Interview: Ask Alan Cox

If you've been using Linux or reading Slashdot for more than a few months, we don't need to tell you about Alan Cox. (If you are new to Linux and/or Slashdot you can learn more about him here.) Anyway, this is your chance to ask Alan anything you want. Post your question(s) below. Moderators will choose the most interesting ones. Answers will appear Friday. Please try to ask only one question per post. Thanks.

My question

[HoserHead]

I always see that you've created a new piece of software, or a new device driver, getting new hardware, etc. My question is, how much of your software development is done because of a contract, and how much just for the fun of developing?

Ext3

[jjr]

I been tring to look for info on the ext3 project.
What is the status on it? And where can I find more info on it?

future of linux

[neonmatrix]

alan, where do you see the future of linux going?
do you think it will surpass NT eventually?

future of Linux: separate versions, platform indep

[Phil-14]

Do you think that non-x86 versions of Linux will forever remain on the periphery, or will Linux actually become a force for platform independence?

XFS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think xfs will become the filesystem for linux? Matt Fuqua [e-mail]

Did you forget your /. password?

[Sun Tzu]

I see lots of Anonymous Coward postings signed by you! ;)

GNOM'ovision

[Cyclops]

Hi Alan,

Although what on of the things I most love about you is your kernel hacking (no, this is not a marriage proposal ;)), I am also interested about GNOMOvision...

I know there's a link in your v4l page, but it links to GNOME instead. Not willing to disturb you with one more out of thousands of email you must receive, I use this /. feature to ask you about GNOMOvision. Are there any sources at all or roadmap or some information for potential 'coders' to help, and if so where?

Many thanks, and nice work! :)

question

[asad]

1.Alan with the large amount of money being suddenly pumped into Linux and the media coverage do you ever wish back for the good old days when Linux was unknown to most people?
2. Do you think the lucrative jobs opening up for Linux developers will cause people to defect to the coporate world and hurt Linux as a whole ?
3. Do you see yourself still working on Linux 5 years from now ? What about other people on the Kernel mailing list ? And do you think the quality of the code people now write for Linux is still up to the standards of the old days ?
4. What are your thoughts on the Red Hat IPO ?
5. Who do you think is the most underrated contributor to the Linux movement ?
finall thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

The standard question...but a good one...

[runswithd6s]

What do you like most about Linux from a developer's point of view and where do you see room for improvement?

So what's the story?

[aheitner]

Okay, there's not a Linux hacker on the face of the planet who wouldn't kill to have your job.

- Paid by RHADL.
- Wake up when you want, work when you want.
- Go to all the big trade shows.
- Work with the likes of Linus and all the other regulars.
- Get free toys (and I mean good toys) like PA-RISC systems from HP and Athlons from AMD.

But it wasn't always that way. Back before even RedHat paid you, back when you hacked on your aging spare equipment, what drew you to it? How did you know this was what you wanted to do before you knew about all the perqs involved, or that there would ever be perqs?

Compression, Inebriation, and Penquins?

[strredwolf]

Will the e2fs compression patches (at http://opensource.captech.com/e2compr/) be put in the mainstream kernel? What is the maximum state of intoxication allowable to be working on a computer? Should /dev/penguin be manitory on all Linux distro's, or just a bundled "plush Tux"? And by the way, what's the count of penguin at your house anyway?

---
Spammed? Click here [sputum.com] for free slack on how to fight it!

Next for the throne?

[Techno_Jesus]

I'm always concerned with redundancy and I think the linux kernel development could benifit from it the same way our servers can. If something were to happen to Linus (albeit very tragic) would you or someone else be able to take the weight that he bears for the kernel development process? I fear that the community is putting all it's eggs in one basket and perhaps you are the only viable replacement.

-Aaron Dokey

Microsoft job offer.

[mrsam]

It's been reported that Microsoft extended you a job offer once.

How much was it for?
--

RedHat

[laktar]

What direction do you see RedHat going in now that they've IPO'd?

