boot systemd on the raw metal, making a true systemdOS. And I never joke. j/k. not.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As a person who just installed CentOS 7 for the first time the other day, I have to say that installation and configuration for my purposes takes much less time with CentOS 7 compared to Windows 7.
Add in all the spying shit you have to turn off (or attempt to turn off) in Windows 10, and it's clear that Linux is the option that will cost you less time.
Do you have a specific issue, or are you just worried about a popularity contest?
I've been using it as my primary desktop OS for nearly 18 years now.
They matter on my desktop.
They matter on the desktops of all these administrations over the world that deploy linux operating system.
They matter in all the cloud infrastructure that rely on virtualization for load balancing.
They matter in the data center that are moving toward SSD for I/O.
They matter in 80% of the cell phones in the world that deploy the linux kernel.
Folks, it bothers me that even with all these features, Linux [still] doesn't matter on the desktop. Where are these features really having impact?
Do you feel inadequate if you aren't using the most popular computer OS or something? I never ascribed to the idea thatm one should use Windows because it is the most "popular". I use linux on the desktop because I like it. That's all I need.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Sadly, I don't think systemd is going away anytime soon. The biggest voice behind it (Red Hat) effectively controls the "GNU/Linux" world. The kernel is on a completely different level - it is the base that everything else (including systemd) builds around, and non-GNU Linux versions (like Android) will receive these features.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Only if you are using certain versions of one particular boot loader - which many of us never were using.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Time is money. So, if it doesn't save time, it isn't saving money.
Besides, Linux is meant to boot your machine and provide basic OS service---not save you time or money.
I look at log files almost daily, especially when something goes wrong.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
... how exactly does someone run the latest and greated Linux kernel? My trusty Ubuntu 14.04 shows kernel 3.16. Some work I'm doing in Yocto on a Freescale ARM board shows something like 3.19 for the kernel version. Is there some mysterious bleeding edge distro to be had somewhere that is always up to date on everything, or at least the kernel? Or do I roll my own, install on Ubuntu 14.04 (for example) and hope it all works? Enquiring minds want to know!
Look at the subject for fuck sake, anybody with any clue about this knows that this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with systemd. What do you expect the kernel developers are supposed to do about systemd? Do you understand what systemd is? Obviously not. Do you understand what Linux is? Again obviously not. Part of the reason the genuine criticism of systemd was ignored is because it was drowned out by nitwits like you who don't have a clue what you're talking about and just want so desperately to feel important that you just inject yourself into a chinese-whispers echo chamber. Asking the kernel developers if they have done "fixed the systemd problem" is completely nonsensical.
Additionally Microsoft releases fucked versions of Windows every 5 minutes and despite that and the ease of which it is to install desktop Linux distros (both long before and after systemd) the vast majority of people still rather use Windows than dektop Linux distros. Microsoft doesnt have anything to fear from desktop Linux, the next Windows version could require the user to communicate in binary by banging 2 rocks together while Nadella climbs in your ass with a camera to make sure your TPM chip is working correctly and people would *still* rather use that than desktop Linux.
you can't fix everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Yes the only way to escape the systemd Insert is to use an older but still supported long term distro or find some that have moved away from systemd.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Like doing the work of actually supporting the alternatives yourself. I have a regular day job. I spend nights and weekends packaging software for a popular GNU/Linux distribution. I'm not alone. I have better things to do than to make sure that everything works with every possible combination of systemd or non-systemd just because a few people have something against it. If you think it's so important to not use systemd then you better step up and do the work yourself.
Folks, it bothers me that even with all these features, Linux [still] doesn't matter on the desktop.
Well, the thing is - "the desktop" matters less now than it ever has before.
#DeleteChrome
Get Tumbleweed. It's a rolling release -- it stays up to date with a reasonable week or two lag (to allow for stability testing). Currently runs kernel 4.3.3, suspect it will go to 4.4 in a few weeks. Been using it a while now and really enjoy it.
You CAN use a bleeding-edge distro but you don't need to if you just want a new kernel. Unlike Windows, you can use a new kernel with an older userland or vice-versa. You can update the kernel without updating the "operating system". (Modulo fucking systemd.)
