Wednesday, April 27, 2005

What's coming in Linux Kernel 2.6.12 -- 9:19 am CST, Update by The Master

LinuxWorld.com.au has an article up on what's due to be included in Linux kernel 2.6.12. The high points include:

• Trusted computing hooks
• SELinux (security enhanced linux specs)
• Address space randomization for defence against buffer overflow attacks
• Multipath I/O (a spec for redundant/load balanced I/O)
• Native virtualization support with Xen
• Reiser4 filesystem
• Clustering and embedded systems improvements, including state suspension to disk or memory
• iNotify file change and kernel filesystem change notification systems for desktop applications

A.T. Hun comments: All of this is cool and all, but I really wish that Linus and the boys would cut a 2.7 branch so that development could continue there and 2.6 could stabilize. It is very annoying to upgrade your kernel for a security fix, only to find that some new "feature" is causing things to bork up.

The Master comments: That's been a common complaint for the 2.6 branch of the kernel. Unfortunately, it appears the kernel maintainers believe this is the way to go. The 2.2 and 2.4 trees had the advantage of several maintainers that were willing to maintain their own trees, and stabilize them for production use. This doesn't seem to be the case with 2.6, since the current kernel development pattern seems to be the preference of Linus and Andrew.

News for 04/27/2005

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