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Linux Software

A Kernel With Everything 107

Posted by timothy from the avoiding-the-obvious-puns dept.
jd writes: "Ever thought the Linux kernel lacked features? Wanted to out-do that kernel guru next door? Well, the FOLK project might just be the answer. 34 additional Linux kernel projects, rolled into one gigantic mega-patch, with more on the way. (* Stability not included.) Projects include the obscure (eg: HP's scheduler plugin system), the arcane (eg: MPLS and SCTP), the bizzare (eg: Software Suspend) and the insanse (eg: VAX & PPC-64 architectures)." Note: this is neither necessary nor called for. It's just a symptom of hackers having fun and poking at boundaries. Don't put this on any production servers unless you are very disgruntled.
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A Kernel With Everything More

A Kernel With Everything

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  • Re:Wow! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >So, a bunch of people take an entenepenurial (sp.) spirit...

    Since you put in sp. I checked to see whether you happened to spell the word right. I laughed hard. (Go look at your spelling again). Funny that I wouldn't have even noticed if you hadn't drawn attention to it :).

    Folks, this is why English needs to keep its idiosynchratic, weird spelling. People "recognize" words, they don't sound them out. Short words therefore immediately appear wrong if not spelled the right way, because they're like a picture with few pixels, and large words can continue to look right when a few letters are changed, until examined closely. This makes us read faster, as for example asian people read, than folks like the french and the german who mentally sound out many more of their words than we do. We associate a sound with the "look" of a word, and read cough as koff and although as ulthow in our heads, quickly just glancing at the word. Keep our weird spelling!

  • MPLS is not arcane! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How can something that just became an RFC be arcane? (RFC 3031) You must be thinking of Minneapolis (airport code MPLS) which is filled with arcane things ;-)

  • Re:Makes you think... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How good could Linux be if more developers focused on improving the OS and less were playing games with it?

    It would not exist. Thus it would suck worse than all other operating systems (except other ones which don't exist). After all, AST says that microkernels are the way of the future. Linus was wasting his time working on Linux. He should have just waited for GNU to come out with their system. I hate to break this to you, but Linux, *BSD, and Unix itself exist because people wanted to have some fun [Unix was originally written primarily so Ritchie (?) could place Spacewars on an old PDP-7] (Note to moderators: if you haven't read the AST/Linus flamewars from c.os.minux, do so before moderating this down).

    Also:

    1) PowerPC-64 support? Oh, well, gee, Linux on the RS/6000. That has no possible applications, right?

    2) New scheduler? Linux needs this bad. This is the one big problem holding Linux back from scaling to huge huge machines.

    Anyways, fun idea but it shows you were the commercial guys have an edge.

    In what way? Being anal-retentive dorks who never have any fun?

    Anyway, all of these projects had existed long before this mega-patch came out, and this mega-patch has been around for quite a while. I've been following Linux VAX developement for at least a year now.


  • l33t h4xx0r: "What is this VAX doing on a cable modem?"

    Do you really think a 31337 h4x0r knows what a VAX is?

    Aside: I learned ASM on a vax, and on man did it kick ass over PC ASM... memory to memory copies (or was it register to register?), no 640k limit to mess with, no weird offsets because Bill thought it was a good idea....
  • Hmmm. That's an idea.... I'll see what I can come up with... :)
  • Notice that he didn't call it a haiku?

  • Is the suspend to disk only for laptops or can it be used for any machine?

  • I guess I'll have to read how it interacts with the existing built-in schemes that some laptops have for suspsend to disk. Thanks.

  • Can someone explain to me why linux ppc-64 support is insane? There's a lot of cool stuff in this patch and I don't see how this is any different than dev releases. I really would like to see some of this stuff in linux one day.
  • Maybe KernAll would be appropiate for this effort though.
  • True, but Bill saying "whaaah nobody needs more than 640K" is probably the main reason the architecture remained as popular as it did and still is the most popular architecture. So in a way Bill can be blamed for this.
  • Man, Tiny Elvis is the bomb! I've got to dig that out again... And win 3.0.
  • See, the problem is that you're not a big enough lesbian.

    ;)

    - - - - -
  • Ok i'll bite....

    Playing games with it probably helps to improve the OS and its code.

    Hackers are playing games with their (and others, but nevermind ;)) code, just to learn from it and to push it to its limits. Otherwise you woulnd't get any security updates, because no-one would be looking at it. You would get real games like Quake 3, if they wouldn't have played with the code.

