New Linux Kernel Configuration System 370
An anonymous reader writes "When Eric S. Raymond tried to replace the Linux kernel's configuration system with "something better", he got booed off the stage. Now Roman Zippel is bravely having his own go at it. Here's an interview with Roman and a look at his new configuration system, aimed for inclusion into the 2.5 development kernel. Also, find some screenshots of his new graphical configuration frontend."
unix people and security (Score:1, Informative)
http
There are probably more...
For gods sake put stuff like that outside the web root if you can't set apache up properly.
Maybe other nuts ... (Score:3, Informative)
They weren't without reason (Score:5, Informative)
- It required Python to build the kernel.
- It was complicated. It included an entire theorem prover. This was sort of cool in that it would not allow you to generate a non-working configuration, but really more than was required for the job.
- Its language was arcane. The main language idiom is the suppress-unless statement, which is sort of the logical negation of if-then statements.
- And some folks questioned his motivation for getting this grandiose project into the kernel - was it just to help out, or was it primarily to establish additional hacker reputation for Eric? I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this - he did the work.
I think he had a chance of getting it in, but he would have had to refactor the entire thing, write it over in C, make the language cleaner, and I guess that didn't come about. But to his credit, he didn't just talk about it. He generated a working software product with functionality that did not previously exist in Open Source as far as I could tell. His project is worth studying, and I'd encourage works derived from his ideas. I'm sure there's a paper about it online.Bruce
Re:Ironic... (Score:5, Informative)
How is that Ironic? I blame Alanis for this total misuse of the word... That's just a coincidence.
While I'm at it, will the people that insist on using the word "literally" to mean metaphorically give it a rest: "That was so funny I literally shit myself" or "That last tackle literally ripped his head off".
Re:Don't you know what hardware you got in your co (Score:5, Informative)
I booted of the CD, got fully configured X, working sound, Working Xawtv, Working network with DHCP enabled, and therefore working broadband, and a working CD burner. It took a whole of like one minute to boot and it was everything I neaded. I Actually use it instead of Debian now for my main distro, mounting my old hard drive as scrap space.
Re:poor guy (Score:5, Informative)
ESR solved these problems very well with CML2. By he also added a dozen features and changed a hundred other minor things, simply because he felt it was better that way. ESR was solving problems which only he perceived. For example, he was very interested in making it easy for "Aunt Tillie" to configure a kernel. Unfortunately, Aunt Tillie doesn't have a say in whether something goes into the kernel. Linus was apparently OK with CML2, but most of the other kernel developers were very resistant. No one ever explicitly refused CML2, but it never went in either, and ESR eventually gave up.
The impression I got was that ESR should have minimized the changes to the UI in his first version. If he had built something exactly like the old config, but with a new language and backend, most of the objections would have gone away. He then could have submitted the other changes; they may or may not have been accepted, but at least the underlying system would have been improved.
Re:does it pre-configure (Score:4, Informative)
for the curious, you can use dmassage for OpenBSD to get a kernel config file with only your hardware enabled (hardware that was enabled at boot time).
Re:Maybe other nuts ... (Score:1, Informative)
What Open Source communities DO lack (Score:2, Informative)
To parent poster: Do you honestly believe that worse things don't happens behind corporate walls!? Have you been living in a bubble!? The great thing about open source is, whatever happens, you will always have enough information to form your own opinion. As a corporate drone, I can safely assure you that you will NEVER get that level of detail from a corporation (even though the Internet has helped expose a lot). Personally, I think your shock is due to a lack of exposure to a REAL community (people argue all the time . . . that's how things get worked out), rather than anything having to due witht the Kernel developers. Goes to show how corporate our society has become . . .
Re:Linux is often misleading (Score:2, Informative)
From the google glossary at labs.google.com:
Advanced Technology Packet Interface: a specification that defines device side characteristics for an IDE connected peripheral, such as CD-ROM or tape drives. ATAPI is essentially an adaptation of the SCSI command set to the IDE interface.
ide-scsi is not really SCSI emulation. It is just SCSI over IDE. And Windows works the same, it just doesn't tell you about it.
Custom kernels for custom systems. (Score:2, Informative)
Now, lets suppose that you just got the latest gee wiz device and you want to use it on your Linux box. You hook your "flux capacitor" up to the firewire port and nothing happens. Why, because either a firewire or a flux capacitor driver (or both) is required and the kernel doesn't have it installed. This means that you must rebuild the kernel with the appropriate driver in order for your new flux capacitor to work.
Now, some may argue that the kernels should be pre-built with all the drivers and everything. Indeed, many distros do something like this for their stock kernels. But that still doesn't account for hardware that is yet to be invented. It also causes the kernel to grow into a giant that gives the term monolithic a whole new meaning. This large size means slow boot times and slower overall performance, in some cases. Surely, you don't want that?
Indeed, many people want to trim the size of their kernel to an absolute minimum to improve the performance of their system, not to mention the security enhancement of removing unneccessary services. Do you really need HAM radio support? Most people don't, so why would most people want the HAM drivers loaded in their kernel? Do you need NTFS file system support, as I do? Probably not, especially with write access, so why include it? But at the same time, why prevent me from using it, as I need to?
Even without the above reasons requiring the custom kernel, there is one more reason in favor of it. Part of the whole idea behind Linux is the ability to modify and customize it to your heart's content. That means if you want to modify your kernel you can. And this project will make such modifications easier than in the past. If you don't want to bother with customizing your kernel, then use the latest stock kernel from a major distribution, which will have mostly everything included. But, if it is slow or your flux capacitor isn't supported, you'll just have to wait and hope that the distro includes the support in its next release.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)