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Linus Finally Releases Linux 4.15 Kernel, Blames Intel For Delay (phoronix.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Linus Torvalds has released Linux 4.15 following the lengthy development cycle due to the Spectre v2 and Meltdown CPU vulnerability mitigation work. This update comes with many kernel improvements including RISC-V architecture support, AMDGPU Display Code support, Intel Coffee Lake graphics support, and many other improvements.
"This obviously was not a pleasant release cycle, with the whole meltdown/spectre thing coming in in the middle of the cycle and not really gelling with our normal release cycle," Linus writes. "The extra two weeks were obviously mainly due to that whole timing issue... [T]he news cycle notwithstanding, the bulk of the 4.15 work is all the regular plodding 'boring' stuff. And I mean that in the best possible way. It may not be glamorous and get the headlines, but it's the bread and butter of kernel development, and is in many ways the really important stuff.
"Go forth and play with it, things actually look pretty good despite everything. And obviously this also means that the merge window for 4.16 is open... Hopefully we'll have a _normal_ and entirely boring release cycle for 4.16. Because boring really is good."
"This obviously was not a pleasant release cycle, with the whole meltdown/spectre thing coming in in the middle of the cycle and not really gelling with our normal release cycle," Linus writes. "The extra two weeks were obviously mainly due to that whole timing issue... [T]he news cycle notwithstanding, the bulk of the 4.15 work is all the regular plodding 'boring' stuff. And I mean that in the best possible way. It may not be glamorous and get the headlines, but it's the bread and butter of kernel development, and is in many ways the really important stuff.
"Go forth and play with it, things actually look pretty good despite everything. And obviously this also means that the merge window for 4.16 is open... Hopefully we'll have a _normal_ and entirely boring release cycle for 4.16. Because boring really is good."
Servers
Headlines are for creating an emotional reaction in people to make them more likely to click on the article to read and/or comment. Guess who it worked on?
systemd is not a part of the kernel. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here, assuming that you didn't realize that. If you don't like systemd and want to use Linux there are various options that I've considered, but not tried. There's Devuan, Slackware, etc., i.e. various distributions that don't use it at all. Or, if you want, you can customize a Debian or Gentoo installation to not use systemd. I'm not sure how long that will be possible, but it is for now.
There are also things like blackbox Linux or Linux from Scratch with allow you to assemble a system with only those pieces you desire.
That said, there are also arguments in favor of various of the BSDs. I would probably have tried them out over systemd if they could handle read/write of ext4 filesystems. There are systems I could use as an intermediate if I felt strongly enough, but systemd may not have given me any advantages, but the problems haven't been very significant, so I've never bothered.
And if you're a troll, at least this was a place to reasonably inform anyone who trusted you.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I agree that kernel changes are important, but this article is really light on what those changes are. A name doesn't tell you much unless you already know what that name stands for. I can't tell whether I have any reason to care about this update or not.
In fact, I'm rather annoyed by the way kernel changes reporting is done. Most articles that even pretend to be instructive pass you a link to a change log as if it were an explanation. I'm not a kernel hacker, and I don't really want to be one. I've got other things on my plate. So usually I just end up assuming that whatever the changes are they won't make any difference to me. This time there was the mention of certain specific drivers being included, and those don't matter to me. But at least that was intelligible. I'm guessing that this kernel DOESN'T include the Spectre fix, but that's a guess. (An earlier version apparently included it as a default choice with optional disabling...unless that was Meltdown.)
So I consider kernel news important, but done so poorly as to be annoyingly confusing.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.