Your bootloader will let you choose the kernel when you boot, and you can set it to fallback to a known-good kernel, so there is little to no risk in trying different ones. I tend to keep the last three kernels I used, just because there is no reason not to. /boot should be 200MB+ these days anyway.
There are a lot of tutorials about compiling kernels, but one point you'll want to know is that you can (and should) start with your old kernel config as a base. (There are many options you can configure in the kernel). The new kernel will probably work fine with the old config. Once you're happy that your new kernel is working fine, you can start changing some config and compiling another copy if you want to. There are many things you can choose to include in your kernel, exclude, or compile as a module. Compiling it as a module is best for most things on a desktop or laptop. The system will only load the hardware modules it needs, and any other modules can be loaded and unloaded as desired while the system is running. Compiling a module just gives you the OPTION to use it or not.
Items you need in order to access the disk should be compiled into the kernel. You can't load a module from disk if you can't yet access the disk. :)
80% of computers sold last year were SOCs (mobiles). Another x% were servers. So the desktop market is maybe 15% of the market. More Linux systems were sold last year than Windows systems and the trend is increasing each year.
With that said, who said Linux doesn't matter on the desktop? It matters on MY desktop, and has for 15 years. For most of the last 15 years, I worked for an information security company, so Microsoft software was not allowed on the company network. All desktops and laptops were Linux, no as were some firewalls, load balancers, most servers, etc.
If you have problems with the prevalence of Linux on the desktop the kernel is likely the least of your concern.
I guess I'm just an old fart that happened to adapt to SMF early on. All the complaints were the same, now every last Solaris holdout will shove SMF in your face if you try to do a comparison to Linux.
Honestly, the SMF manifests are somewhat easier to understand, but systemd is more powerful. And systemd is only going to get better, as they have motivated ppl. behind the project, unlike Mr. Ellision that can't wait until Solaris meets the deuce.
Yes. After years of "releases" that were mainly just support for obscure hardware and bug/security fixes, this offering might actually be worth the effort of upgrading my existing systems to.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Assuming the average nerd weighs 100 kg a metric ton is just 10 people.
Which effectively doubles the *BSD user base, of course. :-)
Yes, the term is largely meaningless. It seems to me that LTS actually means that so long as you don't need to upgrade any third-party applications (that inevitably have dependencies on newer, non-LTS, libraries), then any bugs you report might get fixed - provided you're a MAJOR PLAYER in the Linux arena with clout and someone in the support team is bored enough to choose to fix bugs ... and picks on yours as being easy enough to tackle.
So it's long-term support, all right. Just so long as you don't change anything that hasn't been "blessed" by whoever is providing that support. Of course, by the end of the LTS period, your system will be so out of date, that the only way to upgrade it will be to wipe it and start over. Ho, hum.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I thought it was supposed to natively support upgrading without needing to reboot. :/ I should probably read the article but I have standards. To me, that's the most interesting thing. It can be done with kexec right now (I think?) but having it native and automated would be kind of nice. I might never have to reboot again! That'll save like 30 seconds every month! Or, more seriously, just let me keep doing what I'm doing without feeling an urge to reboot and load the new kernel.
For the record, I have kexec installed on this computer but I don't think I've ever bothered reading the man pages and using it. I probably should.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
from reading it, anyone can see it was the most lame-assed troll so it deserved its mod value.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
yawn..... trolling of a desperate nature detacted
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
They matter in 80% of the cell phones in the world that deploy the linux kernel.
Not really, all those phones are stuck at 3.xx. You'll have to wait for quite a long time to have 80% of all phones (or even Android phones) to reach 4.4.
Let me preface this by saying that I am not, by any means, a professional Linux administrator. I did, on the other hand, admin a bunch of servers as a part of my profession but those were mostly Unix and then Windows and then I hired competent professionals.
