The Linux Weather Forecast

kwabbles writes "The Linux Foundation launched the Linux Weather Forecast yesterday. It features 'current conditions' for kernel development, a 'short-term forecast,' and a 'long-term forecast.' Now developers and organizations that want to see when certain implementations/fixes are planned can find answers at this informative and handy site."

Linux Climatologist

[MyLongNickName]

Although I cannot predict day to day fluctuations, I can say with a high degree of certainty that in 1000 years, Linux usage among the population will be around 62% with a 73 percentage point uncertainty. My models are never wrong.

AAPL is heading DOWN ! Sell !! Sell AAPL !!

[Anonymous Coward]

AAPL is heading DOWN ! Sell !! Sell AAPL !! Now !!

Re:

[eln]

Everyone knows the best way to get cheap karma is to post something that looks vaguely on-topic early in the thread. If you show up too late to get one of the first 10 or 15 posts, you reply to the first post. Doesn't matter what the first post says, moderators usually don't look to see if your post has anything to do with what you're replying to. There are plenty of stories around here where you see karma bait posted as a reply to a totally nonsensical first post. It works because, by my estimation, 80

Re:

[krisp]

agreed

Re:

[Jello B.]

Compiz Fusion. Microsoft was chasing Compiz's taillights with Windows Vista.

Re:

[Hucko]

Firefox, on tech merits and compatibility with purposed interface. On density, Firefox can not compete with Internet Explorer.

Re:

[Hucko]

It does? I haven't had it crash on me. Sorry, I wasn't aware of the problem.

Re:

[Xabraxas]

Apache, Firefox, LyX, Ardour, VLC, Eclipse, Compiz/Beryl and so on. There are a ton of FOSS applications out there that are just as good or better than the competition. There are FOSS applications that are leading the pack. Just because you have limited knowledge of FOSS doesn't mean it isn't good software.

Re:

[Andrewkov]

I thought you were going to say that in 1000 years, Linux will finally be ready for the desktop!

Partly cloudy...

[Gonrada]

Partly cloudy with a slight chance of kernel panics.

and for the weekend outlook

[kc2keo]

we will see some segmentation faults and a 30% possibility of a new error called kernel disintegration. Also in international news the war on errors seems pretty grim.

Re:

[Daimanta]

Will the LWF also predict the consequences of global OS warming on the number of wild penguins?

Re:

[jollyreaper]

> Partly cloudy with a slight chance of kernel panics.

Forecast has been updated to include a 50% chance of flaming hail.

In honor...

[jd]

...of the demonstrated warped sense of humor, I hereby propose that all Linux Kernel Mailing List flamewars are now referred to as cloudy.

I don't think it means what you think it does.

[gihan_ripper]

I was looking forward to reading reports of stormy weather ahead, or even of bright skies. But this seems be be more of a roadmap, not really a forecast. If someone can read this more deeply and see the analogy, then please enlighten me!

Re:I don't think it means what you think it does.

[MyLongNickName]

If someone can read this more deeply and see the analogy, then please enlighten me!

You see, it's like a car with a banana in its radiator...

That's a flawed analogy.

[RealProgrammer]

The kernel is nothing like a car, with or without a banana in its radiator or anywhere else. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't describe the situation at all.

Imagine, if you will, a perfect state machine with N inputs and G(N) outputs, where each output is a Thorgen-Zeta function of all the inputs bounded by the radial square root of each of its eigenvalues. Clearly, the scope is integrable under N, which is probably what led you to your assumption. But where your car-fruit analogy falls down is in assuming that complete T-Z continuity with respect to time.

So a better analogy would be a car with a fish in its tailpipe, dripping maggots along the highway in the rain. Some of the maggots survive to become features, but some are squashed by schoolbuses full of sweaty cheerleaders.

Re:That's a flawed analogy.

[eln]

Yes, of course you're right, but I think if you reversed the polarity on the graviton fields around the vehicle, thus allowing the boson radiation to properly align with the tachyon pulse beam naturally generated by a properly seated banana, I think you'll find the OP's analogy is actually quite apt.

Ah.

[RealProgrammer]

I can see that now. Yes, I had failed to account for the natural tachyon output of properly seated bananas (and the lower but significant output of properly seated plantains, as well). But we may be drifting slightly off-topic.