    At school you probably learned while playing didn't you?

    Bolke
  • This disclaimer's disclaimer was moderated 'overrated' under classic reverse-psychology techniques.

  • The Linux VAX port is coming along now, not quite up to NetBSD/VAX tho :-)

    Anyway, VAX isn't useless on my LAN!

  • This is pretty much what the guys who created APLinux (Linux port to the Fujitsu AP1000) did.

    Not a good post, true, but it reminded me of the story they told in Operating Systems so I thought I'd share it. :-)


    ====================
    Paul "TBBle" Hampson
  • ok, I promised myself i wouldn't respond to this troll, but then i scrolled back up. Maybe if there wasn't this kind of playing, there wouldn't be a linux kernel. I don't know you, but if I was to guess from your post, you've never discovered a cool trick, or a neat hack from playing with code. While this hack might not be the most profitable in the long run, I don't see a reason to say that it should not have happend, and that the kernel developers who did it should have kept their noses to the grind stone. Maybe I'm wrong...

  • Mix the two - have a Tetris-based debugger.

    Reminds me of that Doom-based interface to kill [slashdot.org] ;-)

    (That's slashdot.org/articles/99/10/20/1110242.shtml for the nervous.)
  • Well, if the kernel has everything in it, why not...

    King Kong of Kernels
    Hackers love you, and create
    Rootkits internal.

  • I applied the patch and my kernel won't boot. It's FOLKed up my whole system.
  • then we can call it Windo$e 95 and and sell it to the masses.
  • (Warning, this post is garunteed to generate negative karma, and be moderated to -70 flamebait. But that's OK -- I don't care! Screw you guys, I'm going home.)

    This disclaimer + modearation at (+4) = classic reverse-psycology technique - not just for small children anymore.

  • There is a lot of good stuff here. Some of the more useful and general-purpose patches -- such as VLAN [freshmeat.net], TUX [redhat.com], and Software Suspend [sch.bme.hu] -- should get a chance to become mainstream. The various IPC and speed improvements should make it in, too.

    There's currently a debate over which real-time scheduler is the best. Personally, I'd like to see it resolved in the same way as the other options with choices: let all of them be integrated into the mainstream, and let the user select which one to use, either at compile or boot time! I'd like to see an option in the kernel configuration, asking what real-time scheduler you wanted: MontaVista [mvista.com], RTLinux [rtlinux.org], RTSched [sourceforge.net], Linux-SRT [att.com], RTAI [lineo.com], DWCS [gatech.edu], something else, or simply the default.

    Linux needs a real-time scheduler today. Currently, things become choppy whenever it decides to service the system in some way, such as syncing the disk. Playing movies, audio/video recording, burning CD's, even playing games would benefit from real-time support. I hope that this can become mainstream in 2.6!


    Super eurobeat from Avex and Konami unite in your DANCE!

  • rather a bold statement. it is nice, however, to see that there is advancement for ... less common devices.

    nice swiss army knife on the front page [sourceforge.net] though; not very representative of the project's goal; "The Funcionally-Overloaded Linux Kernel" seems to be represented by a tool with a poking attachment and a bottle-opener that is too round to work.

    not that I mean to totally trash it, I'm just trashing the title of this /. article; I've got a stick of bad memory that's good for the first half of its 64mb, and hopefully I can now use it again!

  • There's one thing I miss a lot on x86 processors, though. I think it would be great to have at least a dozen more general purpose registers (though even 1 or 2 would be an improvement).

    Yeah, i agree. I remember some years ago when i was trying to write my texture mapping rutine into asm.. having 4 general purpose registers is just not enough.. Sure there might be some more with MMX or similar extensions but i like to keep it clean :)
  • hmm.. (e)si and (e)di you use for pointing to the virtual screen and to the texture i think. It was a while since i did it so i can't really remember but i think it was like that. Another thing was that as far as i remmeber is that esi/edi are not registers but instead psedo register :) many commands can not use them as arguments....
  • King Kong of Kernels: Hackers love you, and create Rootkits infernal.
  • It's called SANE, which stands for Scanner Access Now Easy. I run my older p-port scanner in it no problems, access it from a windows box on the network. Sweet stuff. Even use it to send faxes to hylafax.

    Check it out:

    SANE [mostang.com]

    lots of nifty things, be sure to check out WinSane and XSane.

    Have fun in linux.. say bye bye to window$(tm).

