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Kernel development


The current development kernel release is 2.3.35. The patch includes the usual large set of fixes (271 files changed), a driver for Quicknet Internet PhoneJACK and Internet LineJACK cards, more Sparc fixes, a reorganization of the Arcnet driver, lots of Adaptec SCSI driver changes, USB updates (including a new HID (human input device) driver), and a number of other changes.

The current stable kernel version is (finally!) 2.2.14. This release has been long in coming, and should be well received - it contains a lot of important and useful fixes. See the release notes for the full scoop.

The first 2.3.x "things to fix" list has been posted by Alan Cox. The list covers a lot of ground - one wonders how all of that stuff is going to get done anytime soon. But, of course, the posting of a list like this causes an immediate flood of additions... The most popular items which did not appear on Alan's list would appear to be:

  • 32-bit UID support. Linus has said in the past that he wants to incorporate 32-bit user ID's, so this one may yet happen.

  • A journaling filesystem. None of the journaling filesystem alternatives are currently in a state that is ready for 2.4. Ext3 needs a fair amount of work on how it handles buffer memory before it can go in - too much for this release. Reiserfs, on the other hand, might just happen: Hans Reiser says a 2.3 port is close, and Linus has said that inclusion in 2.4 is a possibility. Meanwhile, XFS from SGI has still not been released (though they have begun to make small pieces available). Thus, the only journaling filesystem alternative for 2.4 is reiserfs, and that remains uncertain.

  • Version 3 NFS. Another major kernel release with a sub-standard NFS implementation would be a shame. There's been no word on whether the NFSv3 work that has been done will be merged or not.

Linus had wanted to get a pre-2.4 series going before the end of the year. Not only did that not happen, but it appears that it is still rather distant at this point. Some things can not be rushed; 2.4 will come out when it is ready.

Now that Y2K has wimped out, it's time to worry about the year 2038 problem. 2038, of course, is when the 32-bit time_t value that Unix systems use to represent times overflows. Some people want to try to deal with the problem now; others feel less urgency.

One point of view says that we'll all be using 64-bit systems by then; at some point we just redefine time_t to be a 64-bit value, recompile everything, and the problem goes away. There are, however, a couple of problems with that approach:

  • Old hardware has an amazing ability to hang around in crucial roles long past when it seems it should have been junked. That 32-bit Pentium doorstop in the corner of the machine room may still be doing something important when the rollover happens. Embedded applications, where size and power consumption are crucial, also tend to use less capable hardware for long periods of time.

  • Making time_t into a 64-bit quantity and recompiling everything will make a lot of programs work. But it will do nothing for all of the databases and file formats which contain 32-bit quantities. Quite a bit of application fixup work will be required to deal with all of those problems.
A reprieve could be had by simply redefining time_t to be an unsigned quantity - it would then be good until slightly after the beginning of the 22nd century. The only problem there is that some applications actually use negative time values to indicate times before the epoch.

The solution would seem to be to design a migration path now. With almost forty years in which to make things work correctly, one would assume the a reasonably painless transition could be made. In practice, many of us may well find ourselves being called out of retirement in 2037 to deal with the last-minute fixes...

A beta version of RealTime Linux V3.0 has been released. This version is based on the 2.3 kernel series, and does not (yet) contain much that is new at the API level. Note that RTLinux 2.x is still under active development as well...

A programming guide for Linux USB drivers has been released by Detlef Fliegl. It documents the structure of the Linux USB subsystem, and should be a valuable resource for those wanting to write USB drivers.

Other patches and updates released this week include:

  • Jens Axboe released a set of patches to bring DVD support into the IDE driver. It works with the 2.2 kernel series.

  • David Sauer released a driver for the MediaForte SF16-FMR FM Radio card.

  • Devfs v152 was released by Richard Gooch.

  • Randy Dunlap released a /proc tree viewer for the USB bus and attached devices.

  • RSBAC 1.0.9a (Rule Set Based Access Control) has been released. RSBAC is an ambitious project to add a number of security mechanisms to the Linux kernel.

Section Editor: Jon Corbet


January 6, 2000

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