Linux 3.4 Released

jrepin writes with news of today's release (here's Linus's announcement) of Linux 3.4: "This release includes several Btrfs updates: metadata blocks bigger than 4KB, much better metadata performance, better error handling and better recovery tools. There are other features: a new X32 ABI which allows to run in 64 bit mode with 32 bit pointers; several updates to the GPU drivers: early modesetting of Nvidia Geforce 600 'Kepler', support of AMD RadeonHD 7xxx and AMD Trinity APU series, and support of Intel Medfield graphics; support of x86 cpu driver autoprobing, a device-mapper target that stores cryptographic hashes of blocks to check for intrusions, another target to use external read-only devices as origin source of a thin provisioned LVM volume, several perf improvements such as GTK2 report GUI and a new 'Yama' security module."

How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoze

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

I've always used Windowz and I consider myself an exceptional Visual Basic programmer, so I know computers pretty good. In fact I got an A- in my programming class last term. But I'm a little wary of how much power Microsoft has in the computer field. Many of my friends use RedHat and I've recently installed it on my machine at home. Although I haven't had as much chance to play with it as I'd like, I've been greatly impressed.

This weekend I gave some thoughts to the things that are wrong with Linux. I hope no one minds having some flaws pointed out. I'd like to help make RedHat stronger so it can conquer MS. Hopefully RedHat will hear this (crossing fingers) and address these. I think with a little effort, RedHat's Linux can defeat Microsoft's Windows! :)

To begin with, there are too many different flavors of RedHat. Browsing a list on Amazon, I saw they made varients under the codenames of Mandrake, Debian and Slackware, just to name a few. I know that I'm very new to RedHat so maybe this is obvious but it seems like RedHat should just sell a few different flavors of its operating system. Perhaps one for the desktop and one for a server? Could someone explain why RedHat produces dozens of different versions of Linux?

Secondly did you know that anyone can view the source code to Linux! I think that RedHat shouldn't make its code available. After all, what keeps Microsoft from stealing RedHat's ideas and putting it into Windows? My friend says that FreeBSD stole the TCP/IP stack from DOS a long time ago and Microsoft is always looking for revenge for that. Plus it seems to me like RedHat is just giving away its ideas for free. And what keeps hackers or terrorists from tampering with the code and putting a virus in every computer?

On a related note, why doesn't RedHat write Linux in assembly? My friend says that's what Microsoft does for Windows, and that's why Windows is faster and more stable than Linux.

Next RedHat definitely should kill -9 (ha, ha!) the command line. Microsoft finally gave up DOS when Windows 2000 came out. I'm suprised that RedHat hasn't migrated away from...whatever its version of DOS is called (Bash, I think?) But maybe this is planned for a future release?

Finally Linux needs games! RedHat will never be successful in the home without games. They should also tell M$ to release a version of Office for Linux too. And Internet Explorer!

Have a nice day! Go Linux!!

Re:How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoz

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as Linux is doing rather well despite the plethora of different versions and security risk from the open code base, using it is rather risky for legal reasons as well. Red Hat stole much of Linux from SCO's Caldera, and are distributing it without paying royalties, meaning users could be on the hook for several hundred dollars a license and casting the future of Red Hat's offerings in jeopardy.. Litigation is ongoing now, and experts expect SCO to win a crushing verdict any day now. Linux has some neat features, but there's a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the community about its legal future.

Re:Yes, 3.4 BUT...

[deek]

Achievement Unlocked

Most gratuitous use of the word "fuck" in a serious Slashdot post.

Re:yes but...

[adolf]

Prior to the advent of pulse audio on my distros of choice, I had audio issues from time to time. Usually small stuff like audio randomly stopping working or not being able to play certain applications simultaneously.

[Old Man mode]: I remember a time before PulseAudio, and before JACK, and before ALSA: The Linux kernel had some built-in drivers ("OSS-Free"?) which supported adequate functionality for every sound card/chip on the list, and if you wanted more features or support you could just pay 4front [opensound.com] for a better driver (and they were always worth the minimal price).

And: Everything. Just. Worked. Always. Hardware settings (back when sound cards still had configurable analog sections(!)) were deterministic and reliable, and getting excellent sound from *random_app* was a foregone conclusion.

Much fun was had, for instance, with "cat /dev/audio > /dev/st0" to dump a radio show (reliably! without problems! in the plain-and-simple way that Unix is supposed to be!) to DDS tape.

Now, this was 17 (or so) years ago. Anything involving further difficulty, at any stage of the game on a user level, on the Linux sound front is a step backward.

Now, get the fuck off my lawn.

[/Old Man mode]

Oct, 1991, comp.os.minix

[Taco Cowboy]

I still remember that message, on Oct 1991, from a guy by the name of Linus Benedict Torvalds on comp.os.minix

"Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote
their own device drivers? Are you without a nice project and just dying
to cut your teeth on a OS you can try to modify for your needs? Are you
finding it frustrating when everything works on minix? No more all-
nighters to get a nifty program working? Then this post might be just
for you :-) "

Re:How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoz

[VMaN]

It took about 4 reads before your post didn't say "titties".

Re:GNU?

[PwnzerDragoon]

the GNU animal

You mean, a gnu? [wikipedia.org]

Re:btrfs needed the work

[RulerOf]

Btrfs builds largely on ext2

[citation needed]

Nope, he's quite right. I built btrfs just fine previously, but now after I upgraded to ext4, look what happens:

$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mason/btrfs-progs.git
$ cd btrfs-progs
$ make
System going down for HALT now!

Re:GNU?

[unixisc]

No, that would be rms