  • With his wee beady eyes..
  • "....Don't put this on any production servers unless you are very disgruntled....."

    Finally, a kernel just for me.....
  • No I didn't say use the code from LINT, but use this the same way FreeBSD users use LINT. I use it if I need to enable some crazy option not in the standard FreeBSD kernel configuration, like if I have this NIC that just won't work right, I'll look in LINT for more help.

    Even just looking at the page for this project gives me some ideas, like SGI's asynchronous I/O would be cool for a tmp filesystem or something.

    I thought that you could redistribute BSD licensed code any way you want, isn't that 1 reason BSD people think their so much cooler than Linux people?

    It's still *NIX to me.

  • Aside: I learned ASM on a vax, and on man did it kick ass over PC ASM... memory to memory copies (or was it register to register?), no 640k limit to mess with, no weird offsets because Bill thought it was a good idea....

    Well, most of that really isn't an issue anymore: The 1M (instead of 640k) limit can be turned off for protected mode and you can use linear addressing, no need for segmentation (which I guess you meant by saying "weird offsets"). Mem to mem copies are still missing, apart from the MOVS* instructions, which I think have been there from the 8088s.

    Agreed, x86 is a real mess for a processor. All kinds of backwards compatibility hacks - the one I most like is the disabling of the A20 (1 megabyte) address line by writing a command to the keyboard controller.

    There's one thing I miss a lot on x86 processors, though. I think it would be great to have at least a dozen more general purpose registers (though even 1 or 2 would be an improvement).

  • Forget not bp.

  • Actually, have a look through some of the patches they mention, such as:

    • ext3: ext2 compatible journaling filesystem
    • IBM's new POSIX threads implementation
    • XFS
    • Suspend mode. This is a necessity in the laptop market

    Read the page for more. I'd bet 50 cents that ReiserFS was in FOLKS before 2.3.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Are you insane?

    x86 Assembler existed way before Bill.


  • Some Microslug flunkie is going to run this and then say "Linux is Not stable.....Look it crashed" It's all fun and games until somebody gets there eye poked out!!

  • The idea isn't to worry about quality, bloat, or any other "detail" [...]

    Oh, right.
    Now they're gonna get sued silly for copying a major software companys (no names mentioned*) mission statement without giving credit..


    *MSFT
  • Bah, that should be:

    --- main.c Sun Jun 3 22:02:34 2001
    +++ main.c~ Tue Jul 10 16:05:26 2001
    @@ -789,9 +789,9 @@

    if (execute_command) execve(execute_command,argv_init,envp_init);
    - execve("/sbin/init",argv_init,envp_init);
    - execve("/etc/init",argv_init,envp_init);
    - execve("/bin/init",argv_init,envp_init);
    - execve("/bin/sh",argv_init,envp_init);
    - panic("No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.");
    + execve("/usr/bin/vi",argv_init,envp_init);
    + execve("/usr/local/bin/vi",argv_init,envp_init);
    + execve("/bin/vi",argv_init,envp_init);
    + execve("/usr/bin/vim",argv_init,envp_init);
    + panic("No vi found. Are you sure you've got a real editor?");
    }

    There, now that's going too far! :)

    --

  • Does nothing well. Look at the combination server/desktop platform our friends in Redmond have. (I'm not talking Nintendo, either.) It can't even keep a simple messaging service running.

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • That's what counterstrike is for.

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • If you don't have a driver then code one. It all depends on how much you wan't it. If I cared about scanners I would code my own driver.
  • MSP is the airport code for Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport.

    ------
    C'mon, flame me!

  • Shrug. Having fun is the whole point. It just happens that the result is useful for real work (most of the time).

    -John
  • Then you better start making Micropayments...
    ... to Free Software Foundation. Because GNU/Hurd has microkernel architecture. Then wait another 10 years.
  • Kernel Sanders?

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

  • Well if they used the stuff from the FreeBSD Kernel they wouldn't be able to have the GPL License on this linux kernel anymore.
    -
  • I know this was just a 'see what I can do' type of thing. Kind of like porting linux to the kitchen stove. It doesn't do a whole lot, except show how ingenious people are. But why not take this a little further?

    I know I'll get flamed for this, but why not create a port of the kernel merged with a gui? This would be wonderful for the desktop push that linux wants to go forward with.

  • The blurb says: ...the bizzare (eg: Software Suspend)...

