Linux Kernel 4.9 Officially Released (kernel.org) 80
"As expected, today, December 11, 2016, Linus Torvalds unleashed the final release of the highly anticipated Linux 4.9 kernel," reports Softpedia. prisoninmate shares their article:
Linux kernel 4.9 entered development in mid-October, on the 15th, when Linus Torvalds decided to cut the merge window short by a day just to keep people on their toes, but also to prevent them from sending last-minute pull requests that might cause issues like it happened with the release of Linux kernel 4.8, which landed just two weeks before first RC of Linux 4.9 hit the streets... There are many great new features implemented in Linux kernel 4.9, but by far the most exciting one is the experimental support for older AMD Radeon graphics cards from the Southern Islands/GCN 1.0 family, which was injected to the open-source AMDGPU graphics driver...
There are also various interesting improvements for modern AMD Radeon GPUs, such as virtual display support and better reset support, both of which are implemented in the AMDGPU driver. For Intel GPU users, there's DMA-BUF implicit fencing, and some Intel Atom processors got a P-State performance boost. Intel Skylake improvements are also present in Linux kernel 4.9.
There's also dynamic thread-tracing, according to Linux Today. (And hopefully they fixed the "buggy crap" that made it into Linux 4.8.) LWN.net calls this "by far the busiest cycle in the history of the kernel project."
There are also various interesting improvements for modern AMD Radeon GPUs, such as virtual display support and better reset support, both of which are implemented in the AMDGPU driver. For Intel GPU users, there's DMA-BUF implicit fencing, and some Intel Atom processors got a P-State performance boost. Intel Skylake improvements are also present in Linux kernel 4.9.
There's also dynamic thread-tracing, according to Linux Today. (And hopefully they fixed the "buggy crap" that made it into Linux 4.8.) LWN.net calls this "by far the busiest cycle in the history of the kernel project."
Landed? (Score:1)
Linux kernel 4.8, which landed just two weeks before first RC of Linux 4.9
I thought a software release was a "launch." Since landing is the opposite of launching, does that mean 4.8 was discontinued or something? Or will Kanye be "dropping" a new version of the kernel next month?
Re: Landed? (Score:3)
Since landing is the opposite of launching
Could it be that these two concepts not only aren't mutually exclusive... but that they might even be interrelated??
Re: Is systemd still being used? (Score:4, Informative)
You don't know what a kernel is, do you?
Re: Is systemd still being used? (Score:4, Interesting)
The kernel is pretty damn useless if the userland is inaccessible because the init system broke unexpectedly and the system didn't boot properly.
An OS needs a robust kernel, a robust init system and a robust userland. If even just one of those isn't working right, the entire OS is useless.
Re: Is systemd still being used? (Score:5, Funny)
I think someone needs to "make the init system great, again"
(sorry, lol)
Re: Is systemd still being used? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or just go back to sysvinit. It worked perfectly fine for a long time, and there was no good reason to switch to systemd.
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Does your CPU only have one core?
Here's a nickel Sonny, buy yourself a real computer.
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Does your CPU only have one core?
Here's a nickel Sonny, buy yourself a real computer.
All of my CPUs have several cores, some i7 some i5, even some old Core2 quads. All of these CPUs are looking wistfully at sysvinit, and may change to Devuan or to something based on BSD. You see, NFS - which we use a lot - causes problems with systemd.
Systemd is like Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
Or just go back to sysvinit. It worked perfectly fine for a long time, and there was no good reason to switch to systemd.
I don't have much firsthand knowledge here but I suspect this is why systemd has seen such widespread adoption despite its warts. If you don't care about dependency management via declarative syntax that's fine, but distro builders probably appreciate it. If you view its ability to babysit processes as un-UNIXy and a slippery slope leading towards a more Windows-like state of affairs, heck I'd largely agree with you there... but once again, this is something distro builders and many other developers are going to quickly become addicted to. If you think virtualization/containerization features are useless, you're living in the stone age.
You greybeards could have halted this thing in its tracks early on by throwing your weight behind an alternative like OpenRC [wikipedia.org], but instead the majority appeared to adopt this "there is absolutely no reason to care about any systemd feature whatsoever" attitude... so now we're stuck with the bad solution dominating the ecosystem unless and until enough people can throw their weight behind good solutions and play catchup... and yet people like you are still stuck on the "no solution required, damnit!" point of view.
The psychological parallels between the systemd debacle and the Trump debacle are surprisingly deep. Both are cases where the existence of dire flaws in a proposed solution caused the judgment centers in brains of most detractors (or at least the most of the vocal detractors) to short-circuit.
