Linus Torvalds Says Linux Still Surprises and Motivates Him (linux.com) 78
Linus Torvalds: What I find interesting is code that I thought was stable continually gets improved. There are things we haven't touched for many years, then someone comes along and improves them or makes bug reports in something I thought no one used. We have new hardware, new features that are developed, but after 25 years, we still have old, very basic things that people care about and still improve. I really like what I'm doing. I like waking up and having a job that is technically interesting and challenging without being too stressful so I can do it for long stretches; something where I feel I am making a real difference and doing something meaningful not just for me. I occasionally have taken breaks from my job. The 2-3 weeks I worked on Git to get that started for example. But every time I take a longer break, I get bored. When I go diving for a week, I look forward to getting back. I never had the feeling that I need to take a longer break.
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I need some motivation now.
My job is horrible. (Score:1)
Re:My job is horrible. (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel your pain. I love my work, but my job leaves something to be desired. Crap raises for the last ten years don't make up for increases in health insurance and cost of living, so I'm worse off financially now than I was. To add insult to injury, now I'm at the top of my pay grade so I do not even get raises (just lump sum payment of what my raise would be, which does little to help). We just had a "culture survey," and if it wasn't run by an independent third party, I would not have said most of what I said. Even if they figure out it was me and fire me, it would probably be the kick in the pants I need to move on.
As far as Linus goes, I don't begrudge him loving his work. I do wonder, though, off topic, "When I go diving for a week, I look forward to getting back." Most people feel that way after a week away from their routine. Is it just me, or is diving something you spend a day doing, and then do something else? The best vacations I've had, the ones I didn't want to end, we were doing something different every day, not just sitting on a beach for a week. I suppose I could go hiking for a week, or river rafting, but then the experience is vastly different every day (to me, anyway).
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Disclamer, I'm a PADI Rescue Diver (1409EW7988). Diving can be exhausting on the mind and body. The sport underwater itself isn't very harsh on the muscles and doesn't require fitness unless you do something wrong or you are into and trained for that kind of dives. But everything surrounding the dive can be. For example lifting equipment into and out of the boat, helping other (less experienced divers) with their equipment, putting the equipment on and off, getting out of the water and back into the boat. C
Re:My job is horrible. (Score:4, Informative)
Crap raises for the last ten years don't make up for increases in health insurance and cost of living, so I'm worse off financially now than I was
I find it hard to sympathize with this. Assuming you're in the tech industry like me, the salaries are amazing compared to the rest of the country.
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Salaries in Silicon Valley are amazing, except that the cost of living in Silicon Valley is ridiculous. Right now, I'm living in a dump in a declining area of town, but with only half of my pay in someplace more miserable to live would leave me being rich. Here, the home owner market is priced to two-income families, in the home town the housing market is oriented to one stay at home parent.
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I could say the same about your entry. Made me depressed.
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Thank you Linus! (Score:5, Insightful)
To Linus and any/all contribuitors: if you're reading this, a heartfelt thank you from someone using Linux each and every day on hundreds of systems.
-- HPC sysadmin
Re: Thank you Linus! (Score:3, Funny)
Hey Linus, can you take 3 more weeks off and unfuck systemd already?
His Lifes' Work (Score:5, Insightful)
How many of you can say you have anything that is your lifes' work, and not just a job? Seems like an eviable thing to me, to have a "lifes' work".
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How many of you can say you have anything that is your lifes' work, and not just a job?
Sure... but I think serial killers and global-recession-causing-bankers fit that description too. ;)
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Lots of people feel their 'job' or whatever they primarily do is their life's work.
For some, posting trolls on Slashdot is probably their life's work.
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Linux is Linus Torvalds' lifes' work.
How many of you can say you have anything that is your lifes' work, and not just a job? Seems like an eviable thing to me, to have a "lifes' work".
I sincerely hope that no-one else says that. It would be much better if they said "life's work" instead.
Re: His Lifes' Work (Score:1)
So it is his "life IS work"?
No. Do try to keep up at school.
"Life's work" == "work of his life". And "lifes' work" == "work of his lifes".
"Improvement" (Score:2, Funny)
There are things we haven't touched for many years, then someone comes along and improves them
The NSA is just glad to help you out, Linus. Just don't stare too long at our code.
Linux: the monolithic kernel. (Score:1)
Wants to be motivated? Turn Linux into a microkernel.
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He must be using (Score:2)
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!#$&&%^$*()! looks like a vi command, not KDE or GNOME.
changed everything for many... (Score:1)
learned to think stuff through, many laughs, never ends, thanks.. also to mr. stallman... sing along .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0 ..high drama
GFL (Score:1)
Re: This doesn't surprise me... (Score:3, Informative)
Careful, more affiliate spam from Creimer.
Here is the link without his affiliate ID and tracking info:
link [amazon.com]
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Oh, your affiliate ID is on there... are you trying to make money off me?
You should be BANNED for this. Mods, ban him!
Surprise! (Score:1)
People are still goofing around with monolithic kernels that are simulacrums of a nearly 50 year platform. And Unix itself was a dumbed down rewrite of earlier operating systems that were perhaps more advanced than even Linux is today. For example, Multics took real steps to eliminate the distinction between primary and secondary memory, and used segments and handles to deal with files as ranges of addressable memory.
We made some huge strides in computing, but we locked ourselves into software that was tech
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Feel free to write your own kernel. Linus did. Why can't you?
Other than you'd have to find a problem that a microkernel actually solves.
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I've written two and one that is still in commercial use, but they are closed source. So I'm not crazy famous.
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That's my point exactly. The ideas have been around for decades, but we don't use them. And not because they are technically flawed, but because we don't like to change things around. We've been delaying a paradigm shift for about 50 years now, with the excuse that it's too expensive to change the way things are done.
Even something as old and obsolete as Multics covers some of what I've said, and it is famous for nearly catching on.
For microkernels, there are never generations like L4 that offer process iso