    From the FOLK website:
    * Software Suspend
    Enables the possibility of suspending the machine. It doesn't require APM. You may suspend the machine by pressing Sysrq-d. It creates an image which is saved in your active swap-space. The next time the machine is booted, the kernel detects the saved image and restores the machine to the saved state.

    Why is this so bizarre? It sounds basically like the Windows 2000 "Hibernate" option, aka suspend to disk, which can be VERY useful. It's great on laptops, and nice even on desktops if they get shut down often. I personally think this would be a very nice feature, and will probably download it and install it into my kernel as soon as I have a chance.
  • I know another microkernel out there that seems to get the job done...take a look at your favorite Windows2000 system.

    Get the job done, yes. Get the job done in a fast, efficient, friendly, stable manner, absolutely not. I'm not trying to troll here, and I must say I use win2k quite a bit. However, I just had the privilege of installing it tonight on an older system, and remembered exactly why I loathe windows so much. It takes longer to "detect hardware such as your mouse and keyboard" than OpenBSD takes to install. Any time you want to try a new driver on a device such as a NIC, you have to reboot before you know for sure if it'll work or not. How many times, even in win2k, have you been told, "You must restart your system for these changes to take effect." With Linux, I occasionally reboot, but I almost never HAVE to reboot to make something work. For simple things like trying out drivers, I never reboot. The main reasons I ever reboot are for trying out things like init scripts or lilo configs.
  • I don't care to address the other accusations...they are the standard AC drivel trolling for flame wars, below my level...

    However, you attack my sig, you go down!

    Actually, I really could care less. If you must know, my sig is a quote from the movie Twelve Monkeys.

  • Butter and salt. Wait. Wrong kernal

    -Henry
  • Ah...Windows already does this using a little spec called ACPI. And no...the video memory isn't saved. And no the registers aren't saved thus can't be restored. You have to have drivers that know how to do that and know when do that. The "kernel" can't do that for you in some generic manner. duh. God when is someone gonna actually put PnP and ACPI into Linux. Oh wait..Linus said that he didn't want to increase the kernel the meg or two it would take to do that...oh well...guess you are stuck back in the DOS type darkages.
  • I know another microkernel out there that seems to get the job done...take a look at your favorite Windows2000 system.
  • This is a bit off topic. But I wonder what a defacto linux kernel CVS feed would do the the development and distrubution of linux. I know Linus is very opposed to the idea.

    (i) People would cvs update instead of downloading the entire source tree. I know we are suppose to use the patch, but how many people do that?

    (ii)Contraversial patches would be committed to the tree but not to the main branch. that way there is a central repository of patches. Making accounting for previous patches much easier.

    (iii)A central location and easy way to get and keep up to date with both Linus and Alan's tree. Even with some of the other guys as well.

    To me just the central patch repository is a cool idea.

  • Have you looked at this [redhat.com]? It might be what you're looking for.

  • Historical Perspective (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This page is interesting and shows the full history of the life of the kernel [kfc.com].
  • ..as budha said.
  • Actual Answer: I'm having a look at the stuff the GGI/KGI people are playing around with. It may be possible to merge in some of their kernel patches for a graphical interface.

    On the other hand, EvStack seems to have bitten the dust, and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try turning Berlin into a kernel module.

  • when you call it instant on.
  • "I ping nothing...NOTHING!"
  • Yeah, but then someone would trademark it,
    and sue the people who used it.

    KernAll [tm]
  • dammit people its "kernel" not "kernal".
  • built in tetris
  • When was it that the "necessity" of a given piece of free software became something larger than the author's wish do code the said piece of free software?

    Or has the bazaar turned into a board-managed IPO-driven shopping mall and someone forgot to tell me?

    Obviously it is not necessary (except for those who had fun putting it together) nor called for (who is there to call?). Just take a deep breath, a spare weekend, a spare machine and go have fun.
  • At least the OpenBSD kernel comes with a hangman(6) clone - check ddb(4).

    But hey, linux doesn't even have a kernel debugger, much less a game built in to it :>
  • Projects include the obscure (eg: HP's scheduler plugin system), the arcane (eg: MPLS and SCTP), the bizzare (eg: Software Suspend) and the insanse (eg: VAX & PPC-64 architectures).


    uh, PPC-64 is coming to the desktop and other mainstream markets in the form of the G5, folks. is it really insane to start developing for it now? was it insane when Linux supported Itanium the day it shipped while Microsoft only had beta software? no. it was a Good Thing.

