Zack's Kernel News
Zack's Kernel News
This month in Kernel News: Debugging Production Systems; Patch Submission Guidelines; New Filesystem for SSD and Flash Drives; and Unlocking Memory Access.
Debugging Production Systems
In general, a developer might debug the Linux kernel by compiling a bunch of special debugging features, performance analysis features, and whatnot. Then they'll patch any kernel bugs they find. However, the actual users who benefit from those bug fixes would not run the debugging features themselves, because there would be too much overhead. Regular Linux users want fast, low-resource, secure systems that generally kick ass in all directions.
Recently however, Marco Elver of Google submitted a patch implementing Kernel Electric-Fence (KFENCE), a debugging tool that's intended to ship as a default feature of the standard Linux source tree. Why would he turn the world upside down in this way?
KFENCE's goal is to identify memory leaks and boundary violations. Other debugging tools such as KernelAddressSANitizer (KASAN) do this too, but they take a system-wide performance hit in order to find those problems.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
News
-
Apple M1 Hardware Support to be Merged into Linux Kernel 5.13
Linux users will be able to install their favorite distribution on Apple’s M1-based hardware.
-
KDE Launches the Qt 5 Patch Collection
To support and maintain a stable Qt 5 for KDE Gears and Frameworks, KDE will maintain a patch collection.
-
Linux Creator Warns Next Kernel Could be Delayed
Linus Torvalds has issued concern about the size of kernel 5.12 and possible delays for its release.
-
System76 Updates its Pangolin Laptop
System76 has released a much-anticipated AMD version of their most popular laptop, the Pangolin.
-
New Debian-Based Distribution Arrives on the Market
TelOS is a new Debian-based Linux distribution with a customized, touch-screen-ready KDE Plasma 5 desktop.
-
System76 Releases New Thelio Desktop
One of the most ardent supporters of open source hardware has released a new desktop machine for home or office.
-
Mageia 8 Now Available with Linux 5.10 LTS
The latest release of Mageia includes improved graphics support for both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.
-
GNOME 40 Beta has been Released
Anyone looking to test the beta for the upcoming GNOME 40 release can now do so.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 has Arrived
The latest stable version of OpenMandriva has been released and offers the newest KDE desktop and ARM support.
-
Thunderbird 78 Ported to Ubuntu 20.04
The Ubuntu developers have made the decision to port the latest release of Thunderbird to the LTS version of the platform.