A Brilliant Mind: SUSE's Kernel Guru Speaks

An anonymous reader writes The man who in every sense sits at the nerve centre of SUSE Linux has no airs about him. At 38, Vojtch Pavlík is disarmingly frank and often seems a bit embarrassed to talk about his achievements, which are many and varied. He is every bit a nerd, but can be candid, though precise. As director of SUSE Labs, it would be no exaggeration to call him the company's kernel guru. Both recent innovations that have come from SUSE — patching a live kernel, technology called kGraft, and creating a means for booting openSUSE on machines locked down with secure boot, have been his babies.

Re:

[jones_supa]

Ubuntu 6.06 was my favorite. These days it's quite buggy distro. For example, on most laptops the brightness adjustment in Unity desktop goes in multiple steps as the backlight event has multiple listeners. Why don't they take care of such a simple and obvious thing?

Ubuntu quite buggy distro?

[lippydude]

@jones_supa: "Ubuntu 6.06 was my favorite. These days it's quite buggy distro. For example, on most laptops the brightness adjustment in Unity desktop goes in multiple steps as the backlight event has multiple listeners. Why don't they take care of such a simple and obvious thing?"

Deciding from the inability of Unity to set the brightness on laptops, that Ubuntu as a whole is a buggy distro, is sure one huge leap. Did you try any of the online solutions [itsfoss.com] for your backlight problem. Did you post to any of

Re:

[pegdhcp]

If it is not in beta, users are not expected to file performance reports. Even in beta, this is optional.

Re:Will it ever be the year of Linux on the Deskto

[Bengie]

Desktop users started taking over Linux and now we have SystemD. Be careful what you wish for.

Re:

[Barsteward]

Yawn...

Re:

[coolsnowmen]

"Trust but verify" is the tag line around here.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[lucm]

Bobby, is that you?

Re:

[walterbyrd]

1) There are numerous technical reasons against systemd, and not one good reason for it.

2) Admins are way more than users with a special password.

3) It is way more than a few people who oppose systemd.

Re:

[pegdhcp]

Unlike you I will express my views not behind the AC, you fucking moron... There are several reasons, most discussed in /. in detail, so one is expected to know at least some like losing control of clear text configuration details and losing access to clear text log files.

Re:

[lucm]

The only people against tools like systemd are the wannabes (network admins) who are nothing more than users with a better password (the real pros are coders who make tools for dolts like them, so they can actually function). Take away their puny little "knowledge" (an idiot can read some manuals and learn about IP + networking easily enough) with tools like systemd? These computing failure wannabes (network admins and their techs) fear for their livelyhoods. Yes, folks: It's TRULY that simple (+ yes, easy to see through).

Of course the real pros are coders. And of course that's a tough job to learn. That's why Obama, Bill Gates and others are pouring billions in projects that aim at teaching coding to everyone in high school. Dodge ball in the morning, java in the afternoon. Soon we will have an entire nation of real pros.

Re:

[epyT-R]

Not everyone.. just girls.

What does he think

[just_another_sean]

What does he think about systemd?

Re:

[Beat The Odds]

What does he think about systemd?

And emac vs vi...

Re:

[lister king of smeg]

real hacker use
$echo "" | cat > file
or ed

Re:

[lucm]

People who don't read Dilbert of XKCD are condemned to make the same jokes over and over.

Re:

[fnj]

Is it nuts to think any kernel that can be patched "live" is not a good kernel and has not been architected, tested properly or deployed correctly.

FTFY. And the answer is, yes, it is nuts. What's it like completely missing the point?

Re:patching a live kernel?

[cardpuncher]

Quite. Telephone exchanges have had live upgrades for decades - upgrading not only the code but the data structures while calls are in progress. What is "nuts" is to assume that systems *need* to be shut down for upgrades - that really is a failure of proper architecture.

Re:patching a live kernel?

[Maxwell]

Because x86 doesn't have the system management chip that Unix boxes (full disclosure, old AIX admin, last used 5.1L) have. x86 has the crappy bios and UEFI neither of which can manage the system. This also what allows hot cpu, hot ram upgrades etc. The AIX system chip is an OS unto itself, it will boot with no RAM or CPU on board.

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[red_dragon]

What do you think ILO/ILOM, DRAC, RSA, etc. do on x86 servers? Those have their own CPU/storage/OS/network to manage the server remotely even if the main CPU gives out the magic smoke. A sysadmin can use it to wipe out and reinstall the server's OS and perform firmware upgrades without even walking into the server room.

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[lucm]

Have you ever worked on a big AIX box? The only reason to walk into the server room for someone managing those machines is to hide from a coworker who had bean burritos for lunch.

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[omnichad]

Security updates without a reboot is bad?

Vojtech Pavlik is awesome :)

[paskie]

Vojtech brought me to SUSE Labs where I then worked on git and glibc for several years; since I did home office, we didn't meet that often but whenever we did, even because of something banal, it was a little awe inspiring for me. SUSE Labs is packed with brilliant people, but I always got the feel he's the smartest guy around. *And* at the same time it's a place that feels as un-corporate as possible in a corporation, I'm sure mostly thanks to his managing role.

So, I'm generally a bit sceptical about revering articles. But this one is spot on. When I think about it, I guess I still consider him one of my role models. :)

P.S.: Don't you guys feel kind of bored by the systemd spam under every Linux article too?

Re:

[lucm]

the decision has been made and it's time to move on. Accept it, fork it or move to something else but for god sake stop whining about it.

I disagree with your statement. Let's fork this discussion.

Re:

[aitikin]

What's happened to /. this isn't about Ubuntu or RedHat?

Seriously? Ubuntu? If you were here as long ago as you imply, you'd be asking about Debian or Slackware.

Re:

[lucm]

What's happened to /. this isn't about Ubuntu or RedHat?

Seriously? Ubuntu? If you were here as long ago as you imply, you'd be asking about Debian or Slackware.

Debian is for geezers. Real Slashdotters dig cool new distros, like Mandrake.

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[ruir]

Like Mandrake LOL ... funny.