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Programming Software Linux IT Technology

Talking With 2.0 Kernel Maintainer David Weinehall 206

Posted by timothy from the in-my-day-we-didn't-have-a-preemptable-kernel dept.
Jeremy Andrews writes "While the recently released 2.6 Linux kernel is all the rage these days, the much older 2.0 kernel is still alive and kicking. KernelTrap has interviewed David Weinehall, the maintainer of the 2.0 Linux kernel. David became the 2.0 maintainer in December of 1999, after Alan Cox moved on to work full time on the 2.2 kernel. In this interview David talks about what's involved in maintaining the 2.0 kernel, who uses it, when we can expect the impending release of 2.0.40, why you should upgrade (if you're still running 2.0.39), and more."
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Talking With 2.0 Kernel Maintainer David Weinehall More

Talking With 2.0 Kernel Maintainer David Weinehall

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  • Latest and greatest not for everyone (Score:3, Informative)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @03:43AM (#8177932) Homepage Journal
    Linux 2.0 is fine for systems that don't need the power and capabilities of the 2.6 kernel.

    While the 2.2 kernel was pretty much a bust, the 2.4 kernel proved itself wonderfully capable.

    Still, I would love to see BSD or AIX stacked up against Linux 2.0.

    • Re:Latest and greatest not for everyone (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gasgesgos ( 603192 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @03:45AM (#8177943)
      It's like the people that still use Windows 95, sure it's not as new and flashy, but it still runs on the crappy hardware from years ago... And sometimes, that's all you need.
      • I think there is a difference however.

        I mean I understand what you are saying, but if you were given the choice to upgrade that old copy of Windows 95 to say Windows 98 or better (I use that term loosely) for FREE (and assuming it still ran on the crappy hardware from years ago) then I am sure you would jump at the chance.

        Thats kinda why I find it more surprising that people use the older versions of the kernel, considering its not costing you more than a few minutes time to download the latest tarball fr
        • Sorry, no dice there. Win98 had no more stability and was all but Win95b with the bloat of the active desktop required . Win98 for free would be a curse to anyone still running Win95. I hated it when I "upgraded" to Win98 on my p120 because every clock cycle mattered. I went back to Daddy Blue Screen because at least he was faster.

        • Re:Latest and greatest not for everyone (Score:5, Informative)

          by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @04:43AM (#8178108) Homepage Journal
          Thats kinda why I find it more surprising that people use the older versions of the kernel, considering its not costing you more than a few minutes time to download the latest tarball from your local mirror, and setup a new kernel!

          I think that's where you're missing the point.

          The way the kernel deals with devices changed a great deal between 2.0.x and 2.2.x and even moreso for 2.4.x, if you've got some custom apps that work just fine on the hardware that you're using, what's the point in upgrading?

          No risk of having to debug unforseen problems with running your app in a new environment.

          If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

          LK

          • Re:Latest and greatest not for everyone (Score:5, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @06:19AM (#8178337)
            the 2.0.x kernel is used HEAVILY in embedded systems. this is a place where it takes YEARS to get things certified safe to run by the engineers.

            Can I install 2.6.1 on that system and run it? you bet I can, and with no speed loss. but I lose the knowledge that the kernel will NOT be a point of failure. Absolutely nobody can tell me the exact failure points of the 2.6 or even the 2.4 kernels. while the 2.0 kernel is completely documented and certified by the in house people here to be 99% solid. (Windows CE get's a 50% rating, a full 5% higher than windows nt,2000,xp) While QNX and BSD here are still below 80% as far as the testing people rate it... and that is what matter's to us.

            Not something that a know-nothing with no credentials says in the press.... what we see in real testing over the course of a 24 month period trying to force it to fail. (Yes, even baking the board beyond operating temps...)

            all this for testing a firmware for upcoming cable tv boxes and other embedded systems related to video/communication.
          • Thats kinda why I find it more surprising that people use the older versions of the kernel, considering its not costing you more than a few minutes time to download the latest tarball from your local mirror, and setup a new kernel!

          What! And lose uptime! Are you nuts!