-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org


If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is
probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me.
Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my
bedchamber.
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

A few questions

[Fnord]

First....where is linux's smp heading? 2.2 gave us major changes in that area.....any more comming with 2.4?

Second....how is the new quicker release cycle going to affect kernel development in your opinion? Is it going to slow down/speed up anything? Or is it just so suits realise that development IS being done....

Third....how is the whole linux-on-sgi thing going? You were originally the guy behind that....what's your opinion on the sgi embracing linux stuff happening now?

If you were to be a teacher

[Kindjal]

Alan,

I am very interested in kernel development and writing device drivers. I'm reasonably well versed in C, and I own the "Writing Linux Device Drivers" book, but even still I find learning these things daunting. Could you delineate a strategy by which one could get started in kernel development? If you could make a list, step 1 through step n, of "Things to do to be able to join in developing the Linux kernel", what would it be?

A learning strategy would be helpful. For example: how do you test a device driver? Where do you start? How do you get the design specs for hardware memory registers? etc.

Thanks

Questions about your travels...

[Tank]

Alan-

What I find most impressive about your life is not simply the excellent technical work, but the fact that you seem to have a life outside work as well... I'm most interested in your recent trip to Iceland. As someone who has Iceland solidly inked at the top of the travel list, are there any locations that you would classify as absolutely must-see? Good bars and restaurants in Reykjavic? Local brews that merit tasting?

I'd like to see a little more local flavor and a little less tourist fare while I'm there, and would guess that you took a similar approach...


Thanks!

X-Windows?

[Amphigory]

I notice here that you were involved in the creation of the nano-x project at some point. What is your opinion on the continued viability of X-Windows? Should the open source community be focusing on developing something better, or is X the best we can hope for?

Big companies sort of open source

[_Tal]

What is your opinion of large companies, like Sun, that are trying to claim they are open source but in the end their licenses are much too strict to seriously be thought of that way (e.g. Sun's SCSL)?

Do you think they will add or take away from the success of Linux?

If FreeBSD has such a superior code base as its users claim, why doesn't a renown talented hacker like yourself work on it more then Linux?

Thanks for volunteering your time on Linux and answering these questions.

-- Tal

Linux as an Enterprise class OS

[laktar]

Do you think that Linux will ever become an enterprise class OS or will that position remain the domain of other Unices, and if so, how long do you think it will take?

-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org


If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle
with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him
at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten
lava is not even worth considering.)
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

hair cut

[madHomer]

Are you ever going to cut yor hair short?

AC Kernel Patches

[smartin]

I'm confused by the ac kernel patches. It seems that when a new kernel comes out it is almost immediately followed by a flurry of ac patches. Whats the deal?

Secret project?

[empty]

Some time ago you mentioned on your diary that work was 10% complete on the secret project. What is the secret project? Or when can we know about it?

Cobol state and future!

[alonso]

I'm very happy in seeing your interest in develop one GNU Cobol. I think this is very important: about 90% of the software in the word use Cobol.
Talk to us about the state of the project and it's future!
...
Thanks for your work!

RAID 0.90 when

[fwr]

Alan,

I've asked this question on lk-ml but I'll re-ask it here. When will the RAID 0.90 code be forced into the official kernel? It was kinda disappointing to have it in 2.2.12-final only to be pulled in 2.2.12-forlinux. What's the major holdback? Is it the "upgrade" requirements? Do you see the RAID code getting to a state that is more like the ISDN fiasco? Will be only be able to upgrade RAID code during major release cycles (like 2.4, 2.6, 3.0, etc)?

Sorry to be a pest, but this is getting a little rediculous. People don't HAVE to upgrade their kernel to the latest stable release. Most people DON'T upgrade their kernel and only load the distribitions' releases (For instance, RedHat is still back on 2.2.5). What's the big deal?

fwr

Daemons

[laktar]

If you were a daemon, what kind of daemon would you be and which do you think is cooler, the FreeBSD or OpenBSD Daemon?

