Linux 4.12 Gained A Lot Of Weight: More Than One Million New Lines

[smitty3268]

Yeah, that's the first thing that came to mind for me. It stabilizes and irons out a lot of hardware support.

One thing which is missing is AMD's DC work, I hope they can finish that stuff up in the next cycle.

I still think DC might be 6 months out before they even try to merge again, but we'll see. Hopefully I'm just a pessimist.

[kebabbert]

Indeed bloatware. Even an minimal Linux kernel is ridiculously big nowdays.
Most of the stuff end up in isolated drivers, but quite a lot end up in basic subsystem and core which all add up over time.
Even a completely naked x86-64 bzImage is on the 2M+ side.

I think it is weird that Linux is the only kernel with the network stack in the kernel. All other kernels have the network stack outside the kernel. No wonder that Linux is so big. The entire Windows NT was like 5-10 million LoC including graphics.

Also, Linux is the only kernel which rewrites big parts of the code all the time. So the code never matures and stabilises. The kernel is a moving target and you can never catch up, as new bugs are introduced all the time. It is said that you have to wait until Windows Service Pack 1 before you can use Windows, because the code has matured by SP1. Linux code never matures as it is rewritten all the time. "Linux has no design" as Linus explained "Linux evolves like evolution evolved humans, random iteration is superior to design because design could never evolve humans, only random iteration could do it". Linus has said that.

But even Linus Torvalds thinks that Linux is bloated:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Linux#Kernel_performance

"-We're getting bloated and huge. Yes, it's a problem ... Uh, I'd love to say we have a plan ... I mean, sometimes it's a bit sad that we are definitely not the streamlined, small, hyper-efficient kernel that I envisioned 15 years ago ... The kernel is huge and bloated, and our icache footprint is scary. I mean, there is no question about that. And whenever we add a new feature, it only gets worse."

[cusa123]

Good people i need your help.
I have a 1700 ryzen with an ax370 gaming 5. The problem is that use linux mint 18.1 but i can't find a kernel to Multi-Threading in ryzen. The last which appears in mint is kernel 4.10-20.any help?

[Guest]

I think it is weird that Linux is the only kernel with the network stack in the kernel. All other kernels have the network stack outside the kernel. No wonder that Linux is so big. The entire Windows NT was like 5-10 million LoC including graphics.

Yeah, slowlaris, FreeBSD have network stack out of the kernel? The Windows NT didn't have drivers, dozens of file systems and Linux was also like 5-10 million LoC, so what's your point genius? Ps. 5-10 million LoC without drivers and networking? Windows NT is bloated crap it seems.

Also, Linux is the only kernel which rewrites big parts of the code all the time. So the code never matures and stabilises. The kernel is a moving target and you can never catch up, as new bugs are introduced all the time. It is said that you have to wait until Windows Service Pack 1 before you can use Windows, because the code has matured by SP1. Linux code never matures as it is rewritten all the time. "Linux has no design" as Linus explained "Linux evolves like evolution evolved humans, random iteration is superior to design because design could never evolve humans, only random iteration could do it". Linus has said that.

Yes, Linux master is in development for all the time, but it's not the case with stable trees. It's also not the case with enterprise Linux distributions which have ten years support and nothing is rewritten. However, it's kebabbert moron troll, isn't it?

But even Linus Torvalds thinks that Linux is bloated:

Yeah, that's a problem, but it's still better than other OS'es. Furthermore, thanks to git it's not that hard to streamline whatever you want. Oh, and slowlaris is dead.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rip-oracle-sparc-solaris-alexey-maksimov

[ArchLinux]

You needed 3 duplicate posts to respond to his ignorance?

Also, Linux is the only kernel which rewrites big parts of the code all the time. So the code never matures and stabilises. The kernel is a moving target and you can never catch up, as new bugs are introduced all the time.

...and Google took that uniquely feature-riddled immature unstable code and said "let's just try something here". Now it's the most widely used kernel in the world.

I think they did alright. For the list of all the active development/stable release trees, see kernel.org (the oldest one in there is 3.2, which is over 5 years old).

[Guest]

You needed 3 duplicate posts to respond to his ignorance?

No, it's just broken script on this forum. Sorry for that.

[kebabbert]

...and Google took that uniquely feature-riddled immature unstable code and said "let's just try something here". Now it's the most widely used kernel in the world.

Yes, but why do Google want to replace Linux now? Is it because Linux has problems? Linux is open source, and Google often open sources their software. But now Google is writing a new kernel Fuchsia, instead of using the common Linux. Why? What kind of problems do Linux have that Google does not accept?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/15/googles_new_os_could_replace_android/

[ArchLinux]

Yes, but why do Google want to replace Linux now? Is it because Linux has problems? Linux is open source, and Google often open sources their software. But now Google is writing a new kernel Fuchsia, instead of using the common Linux. Why? What kind of problems do Linux have that Google does not accept?
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/0...place_android/

I mean who knows. This month's discussion around the recent "it's not a dumping ground of a dead thing" update urged people without a clue to wake up and express their opinions, but that's mostly because it's all speculation at this point. There are some curious arguments though like the "stable API" one, so that you wouldn't need new drivers (e.g. camera) for each new major release(?), which you can't have with Linux, unless you stick to one major version for eternity.

Just can't imagine how are they going to supplant the most rapidly changing kernel in the world, Linux, or even further churn of Android, with that. Tizen, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch and even CyanogenMod couldn't replace Android, didn't even try replacing Linux, but then again, none of those were by Google itself.