          On a more serious note, for production systems, if it is not broken (eg security vulnerability) and still does what's needed, don't touch it. If you have to touch it, touch only the part that needs to be touched.
        • A few minutes? consider that people still running 2.0.x kernels are likely to be running them on very old hardware, and a few minutes becomes a few hours.

      • It's like the people that still use Windows 95

        Except that 2.0.xx kernel is still getting updated with security patches and bug fixes, thanks to David; while Windows 95 is not secure, and any existing or future vulnerabilities, bugs, leaks, data loss, etc. will not be fixed by Microsoft.

        On an unrelated note, David says:

        Then I had a hard-disk crash in January (yes, an IBM DeathStar, of course... Heed my advice, never buy one!). While I had backups and of most of my stuff, I didn't have a backup of my lat

        • I'd actually like to see this, ext2 is all you get with 2.0
          reiserfs has been backported to 2.2 but the fs code in 2.0 is quite different from 2.2
          I'm also kinda sad to see that nubus-ppc support
          is again absent from the new linus tree.
          Given that reiserfs was itself backported to 2.2
          a 2.0 backport seems unlikely, but DM would be the
          guy to do it :)
          Keep up the good work

          Posted with lynx, so if it looks ugly, you know why
        • Those DeathStars are nothing but trouble. Mine would freeze the system every once in a while (with the HD activity light on), refuse to boot and make funny noises.

          Werd, I think a lot of people had issues with these drives. I had a 60GB DeathStar, RMA'd only to get another used HDD (didn't bother to send me a new drive) that failed on me. Some people reported these drives were great while most hated it. I think I'll avoid IBM Hard Drives.

          • IBM drives have always been good to me. Of course, I always make sure they have an empty space above AND below for airflow. I deal with a lot of IBM (SCSI) drives at work, and they also seem to be very reliable (more so than Seagate, which is the only other brand we use, and no I'm not saying Seagate's are crap, but the 73GB Cheetah IVs have some issues). IBM also had very good customer support, but that's gone to shit since they sold their drives unit to Hitachi. For that reason alone I will never buy anot
    • While the 2.2 kernel was pretty much a bust...

      I beg to differ! I've been running a 2.2.x gateway computer for years now and it's done a heck of a job. ipmasqadm with portfw makes it a very flexable tool and there are even many other additions that allow for tunneling of some of the more tricky protocals [impsec.org].

      There are plenty of reasons to run newer kernels, I would never discount any of the linux even series as a "bust".
    • A good way for someone this to get working (the idea of recycling old pc's) would be to get live distributions working for them also.

      Sure a new Knoppix is good and all but there isn't anything like optimized, aged code (a decade) that makes you wonder why you got that other thing that gives you problems.

      The difference in a -typical- XP and 2000 install is enough on 5 year old home PC's. I've got a 333 which is flying away with distributed.net on 2000 - a good 2.0 live CD to show me a slow and difficult cu

    • While the 2.2 kernel was pretty much a bust, the 2.4 kernel proved itself wonderfully capable.

      I humbly disagree. 2.4 has been a nightmare. I don't think any other stable Linux kernel series has seen so much mid-stream fluxuation or show-stopper bugs. For quite some time it was prone to crash, we had the severe VFS bug in 2.4.11, we had VM maintainers switching out the algorithm used to allocate memory, the functionality of the cryptoapi+cryptoloop subsystems has been broken between the last 3 releases

  • C64 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sir Pallas ( 696783 )
    Glad to see that he still has his C64 alive and kicking as well..

  • Interesting (Score:2, Informative)

    by TurnerK12 ( 748592 )
    That was an interesting interview. It's nice to see some people still use the good old Commodore 64 for programming.
    ---
    http://www.agigames.com [agigames.com]
    These guys have the tools to let you make your own adventure games.

  • Anybody... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TypoNAM ( 695420 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @03:46AM (#8177945)
    Still maintaining the 1.0 kernel? :)

    • Re:Anybody... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I don't remember where I read this, and I can't find the site now... But I seem to recall that kernel versions take the form X.Y.Z, where X is the major number, Y is the minor number, Z is the incremental number. X is only incremented whenever the kernel is changed so massively, that compatibility is broken with older versions of the kernel. Given this, it seems unlikely that anyone would be interested in maintaining the 1.*.* series.
    • No. I remember reading this on lkml sometime last year, but I'm too lazy to come up with a link so you'll just have to take my word for it.

