5 ms·

Significant improvements coming in Linux 3.5

71 points by Tsiolkovsky 14y ago

fserb 14y ago
for some broad definition of "significant"
- joelhaasnoot 14y ago
  If you don't have graphics support for your current card or need the new profiling it's significant. The "target mode" is cool but it's not a significant use case.
- darklajid 14y ago
  I expected something bigger as well. From the release mail of Linus: It's a pretty normal release - roughly 60% drivers, 20% arch updates, and 20% "all over" - filesystems, documentation, tools, you name it. Nothing hugely special springs to mind - there's some memory compaction issue that is still being discussed, but I don't think there's anything particularly scary or special that stands out over everything else in the -rc1.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  Well... The Systemtap userspace probes seem nice, as does the ext4 metadata checksumming, CODEL queue management and the connection repair (albeit I have only played with the idea of moving a live VM from one box to another). Yes. They are significant. Not as significant as the delta between Solaris 10 and 11 or Windows 7 and 8, but, considering the time elapsed since the previous significant improvements, I'd think it's quite impressive. Incremental improvement is good.
ralfd 14y ago
> many systems produced by Apple have had this kind of "FireWire target disk mode" for a while now. Since 2000.
- _delirium 14y ago
  It looks like this will include support for USB disks, though, which Apple doesn't yet support in TDM.
- seclorum 14y ago
  .. but unlike Linux, the Apple Firewire Target mode can't be used while Mac OSX is running on the machine. In Apples' case, its implemented in EFI - whereas with Linux, it will be possible to use the 'target mode' while the machine is still running.
  - wmf 14y ago
    One complication in that scenario is that you can't mount a (normal) filesystem while exposing it over SCSI target (because then it would be mounted twice).
    - sp332 14y ago
      Actually you can't mount anything from the target drive, because the whole drive is exposed over the network as a SCSI device.
      - seclorum 14y ago
        The point is I can now very easily build a Linux-based RAID stack that works with my Macs over Firewire: Kernel-Firewire-Target:0:1->/home/disks/image00.dd & image01.dd &image02.dd &etc. Build a big Linux box with much SSD and other slower disks, wire up a light Mac farm to it with Firewire, point each node to a relevant loop file on some path, and managed storage networks are a cinch.
        wmf 14y ago
        That would have been awesome years ago; now I'd just use gigabit iSCSI. Thunderbolt target mode OTOH...
micro-ram 14y ago
> The Ext4 filesystem can now add checksums to its metadata to help recognise data tampering.
- serverascode 14y ago
  That is really interesting. (And not just data tampering but possibly data corruption.)
serverascode 14y ago
Being able to act as a FC target could be pretty powerful as well. I wish I could do that now on my linux boxes...could create a nice little storage network.

71 points by Tsiolkovsky 14y ago

fserb 14y ago

for some broad definition of "significant"

joelhaasnoot 14y ago
If you don't have graphics support for your current card or need the new profiling it's significant. The "target mode" is cool but it's not a significant use case.
darklajid 14y ago
I expected something bigger as well. From the release mail of Linus: It's a pretty normal release - roughly 60% drivers, 20% arch updates, and 20% "all over" - filesystems, documentation, tools, you name it. Nothing hugely special springs to mind - there's some memory compaction issue that is still being discussed, but I don't think there's anything particularly scary or special that stands out over everything else in the -rc1.
rbanffy 14y ago
Well... The Systemtap userspace probes seem nice, as does the ext4 metadata checksumming, CODEL queue management and the connection repair (albeit I have only played with the idea of moving a live VM from one box to another). Yes. They are significant. Not as significant as the delta between Solaris 10 and 11 or Windows 7 and 8, but, considering the time elapsed since the previous significant improvements, I'd think it's quite impressive. Incremental improvement is good.

ralfd 14y ago

> many systems produced by Apple have had this kind of "FireWire target disk mode" for a while now. Since 2000.

_delirium 14y ago
It looks like this will include support for USB disks, though, which Apple doesn't yet support in TDM.
seclorum 14y ago
.. but unlike Linux, the Apple Firewire Target mode can't be used while Mac OSX is running on the machine. In Apples' case, its implemented in EFI - whereas with Linux, it will be possible to use the 'target mode' while the machine is still running.
- wmf 14y ago
  One complication in that scenario is that you can't mount a (normal) filesystem while exposing it over SCSI target (because then it would be mounted twice).
  - sp332 14y ago
    Actually you can't mount anything from the target drive, because the whole drive is exposed over the network as a SCSI device.
    - seclorum 14y ago
      The point is I can now very easily build a Linux-based RAID stack that works with my Macs over Firewire: Kernel-Firewire-Target:0:1->/home/disks/image00.dd & image01.dd &image02.dd &etc. Build a big Linux box with much SSD and other slower disks, wire up a light Mac farm to it with Firewire, point each node to a relevant loop file on some path, and managed storage networks are a cinch.
      - wmf 14y ago
        That would have been awesome years ago; now I'd just use gigabit iSCSI. Thunderbolt target mode OTOH...

micro-ram 14y ago

> The Ext4 filesystem can now add checksums to its metadata to help recognise data tampering.

serverascode 14y ago
That is really interesting. (And not just data tampering but possibly data corruption.)

serverascode 14y ago

Being able to act as a FC target could be pretty powerful as well. I wish I could do that now on my linux boxes...could create a nice little storage network.