Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."
Re:Btrfs: kill off ext# please! (Score:3, Insightful)
Too soon!
Re:Btrfs: kill off ext# please! (Score:3, Insightful)
What prevents other, non-GPL operating systems from using Btrfs?
Writing drivers for a filesystem is not a "derivative work" is it?
Re:Btrfs: kill off ext# please! (Score:3, Insightful)
Nevermind that, I think that the whole objection to a BSD license in this case would be that such a license could not prevent MS (or Oracle, or Apple) from "embracing and extending" the whole filesystem so that the "standard that everybody uses" is no longer free
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:2, Insightful)
People tend to gravitate towards problems that they think they can solve--and ignore the problems they don't understand or don't want to deal with.
I think that should have read
Engineers tend to gravitate towards problems that they think they can solve--and ignore the problems they don't understand or don't want to deal with.
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:1, Insightful)
Yesterday I started xmoto while a video was playing and my system slowed to a crawl. I could move the mouse at a frame every few seconds, but nothing else responded, even trying to change to a virtual console and zapping X.
I don't know who's to blame but I do know that this wouldn't happen to a Haiku or SkyOS user. I'm tired of the Linux kernel; it's really not that great. Everyone seems obsessed with C, going as far as to spawn these kind of monstrosities [wikipedia.org] just to force modern features into a traditional platform. Give me a stable microkernel with user-mode graphics so the above bug can never happen. Don't break it every few months and fix it later like Linux.
Maybe we just need a systems technology reboot. So much of GNU/Linux is just horribly broken and needs a sanity check, particularly desktop environment stuff. We can probably do a much better job if we start over.
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Purely technical solutions to marketing and promotional problems rarely work, so its unsurprising that GNOME and KDE have done much for Linux on the desktop, since their marketing and promotional efforts are pretty minor. Of course, switch technical approaches to focus on GNUstep has the same problem.
That the Mac OS X desktop is "best in the world" is a subjective statement on a matter of taste, not a "fact".
In terms of facts, on the marketing and promotional end where Linux has been unsuccessful, Mac OS X has been more successful, though far from as successful as Microsoft Windows.
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:2, Insightful)
You are confusing tough (challenging) with tough (laborious).
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:4, Insightful)
That is, because developing a faster kernel is a much easier problem than developing a fun, usable desktop environment.
I disagree, it's not an easier problem. It is, however, a much more interesting problem to solve, especially to skilled hackers.
One other aspect here is that the target audience is bigger for the kernel. Desktop uptake is still very low, but kernel is used by any device that runs Linux, whether it's a router, a smartphone, a server, or a netbook. This has a side effect of kernel hacking being better financed than desktop development, as there are more commercial players interested specifically in the kernel, who couldn't care less about KDE or Gnome.
Re:Btrfs: kill off ext# please! (Score:3, Insightful)
But even assuming ms would use an open filesystem, they would want to alter it to make it incompatible with everyone else's implementation... And they can't do that very well if people are able to download the source.
Re:Btrfs: kill off ext# please! (Score:3, Insightful)
I would prefer to use EXT2 on small sdcards, so as to support filesystem permissions...
Or how about something like jffs2 - a filesystem actually designed for flash media.
FAT32 is a pretty garbage filesystem, and it's patent encumbered, an open filesystem without the weaknesses of fat32 and which is supported everywhere would be extremely useful. It won't happen tho so long as MS have sufficient market share to bury any open filesystem, they want people locked in to their proprietary patented filesystems and use their weight to prevent any other fs from gaining traction.
Re:Btrfs: kill off ext# please! (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been using ZFS-on-FUSE
Are you insane? You probably just cut the performance of your drives by 90%.
Of course, the performance and the idea of trusting my data to FUSE leave much to be desired.
Oh sorry you're informed AND insane. :P
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:2, Insightful)
what do you propose? to rewrite the kernel in python? sorry, but something needs to run on the hw itself eventually, nevermind that the language used has little to do with your complaints. User mode graphics are ok for basic desktop use, but forget it if you want decent performance for 3d.
do you know any skyOS or haiku users? I don't.
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Making a good desktop environment is extremely challenging, as shown by the fact that no one has made one yet.
Re:People work on the "easy" problems (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm tired of the Linux kernel; it's really not that great. Everyone seems obsessed with C, going as far as to spawn these kind of monstrosities [wikipedia.org] just to force modern features into a traditional platform.
What, has GObject made it into the kernel?..
Ahh, IHBT.