    • Re:Anybody... (Score:3, Informative)

      by MyHair ( 589485 )
      ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v1.0/ [kernel.org]

      Doesn't look like it. The most recent files are from April 1994.

  • Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @03:47AM (#8177947) Homepage
    Isn't it great? One of the best things with free software is that anyone is free to maintain and support it for as long as they wish. Compare to say, NT 4.0, which is perfectly capable for some tasks, but users are forced to switch because MS cuts support (read: no more security updates.)
    • I too think it is a good idea. Just because it is not the latest ground breaking technology does not mean people don't use it. IMO thats whats great about seeing someone still maintaining it even though it hasn't been in "production" for a while now. Relising that some people might still use it, and continue support for it. Kudos David.

  • Aerospace COmmunity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nil5 ( 538942 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @03:49AM (#8177951) Homepage
    Not many people realize that a lot of us in the aerospace community rely on older versions of the kernel due to its "nimbleness" for fly-by-wire systems, etc. A lot of us don't need the newer features of more recent kernels, and having something that does the bare minimum--fast-- is optimal.

    We really have to be thankful that people maintain the older versions!
    • Not many people realize that a lot of us in the aerospace community rely on older versions of the kernel due to its "nimbleness" for fly-by-wire systems, etc. A lot of us don't need the newer features of more recent kernels, and having something that does the bare minimum--fast-- is optimal.

      With many embedded systems there is little reason to use the "latest and greatest" in terms of either hardware or software. Especially since the newer stuff is likely to be more complex, more power hungry and more like
    • You're either lying or insane (or rather, any person who wants to use Linux in such a system is insane).

      and having something that does the bare minimum--fast-- is optimal.

      Linux does not do the bare minimum! It does FAR FAR more than a fly-by-wire system would ever need. So,you say, we just disable that when we do "make config". Ah, but what if there are interactions with code which you've just disabled? (It happens. It shouldn't but it does happen).

      And don't give me any shit about Linux being tested by

      • You're either lying or insane

        His post isn't very reader-friendly (it makes grossly implausible statements apparantly unwittingly, and includes no specific names or facts that could be verified by the skeptical or researched by the curious), it is very moderator-friendly (the author is pro-Linux and makes vague claims of being a professional in a technical field), and it comes from someone in a deep karma rut [slashdot.org]. My money is on "lying".
    • I have a hard time believing that anyone would use a non-real-time kernel for fly-by-wire. Perhaps it's acceptable for a simulator though. As for "nimbleness", later versions of the kernel have larger code but are more efficient in many ways.

  • Great to know (Score:5, Interesting)

    by inflex ( 123318 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @03:55AM (#8177963) Homepage Journal
    I've got at least a dozen production machines which have been going since Slackware 3.6, so I'm very glad to see the 2.0 kernels still being 'overseen' by someone.

    The hardware is old, it works with the 2.0.x kernels, it works fast and without issues (except for exploits of course), so why bother making a radical change which might end up breaking more by moving to the latest.

    • Re:Great to know (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      ...without issues (except for exploits of course)

      No, sir. By 2.0.40 pre1 the exploit is fixed. So, currently there is no exploits at all... zilch... nada.

    • Re:Great to know (Score:3, Interesting)

      by maharg ( 182366 )
      I've got an old Dell GS1 workstation w/32Mb addressing 220Gb of storage via smbmount.

      Uptime: well in excess of 400 days
      Kernel: 2.0.39

      Why fix it if it isn't broken ?

      • Re:Great to know (Score:3, Informative)

        by advocate_one ( 662832 )
        2.6 will give you a massive improvement in your smb serving...


        test it and see for yourself :) even 2.4 will improve your smb serving as it incorporates some improvements that were introduced to speed up Linux after the Mindcraft episode.

      • I had a box running on 2.2 as a web server at my old admin job.

        Damn thing just refused to die. It had an uptime in excess of 500 days (my record, 523), when some moron pulled the power cord out of the back by mistake (I still blame you Nik!).

