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Linux 4.16 Released (phoronix.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Linus Torvalds has released Linux 4.16. Linux 4.16 integrates more of the VirtualBox guest drivers into the kernel, provides AMDGPU DC multi-display synchronization, continues with mitigation improvements for Spectre and Meltdown mitigation, tightens up access to /dev/mem by default, and many other improvements and changes.

13 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Linux 4.16 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    For Linus so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Kernel that whosoever uses Linux should not perish, but have everlasting uptime.

  2. Re:So much bloat by fibonacci8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mac OS L, HURD 3.0, or, BeOS Warp will probably exist around the time that monolithic kernels get too big for their britches. Get back to us when you've tried them, if you please.

    --
    Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
  3. Re:Windows 10 interface + Linux kernel by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Informative

    When?

    How Microsoft made Linux run on Windows was by adding hooks through an abstract layer. Unfortunately, Windows was designed with a HAL (hardware abstract layer) from the beggining when David Cutler wanted to make it portable across hardware. Win64 and wow32 (win32onwin64) are really layers on top of the kernel for runtimes. Linux is another one.

    Linux is a macro-kernel so this would be messy (reminds me of the old Linux is obsolete it isn't a micro kernel debate from Andy Tannabum) but could be I guess possible if someone wanted to a winapi including NDIS and lord knows what else hooks into the linux kernel itself.

    Then a daemon could use those hooks and launch the inverse of WSL that is on Windows 10 to run binaries.

    Also keep in mind at this time only console linux apps work on Windows. This is because the OpenGL and device driver API and ABI's have not been ported yet. On Windows everything is gui based :-(

    So this would not be easy or possible unless one wants to just run win32 powershell scripts and dos commands.

  4. Re:Windows 10 interface + Linux kernel by F.Ultra · · Score: 2

    WSL is not Linux on Windows. It's GNU/Windows, nothing more.

  5. Re:Windows 10 interface + Linux kernel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    WSL is not "GNU" anything. It's proprietary, it's a compatibility layer, and it's not complete enough to actually make most Linux based code work. If you think I'm kidding, try any X based application, sshd, and httpd.

    httpd compiles and runs fine on WSL

    Every x apps I tried runs fine as well, didnt try sshd though.

  6. No AI? by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    What? No AI engine? What about a smart assistant? This Linus guy obviously doesn't know much about operating systems.

  7. Re: Worst day to release a new kernel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I thank you for the no jokes this year. I know it was a "thing" but it sucked so much.

  8. Re:Windows 10 interface + Linux kernel by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

    WSL is not Linux on Windows. It's GNU/Windows, nothing more.

    You know there is more to FOSS than Gnu? It is popular on Debian circles and in groups here but Apache, LibreOffice, clang, and others use more free MIT/BSD style licenses.

  9. Re:Windows 10 interface + Linux kernel by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Give me the FreeBSD kernel with the Windows 7 interface. Clean and no systemd bullshit.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  10. Re:improvements by KiloByte · · Score: 3, Informative

    indeed, that restart feature is a bandage for shoddy software

    It's worse than that: it's a security hole with no excuse whatsoever.

    A daemon never has a reason to crash. I don't recall the last case a daemon crashed for me (not counting failing to start), and I run unstable on a number of non-production machines. Code that goes into a proper distribution these decades is not hopelessly buggy.

    If your company has some local daemon that requires a band-aid, you need to debug crashes ASAP as there's above 50% chance the crash is exploitable. Obviously, usually your management is criminally negligent and wants you to add features instead, but in such case it takes a single line to use runit or some other daemon supervisor.

    Thus, auto-restarting crashed daemons is such a bad idea it must never be a part of an init system. Doing this anyway should be considered exceptional, and in such cases you need to take some extra precautions anyway.

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  11. Re:Windows 10 interface + Linux kernel by MSG · · Score: 2

    You know there is more to FOSS than Gnu?

    The POSIX operating system you are familiar with is GNU/Linux. GNU and Linux provide the (mostly compliant) interfaces that POSIX requires. Everything else is an application.

    If you're running GNU on WIndows, then the POSIX OS is GNU/Windows.

    Yes, there are applications on top of GNU. There are also applications on top of Windows. Their presence doens't change the name of the OS.

  12. Re:improvements by gweihir · · Score: 2

    Big egos that want to leave their mark. Some people (bad engineers, all of them) cannot understand "if it is not broken, do not fix it". They think that it must be _them_ that obviously can do things massively better. Incidentally, that is pretty much what drives the systemd train-wreck. (Well, for variable values of "train-wreck". It will still take a long time until the systemd-morons have degraded Linux to the level of Windows. But why should I use something worse just to support the mental masturbation of some fuckup?)

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  13. Re:Windows 10 interface + Linux kernel by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

    Give me the FreeBSD kernel with the Windows 7 interface. Clean and no systemd bullshit.

    Give me the GNU/HURD kernel with the OS/2 interface.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.