-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org


If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not
face-concealing ones.
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

Linux IP Stack

[Borg[9 of 9]]

Alan, with the upcoming 2.4 kernel is there any work being done to address Linux tcpip performance issues? Is there any plans on making the IP stack multi-threaded and what about the stack spin lock issues on SMP machines?

kernel split?

[James Manning]

Do you see the kernel split into desktop and server version occuring? Torvalds to server and you heading desktop would seem a good fit.

LFS and Linux

[markster]

I've noticed there are large file patches available for Linux (here [tmt.tele.fi] for example), and glibc 2.1 (as included with RH 6.0) has userspace support for the LFS calls. When (if ever) can we expect to see such support in the standard Linux kernels?

Music/literature influence:

[Byteme]

If you were stranded on a desert island, what ten albums and ten books would you want with you?

Favorite Hacker

[laktar]

Who's your favorite hacker and why?

-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org


If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The
command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

Questions for Alan Cox

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you see linux development going after 2.3? What do you think the "Next Big Thing (TM)" is going to be in the computer scene (not just kernel-wise) ? What lessons have you learned from working on the kernel source? If you could restructure the kernel architecture with the snap of your fingers, what would you change? At this stage of the game, would you reinvent the wheel with a superior design even if it changed everything that was built on it? Can Linux remain an "experimental" OS?

Re:Just one question...

[jilles]

I'll answer that for you: yes. It would not be visble seen from the front (until the car hits you) but it would be visble from say 45 degrees of the traveling direction.

Email processing

[Etyenne]

Hi Alan, Reading your diarie, it seem you are reading (well, processing) hundreds of email a day, and sometime end up with a backlog of a few thousands message. Beside heavy use of the "d" key, how can somebody don't end up buried alive under such a massive amount of email ?

Look up to

[laktar]

Who do you look up to?

-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org


If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously
agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It
might actually be important.
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

This will probably get moderated out...

[DoktorMel]

But here goes:

In 25 words or less, could you tell me why NT sucks so badly?

Maintaining 2.x

[vinn]

Linus has promised shorter development times between new kernel series.

What I want to know is do you think this will be hard on you and how do you think you'll handle it?

Currently you maintain 2.0 and 2.2, if Linus' plan holds you may be maintaining 2.4 by the end of the year. Keeping 3 kernels and their drivers up to date will be hard task, what happens next year if it becomes 4 kernels? But at the same time there is a huge install base of 2.x machines that need support.

What If...

[Llanfairpwllgwyngyll]

Suppose both Linus and yourself get run over by a bus on the same day. Who would take over the major kernel decisions?

S

Linux security

[John Fulmer]

I'm a network security person and have always been intrigued by the concept of the 'hardened' BSD kernel (which isn't really THAT hard), and some of the role-based and compartmentalized systems out there.

What is the status of the security of Linux's internals compared with other OS'es, (mostly as regards potential buffer overflows and root hacks) and what do you see as the overall direction, if any, of Linux's security beyond the standard UNIX security model.

jf

That hair...

[John Whorfin]

Do you ever get a haircut?

Stable kernels and gcc 2.95

[Muar]

Linux kernel version 2.2.12 was recently released.
In the release notes on http://www.linux.org.uk/
there is a note that says 2.2.12 will have
problems when compiled with the gcc 2.95 series
of compilers.

Why are "stable" kernels being released that will
not compile with the latest GNU C compiler? This
doesn't seem very "stable" to me.

The HURD

[emil]

While I realize that you might not be completely objective about this question, what do you think of the design of the HURD, as it compares to Linux?

I once asked Linus himself this question and he replied in rather annoyed tones that "the HURD is a great academic design that would never work in practice" (or something along those lines).

Richard Stallman has been steadfast in refusing to endorse Linux as the GNU kernel. Does he raise these objections merely for emotional reasons, or does he see the HURD as having real technical advantages to the current monolithic design?