        When I booted that box up, the twin towers were standing, Enron was still in business, The Taleban still ran Afganistan and The GameCube and Xbox had yet to be released.

        How time, up and in general, flies.

  • Who's using it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @04:00AM (#8177971) Journal
    In autumn 2002 I also started to work quite a lot for the Debian-project,

    There's you're answer to "who's using it"... Debian!

    I have to admit, I suspected it all along...
    • Before I get moderated as flame-bait or troll... That was meant to be funny. Who-ever moderated this as "Informative" probably didn't get the joke.

    • Re:Who's using it... (Score:4, Funny)

      by IntelliTubbie ( 29947 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @04:37AM (#8178088)
      There's you're answer to "who's using it"... Debian!

      That newfangled 2.0 kernel? Maybe for those bleeding-edge folks using unstable, but I think Woody still uses a hamster wheel attached to an abacus.

      Cheers,
      IT
      • That newfangled 2.0 kernel? Maybe for those bleeding-edge folks using unstable, but I think Woody still uses a hamster wheel attached to an abacus.

        I think the official woody kernel is still 2.2.x. If you want to get bleeding edge then they do have 2.4 kernels available. They even have a 2.4 boot floppies for those of us with hardware too new to be supported by 2.2. I guess I'm not complaining. I helped someone setup Debian and I made sure he stuck with stable because he was always bitching about Mand

    • Well I took it as informative... I still have an internal DNS/DHCP pair running an age old debian stable, and they are going on almost 2 years of up time, on hardware our office has surplussed to local schools over a year ago!

      Yeah, yeah, I know, the new bind integrates with DHCP better, and tons of other things, but the little scripts I scavenged off of LDP are working great to this day... So much so, I have completely forgotten about those boxes till this story...

      Good systems never get noticed...

    • There's you're answer to "who's using it"... Debian! I have to admit, I suspected it all along...Your joke made me think "Hey! Maybe Debian does still support 2.0! It would be really cool to apt-get install kernel-image-2.0.39 and see how it runs". Unfortunately, it's not in any of the current Debian repositories. Bummer...

  • Hmm :) The 2.0 kernel maintainer says: "In autumn 2002 I also started to work quite a lot for the Debian-project"
    • The 2.0 kernel maintainer says: "In autumn 2002 I also started to work quite a lot for the Debian-project"

      ha thats it, I betcha Debian Stable will be upgrading to 2.0 any day now.

  • Speaking of kernel news... (Score:5, Informative)

    by blixel ( 158224 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @04:57AM (#8178142)
    2.6.2 [kernel.org] has been out for several hours now [osnews.com] ... (changelog here [kernel.org]) - surprised /. hasn't picked this up yet. It's not like the /. editors care about hammering a site. :)

  • Looking for a job? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by black666 ( 630792 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @05:02AM (#8178152) Homepage Journal
    Since I'm currently unemployed, I'd really like to take the chance to do some shameless self-advertising: anyone who needs a Debian-developer, kernel-maintainer, system-administrator/integrator (Linux, AIX, and Solaris experience), or programmer of C, 6510-assembler or PHP (yes, I can do website development, just don't ask me to do the design; I can do all (X)HTML/CSS for them, but you wouldn't like me to do the artworks...)

    How come that such a skilled person with enough references can't find a job?

    • Re:Looking for a job? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      perhaps he doesnt want to leave sweden?
    • Exactly what I was thinking.

      Reading that made me decide to abandon the idea of getting a job in the CS/IT field, let alone in something system administration related. If he can't cut it, what makes me think I have a chance?

      Unless, of course, he just hasn't found the 'right' job yet, or he's not really looking. Still...

      • Re:Looking for a job? (Score:3, Informative)

        by grazzy ( 56382 )
        seems he doesnt have a degree yet ( even if he is studying now ), thats very important if you want to enter the swedish it-market today.

        the days when you could get a cs/it-job as coding html/css is over ( been there, done that, im also studying cs, but i guess i lack in the "patching-the-kernel"-department... perhaps i should take up kernel 1.0 .... hmmm.. ).

      • Re:Looking for a job? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Zo0ok ( 209803 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:22AM (#8178508) Homepage
        I do have an IT-related job in Sweden, and occationally we actually employ new people.