The OP is correct: the Linux Weather Forecast is like a car with a banana (properly seated) in the radiator.

Not quite.

[jd]

The seating must be in the Complex domain, and for the output to generate the necessary synchrotron tachyon, the banana must be entangled with the fish in the tailpipe, as postulated by Minsky space.

Re:That's a flawed analogy.

[Adambomb]

The day busloads of sweaty cheerleaders are within a kilometer of anything relating to Linux is the day the adoption rate breaks the gauge.

Re:That's a flawed analogy.

[SaDan]

No kidding! I'd love to adopt a sweaty cheerleader!

Wait... what?

Re:That's a flawed analogy.

[cyphercell]

I take it you don't have video working in Linux yet?

Re:

[Adambomb]

Tsk, confusing the virtual with the real again would we?

and clean out that keyboard!

Re:

[TeknoHog]

You see, it's like a car with a banana in its radiator...

I recall a MacGyver episode where they patch the bullet holes in a car radiator with a couple of eggs, as that stuff solidifies easily. That, in turn, reminds me of vegan baking where people often replace eggs with bananas. So, it's a perfect vegan MacGyver analogy!

Re:I don't think it means what you think it does.

[eln]

I think they call it a "forecast" rather than a "roadmap" because that way it's only an educated guess, and they only have to be as accurate as your local weatherman is at long-range forecasts (that is, not at all).

Re:

[bfields]

I think the word "roadmap" would imply some control over the process--this is what we plan to do next and when we're hoping to do it by, etc.

The nature of the Linux community is such that there's not really anybody with the authority to give such a roadmap. Linus can say "no" to people, but he can't make them work on anything they're not interested in. And it's difficult for the various groups implementing new features to guarantee somebody else won't come up with a valid objection that will delay accep

Personally...

[jd]

...I'd quite like it if they used weather symbols to indicate the probability of adoption and timeframe, and the degree of concern over it. For example, sun mixed with cloud would indicate prospect of being adopted in near future. Lightning would indicate that it'd be adopted over the dead bodies of 50% or more of the list.

Obligatory George Carlin

[RealProgrammer]

The Linux forecast for tonight is ... dark.

UIO: Userspace IO drivers.

[serviscope_minor]

Wow. Just wow. This is a fantastic development. This is an excellent complement to FUSE (userspace filesystems), libUSB (userspace USB drivers), X11 (many graphics drivers), sound mixing, and all the other random stuff farmed out to userspace where possible.

Having develpoed in both user and kernel space, I know that userspace development is vastly easier: a crash is now only a segfault, debugging can be done easily and the most suitable language for the task can be used. This makes it faster and easier to develop both robust and efficient code.

But, come on and look at Linux: it's slowly becoming a microkernel: everything that can be in userspace is slowly moving there. And that is a good thing.

Re:

[mfh]

You're right about Linux, but I wouldn't want to see other OSes move towards userspace as much. The others lack the necessary support and free access to keep userspace away from asshats.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

I agree. Userspace drivers open the way for non-GPL dirvers. Whether you're idealistic or pragmatic, closed source drivers are not a good thing. Just look at the stability of the Intel graphics drivers, compared to ATI (awful) and Nvidia (quite good, but still can causes crashes).

Sadly, UIO can be abused to make non GPL drivers. However, since there's now a nice socket, reverse engineering should be easier, and also I expect that the OSS benefits will greatly outweigh the few hardware manufacturers with mis

Re:

[Ant P.]

Yeah, but at least with a kernel driver you _know_ it's crashed.

If that X server hangs is the display just frozen, has X hard-locked the console, or is the whole thing hosed requiring a hard reset? In times like that you're left with crashing the kernel manually using the reset button because there's no other way out. KGI/GGI was supposed to solve that particular problem, but nobody seems to care.

I've had USB devices hang the machine too, but X11 is a really bad offender.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

You'll know if a userspace driver crashes. The device will become unavailable. Then look for the coredump or logfile. But at least you have a coredump to run gdb on now.

But X doesn't always hand the machine. Often you can ssh in and resrart at. Also, that way, you don't loose files which haven't been committed to disk.

But it's true, userspace drives don't magically make software better. X can crash the machine, especially as it's doing funky stuff over the AGP/PCI[X] bus.