That said, I'd love to hate SystemD. I love me a good hate-fest. I keep pre-pitched torches at the ready and carry a fold-away assault pitchfork. I have various servers at home, some running on real server hardware, and a whole network of computers. (What self-respecting geek doesn't?) I have more VMs than I possibly need, doing things that I have no idea what I was thinking at the time, and am connected to my system in Maine via the most convoluted route possible. I have co-lo equipment that sits mostly idle and houses a few friend's sites and that's about it... It doesn't really do much of anything but, damn it, I have it!
You know what almost all these various computers have in common? Oh, they've got a whole host of distros on them - I'm not even sure I can quickly figure out which one is which any more. My topography looks like it was designed by a crack-addled five year old with admin privileges. I'm currently using a Live USB (Lubuntu), through a VPN, to my house, in a VM, to the 'net, through a VPN - and I'm skipping a few steps to keep it simple for you. This thing, for lack of a better word, shouldn't even run - never mind be stable. But this thing, with all these distros, has that one thing in common that I asked about. It's SystemD.
Yup. I guess they all have Linux in common but they sure as hell don't all have the same version of the kernel. So, there's that. But, they do all have SystemD (except for a few VMs - those are BSD, Minix, Indiana, and a few others but those don't actually get booted very often) for the most part. The all seem to work. Oh, I tried to hate SystemD. Yet, it's not caused me a single problem yet. I learned a few new comments, I've surely done something that should have broken it by now, and I've even read parts of the man pages.
Oh, I know it's not the Unix Way. Well, except it could be 'cause the Unix Way has exceptions. I know, it's got binary logging but - you can actually read those logs with a few different tools if you need to. I haven't needed to so I won't say that they work well but I'm told they work well enough. Yes, it does more than it needs to and it's not what we're used to. Meh, I'm okay with that - staying static is nice for some things and avoiding monolithic things is a good idea. Yet, it works. It works fine for me. I know, I am not everyone but I suspect the vast majority of the people complaining haven't actually used it. Even Hairyfeet complains and he's a Windows user - he's an ardent opponent of SystemD but he's probably never even tried a distro with it.
So, yeah, my pitchfork is starting to get rusty and needs to be sharpened again. My torches were lit but I just dunked 'em in water 'cause there didn't appear to be any monster that needed slaying. It's too bad, I had enough torches to go around. I want to hate it - I really do. It's not that I have some great skill that keeps it working - it works DESPITE my best efforts to screw things up. Oh, I screw up lots of things but it's not yet been the fault of SystemD nor has it prevented me from repairing my mistakes.
I dunno... I notice lots of lists of things people hate. I notice very few anecdotes of how it has harmed them. I've noticed even less actual compilations of data concerning it. If it's that bad then, well, we should have some data and someone would have compiled it. (The data, not systemd.) If a bumbling idiot, such as myself, can manage it - and not have a problem, then it seems only logical that smarter folks can figure it out, no? I mean, hell, I'm in a Live USB environment because I hosed GRUB again and I've not yet rebooted after fixing it. You'd think that, by now, SystemD would have been a problem for me. I kind of wish it had, then I could blame my mistakes on it.
What? I made a typo?!? It's
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That and it's not root access. It's just the bootloader. It's not even a very valuable security tool to use. There are few reasons to even have used that feature and to rely on it solely seems foolhardy. I could see it in use at a kiosk but one shouldn't be allowing physical access to the computers there nor allow users to issue reboot commands from there. All-in-all, a bug but not a very important bug and overblown by people who seem to think it gave potential "root" access by itself. It's not their fault that they were misled, it's their fault that they didn't actually take the time to learn better.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It used to be that Linux was dependable for cool stuff, but the BSDs are just dependable, that's my first impression.
This is an article about the linux kernel. Random systemd complaints like the one you champion so are offtopic and very annoying. While systemd affects the greater GNU/Linux ecosystem, it has squat-all to do with the kernel.
I don't have mod points right now, and so didn't have to spend my mod points on -1-offtopic'ing the shrill anti-systemd crowd that try to hijack any vaguely linux-related thread. I was glad to see that someone else did most of the work already; but lots of this offtopic thread still needs to be modded down, present comment included.