Forgive me if I am uninformed on these issues; I am not a kernel developer.

Re:Just one question...

[shine]

I disagree. I don't think you would *see* a car traveling that fast. I think it would pass without you noticing it. This is ~52 miles per second.

What do you think Alan?

would you ever leave us ?

[johnjones]

could you give up welsh cakes ?

could you live without delays on trains ?

could you live without wales ?


would you ever leave the UK ?

bigger wage but have to live in a dead end part of the US
(I hope not !)

what do you think of microsofts new UK building ?

pround of being in the EU and international


regards

john jones

a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)

object oriented kernel?

[Signal 11]

I've read several posts from Linus, as well as spoken with several CSci majors. The general conscensus is that a purely object-oriented kernel is impossible.

What are your thoughts on the matter? What possible problems do you see with a pure OO kernel?

--

DVD support?

[lalleglad]

There isn't any plans to include support for DVD in 2.4 and the near future as far as I understand. One of the biggest obstacles of course being patents and closed information. I would still like to know what your opinion is about when we can get that into Linux anyway and how much support in the kernel is needed?

It may not be necessary with special kernel support if the interface is something like IDE,SCSI, etc. and only the protocols to unscramble the video-stream is necessary in user-space, and some kind of reverse-engineering or should I say re-implementation :-) has been done before, eg. Wine and Samba.

What about the new Amiga?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you were an Amiga hacker before you switched to Linux, so what do you think of Amiga's plans to build a new Linux-based Amiga? Is Amiga dead and gone, or will they rise from the ashes and invade the home market with Linux systems?

AC #967

Maestro driver

[Melkman]

You did some work on a driver for the maestro sound chipset. However this seems to have stagnated, how come ?. Is there anybody who took over ? My main interest in this is ofcourse that
I have a maestro-2e in my toshiba and the oss support is terrible (clicking and squeeking noises)

Questions

[Josh Turpen]

1. What do you think about graphics (i.e. KGI) in the kernel?

2. Now that Redhat is worth billions, have you asked for a raise? :)

Qusetion

[Zoltar]

Was it a difficult decision for you when you left ZZ Top. They were one of my favorite bands and I was really sorry when you left tnem. Are you planning a reunion tour someday?

Re:Microsoft job offer.

[Chaostrophy]

He answered this in a recent interview, it was a friend of his in an R&D group asking him if he wanted a job there. Nothing formal, just a friend offering a favor.

Qwestion

[manitee]

Does Telsa know the root password(s) on your machines?

Does she know the real root passwords?

Ha ha ho ho

editor?

[cthonious]

I heard you don't even use a screen editor, but instead use sed and work purely in STDIN and STDOUT. Is this true?

Some Questions

[antizeus]

Do you think that TV shows like "The Real World" and "Road Rules" are a sign of the changing face of television? Do you see them as serving the interests of today's youth, or as more of a crass manipulative sort of thing? Has MTV ever approached you about working on one of these shows? Do you think there is a market for these sorts of shows outside MTV?

Thank you for your attention.

BSD code theft

[Alejo]

Hi,

I've heard lots of times you took the BSD
code and just cosmetically changed it.
I did look at both and they do look too
similar and BSD's was earlier.
And also heard you are the guy to blame on
some anti-posix function implementations.

How much of that is true?

Question for Alan Cox

[Blue Hammer]

I have been using Linux since kernel 0.98. I've always wanted to contribute to the code base on one project or another, but I only have two college semesters of C programming.

The code that I've read in the Linux source tree is almost always far and away better than what I think I could do. I'm a decent programmer, but the people who are contributing to Linux are far more experienced.

How can I get on one of the projects without being a C wizard?

Can we ...

[Rupert]

Can we send half a dozen teenage idiots to your house and film you twenty four hours a day for a week, then show edited highlights on MTV?

Oops, wrong interview.

Alan...

[semis]

When did you first start coding? And what was your first computer?