However, X is one of many things. In

Re:

[chill]

Really? Most of the time that X has locked on me -- and it has been pretty rare -- it was either handled by a CTRL-ALT-BKSP or SSH in and kill the process. I can't remember ever having X lock the machine up to require a reboot.

Re:

[hatchet]

My windowsXP never crashed. Talk about linux stability... pffft...

Re:

[trifish]

But, come on and look at Linux: it's slowly becoming a microkernel:

In other words, it's slowly getting towards the superior desktop OS design -- the one that Windows uses. And it's really no wonder.

Re:

[setagllib]

What, like how Windows has the entire X11 analogue backend and graphics drivers in the kernel? And how it has to search for up to several minutes for drivers every time you plug a USB device into a new position on the bus, as opposed to Linux' sub-second response even when it has to load modules?

Windows is like the poster child for failed engineering. Even DirectX requires orders of magnitude more kernel/user switches than OpenGL, and they're trying to hack around it any way they can. It's just humiliating.

Re:

[trifish]

What, like how Windows

A device driver written for Windows NT4 works on Windows Vista without any modifications, whereas a device driver written for Linux kernel 2.6.18 doesn't work on (nor compile against) kernel 2.6.19.

Re:

[trifish]

Hello Anonymous Coward,

The "device driver" written "for" Linux is supposed to be integrated _into_ the main Linux source tree. If they didn't do that, it's their own fault and they deserve breakage.

There is no stable (i.e. standardized) external driver API in the Linux kernel, so any further discussion in that direction is pointless and makes you look like a fool.

Re:

[linuxrocks123]

Hello trifish,

> There is no stable (i.e. standardized) external driver API in the Linux kernel, so any further discussion in that direction is pointless and makes you look like a fool.

You completely ignored his comment, which stated that Linux does not have a stable external driver API by design. It's not necessary given Linux's development model, and it's not a flaw. In fact, it's a good thing. You're the fool for not seeing that, and for not reading the kernel documentation file he referenced.

Re:

[trifish]

It's not necessary given Linux's development model

Really? Then ask yourself why Hitachi et al asked for it, and why the grand parent poster wrote "Linux is slowly becoming a microkernel" (certainly because monolithic kernel is great, eh?)

Ok, you're yet another ignorant fool and a blind zealot who believes that a legacy system designed in the 60's is suitable for desktop in the year 2007.

Re:

[linuxrocks123]

> Really? Then ask yourself why Hitachi et al asked for it, and why the grand parent poster wrote "Linux is slowly becoming a microkernel" (certainly because monolithic kernel is great, eh?)

Hitachi et al want a stable driver API so they can write binary drivers. Linux doesn't want or need binary drivers. A stable driver API has nothing to do with the monolithic vs. microkernel debate.

> Ok, you're yet another ignorant fool and a blind zealot who believes that a legacy system designed in the 60's is s

Re:

[trifish]

Hitachi et al want a stable driver API so they can write binary drivers. Linux doesn't want or need binary drivers.

It's not only closed source drivers. But also open source THIRD PARTY EXTERNAL drivers, such as TrueCrypt. Every MINOR update of the Linux kernel caused the TrueCrypt driver to stop working and it required that the developers REWROTE parts of the driver! Do you get it now? Why a stable API for drivers is needed?

Now go play with your toy designed in the 1960's for mainframes. And don't bother re

Re:

[linuxrocks123]

> It's not only closed source drivers. But also open source THIRD PARTY EXTERNAL drivers, such as TrueCrypt. Every MINOR update of the Linux kernel caused the TrueCrypt driver to stop working and it required that the developers REWROTE parts of the driver!

Yup, out-of-tree development tends to do that. They should get it merged. This has been hashed over and over again on LKML.

> Do you get it now? Why a stable API for drivers is needed?

No, what you don't seem to get is that Linux just doesn't work th

Re:

[trifish]

Yup, out-of-tree development tends to do that.

I'm glad you acknowledged that a stable API is needed and that there are problems with the Linux model. What you call "out-of-tree" we in the real world call just regular "software". You know the world where anyone can develop and release any software under any license they wish (not just under the GPL as part of a bloated monolithic kernel that includes every driver ever written).

Re:

[linuxrocks123]

Heh, okay now we've both violated our promise to not reply anymore ;)

> I'm glad you acknowledged that a stable API is needed and that there are problems with the Linux model.

