Release candidate Linux 2.6.32-rc1 is out. Linus Torvalds has posted the announcement for the first release candidate of Linux kernel 2.6.32 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. “The Linux 2.6.32 kernel brings many driver updates, some new drivers, many file-system updates, and much more. Exciting us in the Linux 2.6.32 kernel is the ATI R600/700 kernel mode-setting and 3D support along with the VGA Arbitration code and the KMS page-flipping ioctl.“
…won’t that makes Linux even more bloated and ugly ? Shouldn’t be a driver be… a driver, and not a kernel module ? Linus was bitching with Andrew about micro-kernel vs. monolithic kernel, it has then be proven the superiority of Andrew’s solution : more stable, easier to upgrade and maintain, just more elegant. And all of this for what, 2% CPU slowdown (“the cost of the -ugly?- meat bags”) Frankly, with current overpowered multi-cores CPU, I think current software can handle, even Microsoft is forwarding in that path !
Kochise
It is true, but Linux is modular now and the reason is to leave out all the bloat. However a monolithic kernel is harder to mantain compared to a microkernel.
In regards to performance, theoretically microkernel are slower, but L4 has demonstrated that it is possible to build a slim, fast, reactive microkernel with very low latencies.
Qnx is the same beast too.
What on earth are you going on about? modules ARE drivers – and everything that can be a module is normally compiled as a module by the distributor. It has nothing to do with micro versus monolithic – the slow down is due to a natural increase in features required in a modern operating system – something that is unavoidable.
The question that should be asked is whether there these slow downs are unwarranted – that the features delivered cannot justify the slow down or increase in memory usage. So far I haven’t seen that yet.
http://www.h-online.com/open/Kernel-Log-Main-development-phase-of-L…
The linked article has some discussion of what is likely to be included, and what might be excluded, from the Linux kernel 2.6.32 release.
The release will likely not include ALL of the code which has been taken from the staging area and which is included in this release candidate. There is some “culling” to be done yet.