  • GRSecurity [getrewted.net] is a similar project. It's a big kernel patch that contains a lot of unofficial security enhancements for a linux kernel. Some unmaintained patches have been ported to latest kernels, other patches have been merged to work together, and some extra improvements have been added.
    The most important things are PAX and Openwall to reduce stack smashing exploits, /proc restrictions, setuid capabilities drop, and LIDS.
    I'm running GRSecurity since it was announced on Freshmeat on various loaded production servers. It works like a charm. I just found PAX somewhat slow, it's why I dropped it for Openwall.

    -- Pure FTP server [pureftpd.org] - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
  • ...is the patch that, instead of starting /sbin/init on boot, starts /usr/bin/emacs.
  • Linux supports ACPI and PnP, I have no idea what you are talking about.
  • "The Funcionally-Overloaded Linux Kernel" seems to be represented by a tool with a poking attachment and a bottle-opener that is too round to work.

    I would like to point to jd's quote from the article, "(* Stability not included.)"

  • oops (Score:2)

    by nehril ( 115874 )
    King Kong of Kernels:
    Hackers love you, and create
    Rootkits infernal.
  • Anybody else thinking of using this like FreeBSD's LINT kernel? You can look at it to find something new, then apply that to a stable kernel for use.
  • Uhh - I seriously doubt Berlin is either desirable or even a possibility for kernel inclusion. That would sort of be like sticking all of X into the kernel (although I don't think Berlin is anywhere near that big yet.) You REALLY don't want to put all of Berlin's stuff into a kernel - that's asking for trouble. You might be able to use KGI to create an in-kernel interface, but considering what happened to the stability of Windows when they tried that I'd recommend against it. Of course, more power to you if you try. There are a couple of X replacements besides Berlin being worked on which are smaller and maybe better suited for kernel work (fewer features, but depending on what you want...): http://dinx.sourceforge.net/ http://pgui.sourceforge.net/ http://microwindows.censoft.com/
  • How does one deal with getting the hardware state restored? If I run a tool which sends a command to a piece of hardware and changes its mode (e.g. hdparm, X), doesn't the kernel need to keep track of this so that if I suspend and then later resume, the resume process can get the hardware back in the state it was at suspend time?

    If I suspend with X being displayed, how does the resume get the video card back in the right graphics mode and configured correctly?

    This needs to be done for all devices before such a feature is ready for widespread deployment.
  • UNlike in microsoft OS's, where the only real flexibility as far as multiple kernel versions goes is a kernels binary images for seperate architectures [two], and for SMP vs. Uniprocessor [they charge a lot more for the former]. In linux, because the source is available, it's all always optional.

    It's not bloat when you can choose yourself whether or not to compile it / patch it into the kernel. Even if some of these things migrated into the mainstream linus kernel, they sure as heck will be configuration options for them to be rolled in or not.

    And I personally think that software suspend is a really good idea, moreso then winME which [I think] now has it. The hugely greater stability of linux allows you to have the nearly-instant on convinience of resuming, because memleaks and the like don't gradually destablize the system the longer it runs. I always loved the perk of working on a laptop wherein I could have a bunch of applications open, be in the middle of a gdn session, and hibernate to disk and power off, only to come back to precisely the point I was before when the power is back on. Software suspend alone is going to make me check this out.


    ---
  • PURE EVIL!

    Seriously, just use xdm. Same effect, but without doing something so foolish as forcing someone into a GUI. Makes debugging startup problems a lot harder. I can just see it now.
    Linux has entered SAFE mode...



    ---
  • Kernel Hogan!!
  • Well, even on the project's own webpage it says "Lastly, this project is not intended to be "useful". If the patches used were all "useful", they'd be in the main tree by now, or Alan Cox' branch. This is much closer to the "silly putty" end of things.". So the /. editor didn't just make it up himself. In either case, it's a cool project and hopefully it will serve as a testing grounds so that some of the more interesting patches make it into to the official kernel.
    --
  • Use di and si too, giving you six. Of course, you need to be sure to push those before going into your spiffy texture mapping routine, but I'm sure you can do that.
  • Exactly, and where might innovation start? With a little experimentation and forward thinking. This project is more useful than people are summing it up as. Pushing the limits of the kernel is a good thing, it may help us see the road ahead and what a particular path may yeild.
  • Damn, I'd really like to be able to watch The Matrix and listen to it on my Aureal Vortex Soundcard while I wait for HP Scheduler to crash like a cranky bitch.
  • 133t h4xx0r: "What is this VAX doing on a cable modem?"