        We (my company, I dont personally recruit people) are not looking for the most brilliant and ambitious people out there. We employ those who have exactly the right level of skills. Sounds strange, but when the times changes, if you have employed over-qualified people they will demand higher salaries, more interesting duties, and maybe they will leave nevertheless. Being overqualified is as bad as being underqualified.

        Unfortunately, these days companies are not working with new cool upstart projects that they need smart entrepreneurs and geeks for - they rather work with streamlining their (organisational) processes, and maintanance.

        Also, they dont want to really employ someone (if they do, they see it as a strategic decision). The rather hire a consultant or "Manpower"-guy. (This might primarily be true for Sweden).

        I am not saying erasing merits from your CV will increase your chances, but the fact that someone else with more skills do not get a job does not automatically imply you wont.

        Work experience is always valuable though (unless perhaps you are 55+).

      • Re:Looking for a job? (Score:2, Informative)

        by tao ( 10867 )

        He (that'd be yours truly) got unemployed only a month ago, so I've been busy doing other things.

    • Most geek job listings I've seen want a bunch of unrelated qualifications. Example: Must have 3+ years experience in JAVA, COBOL, LINUX, SCO and FORTRAN. Oh yeah, VISUAL BASIC too!

      I mean c'mon, make up your fucking mind! Which skills do you actually need? (Sorry, I'm bitter right now... Apple fucked up my repair, and I may never see my powerbook again. Bastards.)
  • I wonder what he would recommend for someone running 2.0.18. It still works fine, why might I want to upgrade? :P

  • very interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @05:46AM (#8178274)
    after reading his interview, it seems to me as if there are still fairly frequent problems with 2.0 relating to stability and potential security problems.

    I don't recall hearing about these problems all that often with the newer 2.4; is it just my perception, or are the new kernels more soundly written than the older ones?

    • Re:very interesting (Score:3, Informative)

      by greppling ( 601175 )
      No that is just your perception. Note that he is talking about bugs that came up in the time span between 2.0.39 and 2.0.40 -- note that 2.0.39 is now 3 years old!

      There were a lot security related bugs fixedin 2.4 in the same period. 2.4.23 was put out only for a security relevant patch. Another bug was fixed in 2.4.21 that later turned out to have been exploited in the Debian compromise. Local root exploits are not rare, unfortunately. If you also count the local-DoS (i.e., non-root user can cause kern

  • OT,but someone has to make the [NO CARRIER] joke (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The 2.0 kernel is great, even though it is old it is quite reliab=20 ]} $}1}&..}=3Dr}'}"}[NO CARRIER]
  • Are anybody maintaining 2.2 now...? It doesn't seem to have been anything released on kernel.org since 2.2.25 and Alan went back to studying.

    • Re:How about 2.2? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think it was officially mentioned at some point by Alan that 2.2.x is now maintained by the VOLK (or was it WOLK) project. There's a page in sourceforge.net that has a newer 2.2, although the sourceforge site appears to be unreachabel just now, so cannot specify the URL.
  • just the other day i was telling someone about the old 2.0 kernels. how fast they booted. and halted firewalls.

    keep up the good work.
  • Since real numbers are hard to come by, we get by on the very weak ones we have.
    According to the version monitoring page at the Linux Counter [li.org], 35 out of the 4862 monitored machines run the 2.0 kernel - 0.7% of the total number of monitored machines.
    If that holds true for the (who knows???) 20 million Linux machines out there in the wild, there should be something like 142000 2.0-kernel Linux boxes out there. Perhaps more - the "enthusiasts" who register with the Linux Counter may be more prone to upgrading

  • I thought one of the most interesting things in the articles is a collection of tools he mentioned for passwd/group management.

    ==snip==
    A lot is left to be done; so far I'm only at v0.1.1, and the following commands have been implemented (complete with manual-pages):

    {ls,ch,mk,rm}user
    {ls,ch}age
    {ls,ch,mk,rm}group
    chgrpmem
    {vi,cp}pw
    chfn
    chsh

    My first aim is not to compete with passwd, but rather to be able to replace it on my own systems. At a l

  • I am a happy 2.0 user via freesco

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