And seriously, about 90% of the systemd rants, whines, complaints are completely offtopic--it's an annoying monomania, like watching a certain other monomaniac who seems to believe that the windows hosts file is relevant to any discussion. Seems like only about 1 in 10 of you people knows how to actually bend your agenda into an actual on-topic post. "When will the systemd problem be fixed" is not in any way on-topic in a discussion of a new kernel release and its support term, because--warning, technical information ahead--systemd isn't part of the kernel, doesn't come from the kernel team. The kernel is completely init-agnostic.
I know I won't convince you people with logic and perspective, but I hope that this information helps you to understand that it's not a grand shashdot conspiracy against you--you're just annoying and offtopic, and people like me are modding you appropriately.
The only problem systemd causes is it gives voice to people whining about systemd. In other respects it works as intended and completely satisfactorily.
You could consider debian KFreeBSD instead, it's debian with the FreeBSD kernel - and it's not got systemd and probably never will.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
You can't expect the anti-systemd crowd to know that systemd is not a relevant topic in the discussion of the kernel. They literally have no idea how Linux works. They constantly make absurd and baseless claims like " Any time I've tried using Linux lately on my computers I've experienced problems with systemd.". In order to believe that you would have to believe that the majority of users experience problems with systemd. It's like the "Don't trust SSDs!" crowd. They latch on to a technology that had a rough start and then try to claim that it is just as rough today as it was three years ago. The goal isn't to change the minds of Linux users, who would readily know that their claims are bullshit. The goal is to keep people away from Linux who might otherwise switch. I mean, I can't imagine who might have that goal of course, but clearly someone does. (To be fair it is likely a combo of M$ shills and other nayer-say-wells, like the guy who constantly gets bit by his own incompetence and blames the tool for his aborted creation.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
If you are going to spell something out, you should have a clue how to spell it. You don't. Now off you go little fucktard ...
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You are probably talking about live-kernel patching (kGraft - Suse, kpatch - RedHat, sort of similar to ksplice - now Oracle).
Because that is all it is:
security updates without reboot.
Not: new functionality or large bugfixes.
kexec is cool, but kexec just means: faster reboot into new kernel (no waiting on the BIOS, etc.). The old kernel starts a new kernel directly.
The people from CRIU (save and restore running processes) want to combine their solution with kexec so you can do fast upgrades eventually:
"When replacing a kernel on a box we can do it without stopping critical activity. Checkpoint it, then replace the kernel (e.g. using kexec) then restore services back. In a perfect world the applications memory shouldn't be put to disk image, but should rather be kept in RAM."
https://criu.org/Usage_scenari...
I don't think a patch for PRAM has been accepted yet: https://lwn.net/Articles/55704...
The CRIU developers can save/restore a lot of things, but I don't think they can do it for everything yet.
New things are always on the horizon
You may be of the opinion that the OS doesn't matter but after billions and billions of dollars MS spent on development and marketing, they don't buy phones with Windows on them.
> or Android could have easily been BSD based.
And every Dell, HP, and Compaq desktop could have easily be running Mac, had Apple chosen to allow that. Mitt Romney could have president. That's not what happened.
Cool, thanks. I've never compiled and used my own kernel. I've bookmarked the Ubuntu documentation page and I might just have to give that a shot. I guess I could wait patiently for it to come down the pipe. Knowing it was coming was why I've not played with kexec yet - I figured that 4.4 was going to be here and an earlier announcement had said that it would have the ability to do security patches without the reboot. That's the feature that I'm most looking forward to - it's the feature that's most likely to actually impact me - a non-professional, largely, end-user.
I don't, for example, consider myself an admin though I do sort of hold that role as I have a number of servers and desktops, even remote hardware in a couple locations, and do all that work myself by asking loads of questions when I need to. Being able to patch without rebooting is a step in the right direction for me - it takes away one more point of potential failure/mishap. (A box not coming back online, from remote, after applying an update is a potential for some frustration.) So, for me, that's the biggest thing I'm looking forward to. I don't need 3D in a VM or anything like that. I do make use of a lot of VMs but that's just to play with various operating systems and I use VMware and don't game.
