Infoworld Interview with Linus

Amnesiak sent us an interesting interview that Infoworld has done with Linus-questions about the kernel, which distro he prefers, Microsoft/Linux thing and how the Gnome/KDE may sort it out. Standard interview questions, but it's a well done interview.

Comments

Re:Doesn't Linux already support 16 processor SMP?

[tialaramex]

There are two kinds of "support" being meant here.
Linux 2.2 will run on a 16 CPU machine, AFAIK, and it will happily report all the CPU#s in /proc/cpuinfo. If it doesn't actually *work* on a 16 CPU machine that's probably a bug you can expect to see fixed during 2.2.x

However, just because all 16 CPUs are working, doesn't mean the code was written with 16 CPUs in mind. Linux 2.2 scales poorly above say, 4 CPUs. The exact problems will vary depending on your application, but chances are that 16 CPUs won't buy you the performance it should.

NT has some of the same problems, but in W2K Microsoft say those problems are gone in the kernel architecture for up to 16 CPUs. For now, if you want to do SMP in a biiig way (not dual-processor) then you don't want INTEL INSIDE.

Nick.

Linux and the Mindcraft Study

[MAXOMENOS]

The reason why Linus was shocked and angry when the Mindcraft study came out is because Linus first saw the study maybe ten minutes before he was to go on stage with a Microsoft representative at an Atlanta technology conference. The Microsoft representative then used the Mindcraft study to attack Linux's performance, on stage, in front of hundreds of CIOs and other corporate tech geeks. Linus handled himself pretty well, all things considered, but it's easy to see why he'd be shocked and angry after being ambushed like that.