Questions: 2

[They_Call_Me_Spanky]

#1: Where do you find the time for all that Hacking!


#2: You are a famous kernel hacker. How much money do you make?

Re:Microsoft job offer.

[MTDilbert]

Seems like I remember Alan addressing this in his diary. This was probably ~6 months ago.

Icelandic Women

[Skip666Kent]

I had the pleasure once of meeting a girl from Iceland, and she was probably the most horrendously amazing babe I have ever seen in my life. I wanted to throw her boyfriend from a moving train and claim her as my own, but that's kind of hard to do when your drinking beer in someone else's living room, and she probably could have kicked my ass anyways.

Question: Are ALL the women in Iceland amazing? Should I move there, or just go straight to jail?

Ahhh, sweet Oblivion...

Roll your own?

[swotl]

Have you ever wanted to just bypass that finnish
guy and release your own OS... Coxux? Alux? Alcux? ...
whatever. If no, how comfortable are you with your situation in the Linux development?

Roll your own?

[swotl]

Have you ever wanted to just bypass that finnish
guy and release your own OS... Coxux? Alux? Alcux? ...
whatever.

If no, how comfortable are you with your
situation in the Linux development hierarchy?

Re:Remote Control

[Skip666Kent]

Make sure your room is properly mounted, and then use the 'Locate' command. Don't forget to update the database:

>mount -t my /dev/room /myroom
>updatedb
>locate remote

Question

[plazm]

Alan,

don't you think that the present "Linux fever" will cause a lot of good developers turn away from linux and transfer their efforts to some other system(s)?

thanks,
Alex

Advice

[Isaac-Lew]

What advice would you give to someone contemplating starting their own Linux-based (network consulting, server configuration) business? And which book(s) would you recommend reading (besides Running Linux, got it already :))?

Portability to new architectures

[Rares Marian]

From what I understand, only a small part of the kernel needs to be retailored for new processor designs. The rest is architecture independent.

But will libraries have to be reinvented for palmtop computers or will PC size programs port reasonably easily to these platforms? Can you run gtk, tk, or tcl, progs on palmtops?
An example: gnomehack or Qtnethack. Can I play that on the road? Or will I have to perform drastic surgery on the source?

2 questions

[Nahuel Greco]

1- You have programmed Alan J. Cox modplay mod player on the PC?.. i mean, you are THAT a. cox? :)

2- Why i cant compile my kernel without the smp option? (compile time error)

3- Your Opinion about Hurd / Microkernels.

Not EMAC not VI - so which one is it?

[ursusmaj]

You say you don;t use EMACS or VI for editing - so what do you use? More importantly WHY?

Procreative Activities?

[ursusmaj]

Does it ever happen? Your working hours are well known and programming (even kernel stuff) whilst occupying the mind does not satisfy the baser needs.... :-)

Re:Just one question...

[smileyy]

Well, the Cerenkov radiation might be a tip-off...

Software raid

[James Manning]

For those that can't keep up with lkml, when will the "real" software raid 0.90 stuff make it into a vanilla kernel? What's left holding it up?

MAE LING MAK NAKED AND PETRIFIED

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Cox, would you rather see Mae Ling Mak:
a. Naked
b. Petrified
c. Naked and Petrified
d. ANDOVER SUX!!

Abe the Punk Hacker Kid

[Evan Vetere]

I'm curious as to what you thought of Abe the Punk Hacker Kid. I think we Slashdot readers would agree that he's a hard act to follow - d'ya think your replies can be as well-versed, timely, and informative as his? And be frank here: which of you two is the better hacker?

State of Linux, Architecturally

[Mneme]

As I understand it, Linux's memory subsystem has seen a major overhaul in 2.3 to correct some early design flaws.

Some people seem to think Linux still has design flaws. (I see people in the BSD and fledgeling Darwin communities claim that their kernels are have a better architecture than Linux, although I rarely see much substantiation of these claims.)