There's no problem with Linux, and it doesn't need a stable API. There are problems with people who for some odd reason think they can do out-of-tree development without having to deal with the versioning conflicts inherent in maintaining a private branch of a software project.

> What you call "out-of-tree" we in the real world ca

Re:

[trifish]

You know what? Some people never learn. So I suggest you continue playing with a legacy-design OS from the 60's, which makes it impossible to develop third-party drivers that don't stop working after each minor update of the kernel.

I will continue using binaries of excellent open-source and closed source drivers written for Windows NT4... on Windows XP and Vista.

This was my last post to you. If you post anything in response I won't read it, so don't bother. You're a stupid moron and I dislike communicating

That's great, but...

[xednieht]

Is there a way to summarize the summary page with a couple of graphics or pictures and then offer links to greater detail. That first page is a lot to digest at a glance. Weather.com does a good job summarizing mountains of info, perhaps a similar approach for the summary would help.

Also, the xml feed is has a slight syntax error:

XML Parsing Error: xml declaration not at start of external entity Location: http://www.linux-foundation.org/index.php?title=Li nux_Weather_Forecast&action=history&feed=atom [linux-foundation.org]
Line Number 49, Column 1:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
^

Re:

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

I think it's better all in one. Makes it a lot easier to read whole chunks of info all at once instead of having to go forwards and back for each item of information. If you want to go straight to a specific point there's a TOC right at the start.

I've got to say I really like it. Finally a single location that gives a good, concise, and easy to read summary of things to come for Linux

Re:

[richlv]

btw, for 'things to come' in a near future kernelnewbies changelogs were great. unfortunately, it seems that one for 2.6.23 is pretty much abandoned...
http://kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges [kernelnewbies.org]

Expect ...

[Midnight Thunder]

If its anything like regular weather forecasts, then expect yesterday's forecast to be better than tomorrow's, and long term forecasts to be totally random ;)

Actually, it IS yesterdays forecast...

[jesterpilot]

since it says 3.5.6 is the latest version of KDE...

Re:

[xtracto]

Unless it is the UK... I always wonder why is there a weather section for the UK. Everytime I see it the forecast is the same, cloudy with rain. I think being a weather forecaster here in the UK is a heck of an easy task, you can always give the correct forecast by going with the "its gonna rane lad" choice...

Neato

[LordPhantom]

Cool.... now we can all shelter whenever there is a SEVERE LINUS WARNING.

Re:

[Gazzonyx]

Cool.... now we can all shelter whenever there is a SEVERE LINUS WARNING.

The required Tanenbaum front has been too quiet and the Gnome index has been low lately to issue such warnings. All we have is CFS overcast, at worst, so far as I can tell.

Perhaps we should get RMS and ESR to bug him a bit? Or we could lock him in a room with John Dvorak for a few hours and insist they discuss "the problem with current operating systems", until they have an RFC drafted that they both agree on?

Linus will veto it!

[mujo]

Coz he doesnt like [lwn.net] weather forecast. Never have and probably never will...

Linux Foundation

[jshriverWVU]

Not to sound lame, but what is the Linux Foundation? I know gnu fosters development of a lot of software, sourceforge hosts a lot of projects, linus and the huge team does the kernel, Ubuntu/Redhat/Debian/Suse/etc take all of the software to make a distribution. I just dont see what the LF does for the community.

Not flaming, if they provide a good resource more power to them.

Re:Linux Foundation

[NickFortune]

I just dont see what the LF does for the community.

Well, they formed from the merger of the OSDL and the Free Standards Group. So they do everything those two thing groups did, including pay Linus to hack on the kernel.

Looking at their about [linux-foundation.org] pahge, they also provide legal services, work to promote standards, and provide a neutral forum for debate. The also run sites like LinuxPrinting.org (as it used to be called).

How much of that is truly useful is perhaps open to question. One of the legal services for instance is protecting the Linux trademark, which hasn't proved the most popular activity in the open source milieu. I've also seen concerns voiced about the joining procedure (you buy your way in) and the fact that the board seemed overly staffed with corporate types, with actual developers being a bit thin on the ground.

I think the big trouble is that everyone knew who the OSDL were. This new entity is going to take a bit of getting used to. That said, they seem to be doing good things, so more power to 'em.

Re:

[GMFTatsujin]

If you think the Linux Foundation is too far apart from the community, wait until you hear about the BSD Foundation on the other side of the galaxy at Star's End ...