Hopefully it works well. I haven't really noticed a whole lot of people talking about it in the various groups. I'm actually kind of excited (as odd as it might sound) to have that feature. Maybe I'm expecting too much or it's not what I think it is? I dunno - it looks like, from my reading, you described it - patching to a new version while the system is live and the kernel is loaded in memory. Seems straight forward enough. Maybe I'm just excited about odd things... *shrugs* I'll make sure that I sit and watch it when it happens the first line it goes from 4.4 to 4.4.x. I'm also probably too easily amused.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Then don't use a linux that has systemd :) simple :D seriously there are a few out there from PCLinuxOS to Slackware to Duvian (sp) etc no reason to use what you don't want :)
Alie
http://chimpbox.us
live kernel patching is not kexec.
kexec is an old feature, kexec is not new.
You can do kexec with old kernels on Ubuntu right now. You can just try it on your desktop machine.
install kexec-tools the setting to enable kexec are in /etc/default/kexec I assume on Ubuntu.
Then do a reboot, if you've done everything right, you won't see a BIOS screen, just an Ubuntu shutdown and Ubuntu start up. And it will be faster because of it.
Live kernel patching is only for security updates and you'll want to wait for your distribution to build them.
It is not the normal process of building a kernel.
How it is done: they build a special type of kernel-module.
Then they load the kernel-module with a tool.
The kernel-module is then used instead of the original running code of the kernel.
It will probably end up being part of the normal process of installing security updates.
I think they'll first target the LTS-releases (that is the kind of environment where you'd expect automatic install of security updates is more likely).
New things are always on the horizon
systemd works great for millions of people. I am sure most of them did not even notice the change (unless their distro was previously using sysvinit and their boot got much faster). So either you only tried systemd on a really buggy distro, maybe a development release, or you did had some complicated set of custom boot scripts that broke, or you have a really odd hardware setup. Most distros still write the old ascii log files, so i don't see how debugging could be harder.
Also live kernel patching also don't really help you with remote hardware.
Maybe the opposite.
Because in case live kernel patching you don't reboot with the new kernel, just keep it running the old kernel with only the security patch applied.
That could mean you did not test the normal way of booting with the new kernel.
So when the machine does reboot unexpectedly (like power failure) it might not boot normally because you didn't test booting the new kernel after installing the security update.
New things are always on the horizon
When you understand how Linux development works get back to us. I can assure you that every change is made based on technical merits. You can get your favourite feature added. You just need to submit extremely solid code that will withstand peer review by many of the most competent OS Engineers on the planet. (I admit, that really means you can't get your changes included, but that is because you are not highly competentb, not because you don't work for Red Hat.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Once again, somne douchebag with no clue what he is talking about posts as an AC on Slashdot. There was a time when a moron who didn't know the difference between a bootloader and a kernel would be modded to oblivion and flamed ad infinitum, but alas Slashdot is no longer frequented mostly by competent people.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Hmm... Valid point but probably not entirely too problematic. My whole house is a UPS of sorts. I have solar and wind and use the mains as a backup but I pull from the batteries in the basement and not from the sources directly. There are also two generators with one being a bit smaller and a fail-over. (I live way out in the middle of middle of nowhere NW Maine.) Only the server in the basement is an actual server with a redundant power supply so it could still suck. Methinks I've got some learning to do. :D Thanks. (I'm comfortable and happy to learn new stuff - there are loads of things I don't know.) The co-lo server is in a data center with actual power backups that are, they say, better than my own.
I'm pretty remote - remote enough to where I had to pay for them to put in a CO and run new wires so that I can get DSL at home. (I'm not there now, I'm cheating and in Florida for the winter.) The using of mains as my backup isn't entirely abnormal up there. It's an unincorporated township with just six full-time residencies and we're just about the last place that gets power turned back on when storms take it out. We really can't rely on it - but I keep the mains connection just in case, plus I can push excess out into the grid and earn credits for it. I've been constantly generating over capacity since I had the second turbine put in, so I think I should be pretty good now.
