The Linux Kernel Is Still Rectifying The Year 2038 Problem

[cen1]

A lot of software probably won't be fixed and funny stuff will happen in 2038. I hope to live and see that day. Hopefully no nuclear meltdowns tho.

Could you simulate software bugs by setting the OS time to 2039? Might be a good idea to make a test case in CI.

[L_A_G]

Definitely something that needs to be addressed, but it's not like the panic a lot of people got into in 1999...

Could you simulate software bugs by setting the OS time to 2039? Might be a good idea to make a test case in CI.

My understanding is that this is exactly what they did to find Y2K bugs in software. However the main difference between Y2K and the 2038 problem is that the Y2K problem was an issue for applications and not the underlying OSs while the 2038 problem is exactly the other way around. In other words you just need to fix the OS and you're fine and don't have to go for the massive application bug hunting that took place with the Y2K problem.

[zakhrov]

Just kicking the can down the road. Now we have a Y292B problem.

Clearly the only real solution is to come up with a variable length date structure.

Y292B is well over the current age of the universe. And I'm fairly certain we would have shifted to quantum computers by then

[cen1]

Definitely something that needs to be addressed, but it's not like the panic a lot of people got into in 1999...



My understanding is that this is exactly what they did to find Y2K bugs in software. However the main difference between Y2K and the 2038 problem is that the Y2K problem was an issue for applications and not the underlying OSs while the 2038 problem is exactly the other way around. In other words you just need to fix the OS and you're fine and don't have to go for the massive application bug hunting that took place with the Y2K problem.

Hmm, won't the userspace programs need to be fixed also? Like, if you are storing the timestamp in int32 right now that clearly won't work anymore.

[reavertm]

What about bioses etc. That old hw will just have to die before 2038.

[pal666]

It's integer overflow, how would Rust have helped with that?

no kernel - no problem

[strtj]

Oh my goodness, are there really still people using gettimeofday() in the linux kernel? It was practically a deprecated function in the early '90s.

[RelaxTrolls]

I would love to know when Real Time Linux patches will get merged upstream/vanilla. Please make it happen!

https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/realtime/start

In reality, the majority of the RT patches have been merged into mainline... the RT patches are much smaller than they used to be... it's also why even mainline works quite good for lots of usecases that it sucked to suck at...

even if RT was fully merged. it would still be a kconfig option. I don't think mainline ever plans on using certain bits.

[smitty3268]

Y292B is well over the current age of the universe. And I'm fairly certain we would have shifted to quantum computers by then

Yes, right, but I'll still be alive in my android body and using my 386SX desktop from 1990 because I don't have the money to upgrade it. These things are important to get right.

[gamerk2]

Definitely something that needs to be addressed, but it's not like the panic a lot of people got into in 1999...



My understanding is that this is exactly what they did to find Y2K bugs in software. However the main difference between Y2K and the 2038 problem is that the Y2K problem was an issue for applications and not the underlying OSs while the 2038 problem is exactly the other way around. In other words you just need to fix the OS and you're fine and don't have to go for the massive application bug hunting that took place with the Y2K problem.

The main issue with Y2K was shortcuts taken by applications. As an example, a lot of our companies MS Access databases (Don't laugh; it was the early 90's after all) used two digits for storing year values in order to save some space. We'd use the year values for indexing purposes. For obvious reasons, at the Y2K rollover, things broke.

The 2038 problem has already started to manifest itself; 30 year mortgage calculations started to break in late 2007. Good thing every firm involved in such transactions moved to 64-bit values years ahead of time so we didn't accidentally cause a housing meltdown and start a world-wide recession...

I kid, but only half jokingly. I just find the timing of the two problems oddly coincidental.