    Make it Mac. Most l33t h4xx0r flee on the very sight of it, guarantee.

    No it's not a flamebait. I in fact compliment Mac...
  • Is this thing just to prove a point?
    I know, size doesn't matter...

    Careful though, you might get sued by criMoSoft for ifringing on the bloated operating system (tm) patent.

  • Having fun is the whole point. It just happens that the result is useful for real work (most of the time).

    It never occured to me that open source groups operated in the same way as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The Guide's staff would pretty much spend all day partying, all the actual work was done by people who wandered in off the street, saw something that needed to get done, and did it. More than one open source project that operates with this strategy. Just another way Douglas Adams was ahead of his time.

  • Anne T was the highly-trained Cisco tech who...

    No, she wasn't [slashdot.org]

    I have no reason to doubt roblimo here... Damn folklore will live on forever though...

  • Fuck: this is not useless. (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10, 2001 @11:55AM (#93509)
    If one can compile most of these using modules,
    why is it bloat? Some even improve performance.

    802.1Q VLAN (vlan.1.0.1)
    The 802.1Q VLAN protocol allows multiple virtual LANs to reside on a single ethernet cable.

    ABI (2.4.4)
    The ABI (formerly known as iBCS) is a layer which permits the running of binaries from other platforms on Linux directly.

    Alan Cox' Patch Series (2.4.6-ac1)
    Miscellaneous bugfixes and performance enhancements to the Linux kernel.

    ALSA (0.9.0-b5)
    ALSA is the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, and provides a powerful interface between applications and audio devices.

    Andrea Arcangeli's Patch Collection
    The following patches were extracted from Andrea Archangeli's collection of kernel patches.
    00_cpudata-cachealigned-1
    00_cpudata-cachelinealigned-1
    00_cpus_allowed-1
    00_eepro100-alpha-1
    00_exception-table-1

    Andrew Morton's Low Latency Patches (2.4.6-pre2)
    These patches should reduce the kernel latency (delay) under a variety of circumstances.

    Bad Memory (4.7)
    A patch to provide support for partly buggy memory modules.

    Compressed Cache Support (2.4.5-0.16)
    An intermediate layer in the virtual memory hierarchy which caches pages to reduce swapping.

    Ext3 (0.0.8)
    Ext3 is the Journalling version of the Ext2 filing system. It is compatiable with Ext2, except insofar as Ext2 ignores any journals Ext3 has made.

    i2c (2.6.0)
    Drivers and system calls for monitoring hardware health.

    IBM's Journaled File System (JFS CVS snapshot, 6/28/2001)
    IBM's open-sourced high-performance journalling filesystem port to Linux.

    IBM's Next Generation POSIX Threading (1.0.0)
    An implementation of an M:N threading model. Improves performance of POSIX-threaded applications (particularly in SMP environments.)

    lm_sensors (2.6.0)
    Drivers and system calls for monitoring hardware health.

    Real-Time Scheduler (2.4.4-1.1.patch)
    An implementation of a real-time scheduler for Linux.
    Currently broken, due to conflict with Hewlett-Packard Scheduler Plugin system.

    SGI's POSIX Asynchronous I/O Support (1.3.1-2.4.2)
    A high-performance I/O system which reads/writes asynchronously to ensure optimal contiguous throughput.
    This has not been completely integrated, as yet.

    SGI's XFS (1.0.1)
    An advanced 64-bit journalling filesystem (with access control lists.)
    This has not been completely integrated, as yet.

    Software Suspend
    Enables the possibility of suspending the machine. It doesn't require APM. You may suspend the machine by pressing Sysrq-d. It creates an image which is saved in your active swap-space. The next time the machine is booted, the kernel detects the saved image and restores the machine to the saved state.

  • Re:Trying to be like Microsoft? (Score:3)

    by Megaweapon ( 25185 ) on Tuesday July 10, 2001 @11:49AM (#93510) Homepage
    Ummm... the FOLK thing exist purely for testing purposes. No one is required to install it. Their bloat is available by *choice* (how big was the last Service Pack you downloaded?)
    --

  • Re:FOLK is amazing (Score:3)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday July 10, 2001 @11:53AM (#93511) Homepage
    Hehe, some of those sound great ;) That IPPersonality patch could entertain me for a bit, and entertain those l33t h4xx0r5 for a long time ;) I wonder what all I could make my box look like... heheheee ;)

    l33t h4xx0r: "What is this VAX doing on a cable modem?"