My Forecast

[GooseYArd]

My forecast is this forecast will be maintained for about 3 weeks.

Re:

[Corbet]

Actually, it's already been maintained since sometime in April. Plus it's a good complement to my other kernel-watching and reporting work, which I've been maintaining for almost ten years now. How much do you wanna bet on your forecast...? :)

Darn it

[tunabomber]

...neither the GNOME or KDE sections had anything when we'll get a panel applet for displaying up-to-date Linux Weather Forecasts

I'd just like to see fewer regressions...

[Erwos]

Something that drives me particularly nuts about Linux is the number of regressions that happen. Don't get me wrong - I love Linux. But it feels like, in their haste to get things done better than ever, they sometimes reintroduce old flaws.

Case-in-point: Firewire, and more precisely, multi-LUN support. Sounds esoteric, but it's actually not too uncommon to find hardware that needs it these days. When 2.6 came out, 1394 (as a whole) was just plain broken. They finally got it fixed in 2.6.12 or so, but then, in 2.6.22, they introduced a new Firewire stack - which promptly broke multi-LUN support. Maybe not everyone needs this, but I'm heavily dependent on it. I'm now in a position where I can't do any kernel upgrades until I've confirmed the fix has made it into 2.6.23 final.

I know it's something of a petty gripe, but I'd appreciate it if Linus could do a better job of making sure regressions like that didn't slip back in. I don't need a repeat of the bad weather that we've already had. :)

Re:

[bjourne]

Hear hear. The same kind of regression is causing havoc for thousands of Feisty users. A bug in acpi on Linux > 2.6.17 causes knotify to steal 100% cpu after linux has run for a little while. I don't think even Microsoft could leave such a regression unfixed for so long.

Re:

[Shewmaker]

If only Linus had an army of people with a huge variety of hardware
running release candidate kernels looking for regressions ...

Re:

[xehonk]

Actually the new firewire stack is optional, it does not break anything.
In addition to that, multi-lun devices are supported in the firewire git repository already (which I'm currently running). I get a huge performance boost from the new stack too.

Re:

[Erwos]

Thanks for the confirmation of that. I'm looking forward to 2.6.23 now. :)

Re:

[Sinical]

Redhat user? The new Firewire stack was marked experimental, but at least the Redhat folks decided that the benefits of the (much) better security model were worth it. Actually, I think Debian has gone to it now, too (?). Basically, it was *known* that there would be regressions, and the new stack was inserted to give a wider group of people a chance to try it, which suddenly led to various distros jumping all over it.

The new stack is 1/3rd the size of the old and discards a lot of garbage. There're rea

User space covers GNOME and KDE -- but not X?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that rather odd, seeing as some of the most important changes we see happen not in Linux, Gnome, or KDE, but in Xorg.

Then again, what about some other projects? GCC, for instances? Improvements to GCC could potentially improve a vast number of Linux programs. Maybe that ought to be included in the forecast?

The list of important projects could really go on for a while...

Re:

[Corbet]

In fact, there's no end of other things which could be covered here - I agree. Just keeping up with the kernel is challenge enough for the moment. The scope will be expanded when it is possible.

And now, the weather

[jrothwell97]

We can expect calm CPU usage, 24 to 36% for the next three hours, but I can assure you that there is not going to be a hurricane in Wales.

Not complete until...

[Vexler]

...they introduce pleasant-looking weatherwoman, and cheesy muzak.

Weather Forecast?

[Your_Mom]

Personally, I'd rather have a "linux-kernel flamewar fire threat gauge"

I'd check that hourly.

Today's LKML Flamewar Threat: "Moderate"

[Cid Highwind]

Low: Peace and harmony, everyone must be on vacation this week
Moderate: Noobs complaining about nVidia driver crashes
Elevated: Linus just tried GNOME... again
High: Con Kolivas and Ingo Molnar go mano-a-mano over scheduling algorithms
Extreme: Hans Reiser is back, and he's armed, dangerous, and off his meds!

Re:

[kwabbles]

Just RSS the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Instant kernel flame war notification.

There's somewhat of a flame war going on right now about filesystems.

Good entertainment.

Meanwhile, on the Linux *developer* forecast...

[Adhemar82]

Mountain Dew in the morning, damp throughout the day, and 0% chance of showers.