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The psychological parallels between the systemd debacle and the Trump debacle are surprisingly deep. Both are cases where the existence of dire flaws in a proposed solution caused the judgment centers in brains of most detractors (or at least the most of the vocal detractors) to short-circuit.
Wait, is this some sort of 2016 version of Godwin's law?
It's through the inaction of the influential masses that a poor decision has been made and now the community suffers. This is opposite of the Tragedy of the Commons, instead of the selfish actions of a few to the detriment of all, we have the inaction of a few to the detriment of all.
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The psychological parallels between the systemd debacle and the Trump debacle are surprisingly deep. Both are cases where the existence of dire flaws in a proposed solution caused the judgment centers in brains of most detractors (or at least the most of the vocal detractors) to short-circuit.
Wait, is this some sort of 2016 version of Godwin's law?
It's through the inaction of the influential masses that a poor decision has been made and now the community suffers. This is opposite of the Tragedy of the Commons, instead of the selfish actions of a few to the detriment of all, we have the inaction of a few to the detriment of all.
But this is about a lot more than mere inaction[1]. The effects I'm getting at here were much more noticeable among the passionate than the apathetic. The existence of what appear to be clinching arguments and what should've been deal-killing obnoxiousnesses actually prevented many (probably most) emotionally invested anti-Trump folks from thinking clearly or acting rationally about nearly any argument related to the candidates.
People have called Trump's tactics 'trolling' but it's not as simple as th
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Wait, is this some sort of 2016 version of Godwin's law?
On that note: Can we call this "Shane's Law"? I only propose it because I'm fairly certain no one is going to remember "ausekilis".
You came up with it, I just tried to write a definition. Now lets see if we can spread it.
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Which I think corresponds pretty well with the "Systemd is horrible because of fo
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I think someone needs to "make the init system great, again"
More like KISS, basically if all you want is boot -> run -> shutdown in an easy to understand sequence then SysVinit is fine. If you're lucky suspend/resume works too, if you don't get fancy and change attached devices. Simple init.d scripts to start and stop without dependency management. For the people that don't need any more than that everything else will be a massive overcomplification. For those who want a full system resource and container/service management solution it'll never be enough. But
Re: Is systemd still being used? (Score:5, Interesting)
The kernel is pretty damn useless if the userland is inaccessible because the init system broke unexpectedly and the system didn't boot properly.
Duh, "apt purge systemd" and you can enjoy a reliable init. Just like the solution for most sound problems is "apt purge pulseaudio". Or, closing a link-local security hole by "apt purge avahi-daemon". I think you get the pattern.
Re: Is systemd still being used? (Score:4, Funny)
Following the patter, it seems like "apt purge anonymous coward" doesn't seem functional yet.
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add:
aptitude purge network-manager network-manager-gnome
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Duh, "apt purge systemd" and you can enjoy a reliable init. Just like the solution for most sound problems is "apt purge pulseaudio". Or, closing a link-local security hole by "apt purge avahi-daemon". I think you get the pattern.
Purging pulseaudio can sometimes be problematic for the packaging system. I've always been fond of "sudo chmod a-x `which pulseaudio`". The demon (not a mistype) is inert but the packaging system doesn't freak out.
As a side note, it's actually kind of fascinating to see the amount of horrible software coming out of Redhat these days. I think my laptop has actually become less reliable after a resume than it was 5 years ago. It's hit and miss whether I have sound or networking after a suspend/resume wher
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I tried apt purge lennart but unfortunately it didn't work. He's like malware, he doesn't make himself easy to remove, instead choosing to infect other software on the system.
For those who missed the point of the above (Score:3)
Pulseaudio was developed by Lennart Poettering (but has improved massively since).
SystemD is still being developed by Lennart Poettering.
Maybe it's best to wait until he finds a new toy and someone who is keen on incremental improvement instead of rapid bug filled expansion is maintaining systemD.
Re:For those who missed the point of the above (Score:5, Insightful)
The damage is already done. The paradigm has already shifted from, "I'm a Unix guy so I understand what the machine is doing" to, "Nobody understands what the machine is doing". Any time you can take Poettering software out of the loop, your system becomes a lot more sane and understandable. But, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to do that and, with the deep pockets of RedHat, they will eventually own the new dystopian Linux userspace. RedHat does a lot of good in the Linux world but, the badness they have unleashed is almost unforgivable.
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In Lennert's blog he says a lot about redoing everything in his image instead of it being a *nix system - it's deliberate. That's fine IMHO if you are doing something new, but when building on the w
Re:For those who missed the point of the above (Score:4, Interesting)
He should have been shunned from the Linux ecosystem after PulseAudio. It's better than it was 8 years ago but, it's still unreliable garbage that sometimes flakes out while trying to solve a problem that no one actually has. For the vast majority of users, life was much better when bits were directly blasted to ALSA. I'd much rather deal with the limitations of ALSA than the unpredictability of PulseAudio.