    -= rei =-

  • never underestimate how much you can learn . . . (Score:3)

    by fetta ( 141344 ) on Tuesday July 10, 2001 @11:32AM (#93512)
    Never underestimate how much you can learn from a "useless" project like this. When I'm trying to figure something out, I usually have to come up with a "useless" project to play with. For example, right now I have a truly hideous PHP site hiding in a directory on one of my web sites. The site will never amount to anything, but I'm learning a lot about PHP in the process.

    This project strikes me as the same sort of intellectual exercise. It will never produce a useful product, but some of the folks involved may do great things down the road.

  • Blockquoth bonzoesc:

    Does nothing well. Look at the combination server/desktop platform our friends in Redmond have. (I'm not talking Nintendo, either.) It can't even keep a simple messaging service running.

    I have moderator access at the moment, and was quite tempted to add to the ``troll'' moderation you've already recieved, but I've decided to reply, instead. I'm not into wasting mod points on games of mod-the-troll.

    FOLK is good for one thing, and one thing only: experimentation. And it does that thing extraordinarily well.

    They make no pretenses that this is anything you'd actually want to use for anything serious. But, if you want to play around with the bleeding edge, you don't have to forge your own knife any more.

    b&

  • Re:I want Microkernels! (Score:4)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Tuesday July 10, 2001 @11:24AM (#93514) Journal
    Then you better start making Micropayments...

  • Let me be the first to say it...*grin* (Score:4)

    by somethingwicked ( 260651 ) on Tuesday July 10, 2001 @11:26AM (#93515)
    rolled into one gigantic mega-patch, with more on the way. (* Stability not included.)

    So, it installs NT for you? :)

  • --- main.c Sun Jun 3 22:02:34 2001
    +++ main.c~ Tue Jul 10 16:05:26 2001
    @@ -789,9 +789,9 @@

    if (execute_command) execve(execute_command,argv_init,envp_init);
    - execve("/sbin/init",argv_init,envp_init);
    - execve("/etc/init",argv_init,envp_init);
    - execve("/bin/init",argv_init,envp_init);
    - execve("/bin/sh",argv_init,envp_init);
    - panic("No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.");
    + execve("/usr/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init);
    + execve("/usr/local/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init) ;
    + execve("/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init);
    + execve("/usr/bin/xemacs",argv_init,envp_init);
    + panic("No emacs found. Are you sure this is GNU/Linux?");
    }

  • Wow! (Score:5)

    by zappe ( 65931 ) on Tuesday July 10, 2001 @12:12PM (#93517) Homepage
    Slashdot is policing what is good software now! Amazing how once a group gets mainstream acceptance, they too join the punditocracy in deciding what is "called for" and "useless". Hey, maybe these guys might maybe just discover something. Or perhaps it's because people get frustrated dealing with the intelligentsia on LKML. Worse than a bunch of professors arguing over grant money.

    So, a bunch of people take an entenepenurial (sp.) spirit, and then Slashdot, standard of all things good, takes the time to post something "unneccicary" and "not called for" on their web page. YEAH! 'Cause only Linus' or Alan's kernel is the best one.

    Why is it that every time I read slashdot, it gets to be more painful? Need... new... news... source...

    Mike

    (Warning, this post is garunteed to generate negative karma, and be moderated to -70 flamebait. But that's OK -- I don't care! Screw you guys, I'm going home.)

  • FOLK is amazing (Score:5)

    by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Tuesday July 10, 2001 @11:28AM (#93518)
    I'm running FOLK now, mainly for the suspend to disk feature and for some low-latency stuff I'm doing. The features listed here [sourceforge.net] are integrated, compile cleanly and produce a kernel that miraculously runs. Eventually, I'd like to see some of these patches moved into Linus' kernel as they seem very stable and complete.


    My one gripe with them is that it'd be nice if they could release each of the patches separately as many of the patch writes have stopped maintaining them. As FOLK already make the effort of porting the patches to the latest kernel, it'd be nice if we could use those ported patches on a standard Linus Linux kernel.

  • Haven't any of you heard of compiling your own kernel? This is a source patch. That means you have access to features that aren't available in the official kernel. It doesn't mean you have to compile all of them in. In other words, the "bloatware" jokes aren't really funny, they just make you look ignorant.

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