As a tangentially related aside; I sometimes here people suggesting that we do away with copper and run nothing but fiber everywhere. More than once have I seen the telephone line physically on the ground, with trees on it in various places, and still had connectivity. It wasn't full speed connectivity but the throughput was good enough to still stream documentaries from the 'net. I guess I'm hardly the paragon of rustic individual people might think when I tell them the first part. ;-) Worst case? I can usually still hit a couple of bars worth of connectivity from the cell tower. I would like to get a redundant DSL connection that comes in from the other end but I think it would be cost prohibitive. Just getting the lines and the CO was a bit pricey.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It can be done with kexec right now (I think?) but having it native and automated
What could possibly go wrong with allowing automated patching of the running kernel...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
What the hell are you talking about? Do you even know? I certainly didn't make any "baseless insults". Indeed there wasn't a single insult in the post, let alone a baseless one. You seem to think that calling an incompetent moron like yourself an incompetent moron is baseless. On the contrary, while it is an insult, it certainly isn't baseless.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Logs are for the rare occasions when something *does* go wrong. Saying "when was the last time you needed a log" is a vacuous statement unless the product is 100.00% reliable.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
People might talk about electric cars like it's something new... ;-)
But your house already works more or less like a submarine.
They however use diesel/gas to charge the batteries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Anyway, if you have a couple of hundred servers, you'd still want to reboot them after live-patching occasionally even if you have your power sources are OK (I've seen datacenters going down because of airconditioning failing). Because if to many servers fail at the same time, you'd have a long downtime for at least part of the servers.
Clearly not your situation.
Judging by your comments on the other article, you might have more cars than servers. ;-)
New things are always on the horizon
I have, now, more cars than servers. I once had the opposite but I had, eventually, professionals to manage them. I only held the roles of IT and programmer because I needed to, not because I was particularly skilled. In fact, USENET saved my bacon more often than I can count. I don't even bother to lie and pretend I was good. :( No, I actually *hated* computers at first.
Ah, one of my favorite quotes from a fairly new programmer that I'd hired. I was still "helping" then.
"Code comments go in the code, not on coffee soaked index cards, asshole."
That's pretty much verbatim. I hired smart people, learned to give them what they asked for, gave them clear directions, and got out of the way. I'm a maths geek. I was more interested in the algorithms than the code. I wrote code because I had to. I tried everything from BASIC, to QBASIC, to Perl, to C. I settled on C but they rewrote the whole thing in C++ in the late 1990s.
The hardware was fun but, at times, I was over my head. Oh, things worked eventually. I learned a lot, I broke a lot. I worked a lot of hours - sometimes sleeping in the office and not seeing home for days, even if I was "home." I spent countless weeks, months, and years out of state and working in various field offices, cramped in a hotel room with a bunch of gear, or working in a spare office at some municipality's basement office while connected to the fragile system that was the main office.
Without those guys, without you (I presume), I'd have not gotten very far. Well, not this far. Instead, with you, I got to ride the crest of the wave that was traffic modeling. I got to do new things in new and different ways. It was exciting, fun, and enjoyable. I feel fortunate, I am fortunate, and I no longer hate computers. We were clustering servers in the mid-1990s. We had drive arrays that allowed us to work with a data set that was nearly a full terabyte in size by the end of the 1990s. It was expensive but it was exciting. I learned a lot but not nearly enough, I've also not been gainfully employed (so to speak) since selling and retiring 8 years ago.
So, yes, I have more cars than I have servers. I generally don't really fix those either. I can, I guess. But, like the servers of yore, I'd rather hire a competent professional because smacking your knuckles and splitting them open really kind of sucks. And, for the record, I've cut myself on way too many racks, workstations, and other assorted hardware bits with stupidly sharp edges. The old power cables on the IDE HDDs (pre-SSD days) were often good for a band-aid. Not the cable itself but when it finally pops loose. For some reason, I always forget/forgot to rock 'em side to side or that didn't always work so I'd have to tug on 'em.