So, are these people zealots, too deeply invested in their operating systems to face the truth that Linux is at least as good, architecturally; or were they right once, but the architecture problems have been resolved in 2.3; or are there still architectural weaknesses in Linux 2.3.

If so, what are these weaknesses and how serious are they? And how would you answer if we were comparing Linux's architecture to that of a commercial OS like Solaris.

So, basically, as you look at Linux, do you see parts of the code where you think `If we had it to do over again, we'd never do it like *that*'. And do you think Linux is any worse than other operating systems in that regard.

Status of integration of e2compr

[slashdot-terminal]

Dear Sir,

The use of seamless compression on my system is very important to me as it applies to linux. I was wondering what the status of integrating e2compr filesystem compression for ext2 is at? I am wondering this since the project has been proceding for approx. 2+ years in development.

Affect/Effect of/on the global nature of Linux?

[Tekmage]

These questions are prompted by something Alan mentioned in that brief Ottawa Citizen article I'd submitted [slashdot.org] a short while ago. Re. enabling Third-world intellectual infrastructure development.

How has the multicultural and multilingual participation affected the development of Linux as a whole?

Have you begun to see evidence of third-world participation effecting the progress of Linux yet, or is it still in the "hope to see soon" category? What needs to be done/changed to assist in the cross-cultural adoption of Linux? (Unicode?)

When can we expect to see a Linux Universal Translator Engine? :-)

First question

[Anonymous Coward]

Alan, have you ever had a First Post on /.?

Threads on Linux

[X]

Hi Alan. I'm a Java developer and try to do as much work as possible on Linux. Lately, I've noticed that the kernel's thread model is still somewhat lacking compared to what Java really likes (things like sharing PID's between threads and having unique thread-ID's would be a good start). This appears to have been a serious problem for the blackdown team as well. I'd love to contribute in this area (though I have no Linux-kernel experience), but was uncertain how to proceed after searching the linux kernel mailist archives (there seemed to be conflicting strategies/issues). Can you suggest a person to contact on this issue?

Alan Cox, Geek Extrodinaire?

[SlapAyoda]

Sure, there's not a geek on the planet who wouldn't allow you into the "circle of geeks", so to speak, I'm mean, jeepers - you're the guy who wrote my tcp/ip stack! :) My question, though, is this: would you consider yourself a geek? Do you fall into any of the other categories of geekdom? (Ex - Reading comic books, being a Sci-fi fan, preferring books over TV, being a pro wrestling fan, etc).

"I like to put my bum on things. It's fun for everyone." - Tom Green

Kernel Source

[roadfeldt]

Do you see or envision a need to support hardware in a different method other than direct kernel support? What are the pro's and con's of direct kernel support vs. software drivers, ie; windows, mac, be?

I am under the assumption that the kernel is primarily comprised of hardware support right now?

Forgive me if these are moot questions. Thank you. :)

How involved are you in the FreeBSD development?

[nullspace]

I noticed from the FreeBSD site that you are one of the core developers for FreeBSD. How involved are you in the development? Do you predominantly spend most of your time and effort on Linux development?

High Availability/Clusters

[ratliff]

Alan,

Are there any current plans to add kernel support for a single system image across a cluster? What do you have to do to add that support?

Thanks for all of your work!

Re:GNOM'ovision

[Anonymous Coward]

the source is on the gnome cvs server module gnomovision the was a checkin a few weeks ago, all you need is XFree 3.9.15 with the XVideo extension... have fun

sustenance

[mikeraz]

What (is|are) your favorite(food|drink) [groups]?

Why does bttv keep crashing?

[heroine]

I noticed bttv locks up when capturing over 10fps and all software has one workaround or another to defeat this bug. Is this a hardware problem or a driver problem that you've given up on?

What happened to 2.2

[Anonymous Coward]

After using and abusing Linux since the .9 era I find that the 2.2 kernel series to be, how should I put this..., a little less than what I've come to expect. Mainly the 2.2 series to date have had some problems that I've never seen in the 2.0 series or previous as far as random file system corruption, networking problems etc...Is it that it has become more complex or shorter turn around without enough regression testing.