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For the vast majority of users, life was much better when bits were directly blasted to ALSA.
Ahh, I remember when ALSA came to Debian linux. So good. You could read docs for 10 minutes and run alsaconf and then your sound card would just work.
Then, PulseAudio came out, and it was flaky garbage. I had to switch a few machines back to ALSA just to get any sound at all. A year went by, and the flaws in PulseAudio were fixed. I haven't had to do any sound card configuration ever since. Sound is just something
Re: Is systemd still being used? (Score:5, Funny)
You don't know what a kernel is, do you?
The kernel is only a very small part of systemd at this point. Nothing to get too worked up about now. Wait until kerneld and kernelctl get to version 1.0 ...
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You don't know what a kernel is, do you?
Sure, it's that bit of code consisting mostly of device drivers that's awaiting to be assimilated by the systemd.
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Use at least Linux 3.11 for Workgroups.
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I'm still on 2.2. Did they skip 3 altogether?
From the link in TFS:
longterm: 3.18.45 2016-11-30
longterm: 3.16.39 2016-11-20
longterm: 3.12.68 2016-11-29
longterm: 3.10.104 2016-10-21
longterm: 3.4.113 2016-10-26
longterm: 3.2.84 2016-11-20
Seriously, should I have used lmgtfy?
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Seriously, should I have used lmgtfy?
No, just stop feeding the troll.
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What is lmgtfy?
(jk)
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I'm on 3.19.0-32 Mint update says it's the recommended kernel. I would upgrade for bragging rights but I don't wanna reboot.
My Skylake desktop is on "4.8.12-300" and rebooting for me is a chore. I mean I have to wait 40 seconds from initial power up for a login screen, then I have to wait an additional 20 seconds to log in and start up my applications (Ok most get started automatically), but 1 second to start Chrome and VLC is just far too long. :-)
Back in the early days, you may have had to wait 20 to 30 minutes for a reboot and that was plenty time to get and enjoy a cup of freshly brewed coffee with a nice piece of cake. No
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Re:Windows 10 ahead (Score:5, Insightful)
Hahahahahahah. Try opening a terminal. Now try opening a tab within the terminal.
Hahhahahahha.
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Or try opening the file explorer and then try opening a tab inside it.
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Do you get fullscreen ads on your lockscreen? Does your OS incessantly spy on you? I thought not. Beat that, freetard! Hahahahahaha
(This post might contain traces of irony.)
Re:Windows 10 ahead (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, you use command prompt / terminal for tons of things in Windows. I support Windows systems professionally.
Powershell's OOP scripting language is pretty neat, at least on the surface. But it basically breaks down any time you want to do something complex, while bash/sed/awk/piping holds up strong in Linux.
Re: Windows 10 ahead (Score:2)
OOP, and thus PowerShell, is clearly superior because all ethical programmers get affirmative consent from objects before they manipulate them.
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Powershell's OOP scripting language is pretty neat, at least on the surface. But it basically breaks down any time you want to do something complex, while bash/sed/awk/piping holds up strong in Linux.
In what way does it break down? I'm weaning myself off Microsoft products, but PowerShell is a hard habit to kick because it works so well and is made with a different mindset from the everything-is-text approach of virtually all other solutions. Once you get used to everything being an object, it feels so archaic to go back to the old ways.
I would say that bash/sed/awk would be better for text processing (since it has to really). I still occasionally use awk for that sort of thing, but mostly that's becaus
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Shit, just try to copy/paste with that terminal...
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It's exciting for people who have GCN 1.0/1.1 GPUs since up to this point Linux distros have been mostly forced to maintain the radeon drivers for older GCN while AMDgpu/AMDgpu-pro took over for GCN 1.2 and later.
It's actually pretty damn annoying, especially for people that want to do any kind of OpenCL work with GCN (and there's a lot of those folks these days, think Ethereum or ZCash).
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Stupid sheep consumer.
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DIAF
Need to wait till Aug. 2017 (Score:2)
If you're running Ubuntu 16.04 though, kernel 4.8 still is a feature released in February and a future, to be defined kernel is supported a good six months after that. Did annoying notice this? According to that schedule at least, so that you can upgrade with a long and semi-obscure apt-get command.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel... [ubuntu.com]
I'd sure like to upgrade to a GCN card. The low end, low power ones are all GCN 1.0 (Cape Verde and Oland GPUs). A nine month wait for official support is much. And I'm counting f