As an aside: I've always kept Linux installed on a partition - since the 90s, on my home computers. But, I'd really spent way too much time in Windows. I'd boot to Linux, maybe use it for recovery, keep it updated, or try something for a little while. I had a few servers with Linux on them but, even there, I used Windows more often than not. That was it. Sometimes I'd have a VM and play with that for a while. I realized my brain was turning to mush and that I wasn't learning anything. So, I slowly started using Linux more (probably for a couple of years) but still not much. Finally, I just said to hell with it and switched entirely and deleted my Windows partitions on everything. Other than my phone (oddly, I have a Windows phone - it's actually nice), I've got nothing but Linux now. There's lots of things for me to learn and all sorts of motivation for me to do so. Thus, I try to suck up all the information I can.
Which leads me to this:
Thanks! I seriously appreciate someone who takes a minute of their most precious asset (time) to help me understand something better.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That's what they tell me, but of course, my Debian systems using systemd actually still seem to log the same old stuff to the same old files. :)
Not a whole lot that's major - it's me, my home servers, and desktops. If I break something then I learn something new as I'm fixing it. I actually make it a point to try to break stuff in new and interesting ways - it's how I learn to fix it and, with fixing it, I learn new stuff. How to make this short?
I'm retired. I used Unix for quite a while. I then used Windows. During that spell, I also used Unix (Solaris) on the workstations. I poked at Linux when it came out, or not long after. I kept using Windows. I mostly kept Linux installed on a partition but did little with it - some restoration, backup, or repair work - or just to update, play, poke, and maybe learn a little. I sometimes had Linux in a VM - maybe a server or two at home. Not much, really. I had dual boot configured but I never really bothered with it. A couple of years ago, I decided to use Linux more often and I sort of did but not really. I still just kept booting into Windows. I wasn't learning anything new, my brain was turning into a bowl of oatmeal, and I decided to change. So, I did something drastic. I let my MSDN subscription expire, deleted all my Windows partitions, reformatted everything, and installed pretty much every one of the major distros listed at DistroWatch (like all of 'em, at least in a VM). (Really, like all of 'em.)
Since then (about a year now), I've continued to poke, to play, to learn, to grow, and to continue to use Linux exclusively as a desktop/server. I do have a recently purchased Windows phone as I was tired of Android.
So, what can possibly go wrong? Nothing, really. It's not like these are production servers. It'd just be me breaking my own stuff and I've learned to not just keep good backups but to keep almost all data stored elsewhere, on a server, or at the least in a distinct /home directory. I wouldn't let me near a production server with a root password. Good heavens, no. I'd not pretend I was *capable* of that job. Not now, not yet, and probably not for a long time. In fact, I usually make a clear distinction that I am not, and should not be considered, a professional.
Hmm... That was actually kind of concise for me. :D
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I have not yet not found a log that I was unable to read. (That's English, right?) I am downstream from you - I'm in the Ubuntu family (more often than not) but I prefer Lubuntu. At this point, and I'm a silent subscriber to all sorts of mailing lists, I have to wonder how many of those people who register their complaints here (and at a few other sites) are actually Linux users or have problems?
Now, as I said, I'm not a professional admin and I'll be the first one to mention that. That means, feel free to discard anything I say or take it with a grain of salt. I'm okay with either, my ego is not that frail. I make more mistakes in a day than some folks make in a month. I'm okay with that - that's how I learn. If I'm not breaking something then I'm not learning. I'm old, I don't want to stagnate. Err... 58 is old. Trust me on this one. I've had a rather eventful and active life. Bits of me ache in the morning - bits that I didn't even know I had and I swear, I feel my brain plasticizing. It really gets more difficult to grasp stuff - that's why I switched to using Linux exclusively.
That said, I don't really feel comfortable saying this next part because it sounds like an accusation and I'm not in a position to judge. But... I think it needs to be asked. How many people are having issues, perhaps of their own making, and laying the blame on SystemD because they are unable to properly place the blame, made a mistake they don't want to own up to, or are otherwise inept? Remember, some percentage of people are the least competent systems administrators in the field.
That should not be seen as a specific accusation directed any particular person, of course. But, how many of the complaints are of that type? Another thing is that happy people don't tend to speak up. I'm kind of in an odd position - I restarted my Linux use and then went through the SystemD change (in various distros) not long after. I'm inept with both init systems! Oh, I'm not kidding... You saw how I gave a description of my connection to this very page? Yeah... I did that *on purpose.* I wouldn't let me near a production server and I sure as hell wouldn't place any more stock in my views other than that as someone who's actually trying to be objective and is able to break most anything. I'm still booted to that same Live USB, by the way.