P.S. Even with the problems experienced Linux is still a far better choice for a development platform than anything I have ever used...

.MD (pronounced dot doc)

mosix?

[zzg]

Will we see mosix or mosix like functionality in the main kernel distributionin the near (far) future? If not, what are the main issues?

Computers vs. Family

[SecretAsianMan]

Do you still have time to spend with your wife & family?

evil subplot?

[nester]

judging by your large chranium(sp) and almost mad scientist look, i find it hard to believe you're willing to only use your powers for good, and not evil. is it true that your linux efforts are just an attempt to distract us mere mortals from your vast array of weather control satellites? i think "linux world dominionation" is an ironic divertion from your true plans of world dominionation through the diabolical use of weather control devices to raise the seas and create storms of mass destruction at will.

note: i will not accept "muhahahaha" as a valid response.

Which Editor?

[Coolio]

Okay, you don't use (X)Emacs, and you don't use Vi. So just what is the mystery editor that's used to craft all that code?

(humor)

[akmed]

Have you ever considered starting a cult of some sort? We could all get together and worship the holy penguin king of zamboozie. :)

I'd join it, anyway.
-Mike

How did you get Telsa?

[evonski]

How did someone as scary looking as you(@ least from what I can tell from pictures of you), did you get a girl like Telsa to even go out with you, let alone marry you? OK, its a troll question, but I been meaning to ask Telsa it so I thought I might ask you first. Second question, do you get paid for your published articles (ex. Linux Mag)? Steve

How is it to be behind Linus shadow?

[Karpe]

Whenever the mainstream media talks about Linux, they talk about Linus, forgeting all the people behind it. How is it to be behind Linus shadow? Are you doing this just for a better world, or also for the fame, fortune and chicks? :) How do you see the future when Linus gets tired, and the revolution is in your hands?

TIA,

World-class support for audio/sound/music apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been much frustrated lamenting on the Linux sound development mailing list regarding the less-than-ideal support that Linux has for audio. I have found that even if I pay for the commercial drivers, I get buggy and incomplete support, even for common hardware. Also, there are concerns regarding issues within the kernel that prevent the creation of truly world-class audio applications on Linux. I know that you are working to improve this situation, and I was wondering what we can expect in upcoming releases of the kernel.

FreeBSD missed the boat

[qix]

Alan, yesterday on slashdot, there was a reference to an article about FreeBSD where basiclly they came right out and admitted to being snobs and 'not accepting code from just anyone'. The metric in the Linux community seems to be if it's good code and makes sense, include it. Do you agree that this leads to a less-tightly integrated system, or are the BSD guys simply whining because nobody wants BSD and they've finially realised that they need to care what us peon users think after all?

Re:Block devices.

[Andreas Bombe]

That's an interview, not a hotline.

To answer your question: it tries to access something for which there is no driver loaded. What device it is exactly depends on the number. Or if it's char not being block device is that it tries to mount a drive which in fact is not a drive.

Re:Other OSes?

[aithien]

He's part of the Puffin Project. I know he's got a pa-risc based workstation so he's definately running HPUX.

Silly Hardware Questions

[mwillis]

Will DVD manufacturers every support Linux?

Re:Compression, Inebriation, and Penquins?

[richnut]

The maximum state of intoxication is still up for much debate, but having a great deal of empirical evidence from my days working at an ISP I can say this:

- Ouzo does an excellent job of cleaning gunk of keyboards.

- It's still possible to provide top notch technical support while lying on the ground.

- It's easy to stash beer under the raised floor. It's not so easy to find it.

- When the delivery guy arrives with your new server you'd better at least offer him a drink lest your next server show up in pieces.

- Modem rack lights are very very cool looking when intoxicated.

:-)

-Rich

P.S. (It's humor man!)