So, I haven't had a problem. It has even been helpful. I wrote "comments" earlier but I meant to say that I'd learned a few new commands. I've actually made good use of some of them. If something's flaked out then I know to check journalctl and whatnot. I can grep (sort of) and maybe find stuff - with some help from Google and some notes that I've kept. If it doesn't start then I can chroot into it and have a look around and see what's wrong. I keep good backups but don't actually rely on them much - I'd rather fix stuff than repair stuff now. I'm getting more comfortable, I kind of understand the actual processes and what is happening and why - like I was much more adept at with a Windows system. Hell, I was awarded a Microsoft MVP for quite a few years before I gave up participating and just paid for my own damned MSDN subscription. (Shell, IE/OE, and Security awards. Meh, something like six years.)
I really do have a knack for breaking stuff - and I try. That's how I learn. I break it, I fix it, and in the process I learn why I broke it, why what I did fixed it, and how to not break it again in the future. (Sometimes that last one takes a few lessons.) If there's a button - I'll poke it. If there's a bash command, I'll run it. (Well, within reason. I do keep good backups for a reason.)
Yet, everything else has been broken by now - I've been doing this for a couple of years and a year in earnest, SystemD has not caused me one issue. I can even add services to the startup, programs to the startup, disable 'em, change 'em delay 'em, and (I think) make 'em check for failure and restart. Yet, strangely enough, it hasn't broken and I've not yet found a log I couldn't read.
Ah well.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Yeah, I didn't mean you specifically; rather the idea of this being a feature added to the mainline kernel for everybody, which sounds like a potential attack vector not unlike the ability to reflash your BIOS from software to me.
I was kind of casually messing around with Linux (LiveCDs, then within a year or two a dual-boot) since not too long after I started college (headed towards 10 years ago now? damn.), but the limit of my expertise on that front was basically googling enough to get some desktop stuff configured.
Then my first job out of college had us on Fedora workstations so I picked up some bash and command line stuff and emacs. Since I gradually got more used to being on the command line than using Windows Explorer* I ended up booting Mint most of the time. Then when my old tower gave out this last summer, I got a x64 Windows 8.1 machine that doesn't let me run the several 1995-2002-era games that I bothered booting Windows at all for, basically. So now they're in an XP VM and I'm trying not to think about wrestling with the update arm-twisting on 8 again next time I boot it, now ;)
* Tab complete is so much faster if you know where you're going, right? And it seems like whenever I search for anything in Explorer it always tries to tell me it doesn't exist when I definitely know it does. Now with a simple(ish) grep wrapper and a pipe or two I can actually FIND things that I search for! :)
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
To be honest, and Unix implement is an alternative. I have systems at home running Solaris (8-10), IRIX (6.5.29), and OS X (10.4 and 10.5 on PPC, 10.6 and 10.7 on Intel); I used to use HP-UX and AIX, and I've got a bit of FreeBSD experience at this point too. It's the Linux crowd that really likes to piss off its users.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Systemd is a pain in my side as an admin, and when I do help with open source software systemd isn't a concern of mine - Linux isn't my only target when it comes to software, it's Unix compatibility in general (actually, Linux compatibility isn't my main concern anymore either).
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
No problem.
If you want I can send you my email address for more direct contact. Is that outlook address I see a real address ?
New things are always on the horizon
It is. I was really quite pleased to get that address. I jumped at the chance. I didn't really want a new email address but I just had to have the name - I caught the Outlook offering new email on the first day or close to it. I typed it in to see, my name was already taken, and there it was. So, I grabbed it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Non-systemd linux distributions, 67 of them: http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I use stderr frequently in development. It's convenient.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Linux Kernel 4.4 LTS? There is no such thing. It is Linux Kernel 4.4, and which vendors support it and for how long is up to them. Maintainer patches to a stable branch may only go on for a year or two, if that. After that it is pretty much up to various vendors.