Zack's Kernel News
Zack's Kernel News
Chronicler Zack Brown reports on: “Welcoming" a New Kernel Developer; and An Ancient Feature Goes Belly Up.
"Welcoming" a New Kernel Developer
Amy Parker, a newcomer to Linux kernel development, had an idea for a new filesystem. Ideally, she said, "once it's completed, rich, and stable I'd try to get it into the kernel." She asked what would be involved in such a process.
Andreas Dilger welcomed her and offered a few words of caution (a.k.a doom 'n' gloom). First of all, he said, a new filesystem would need to have a unique value for users. If it only did something that other filesystems already did well, there wouldn't be a need to include it in the source tree.
He added that filesystems had a particularly onerous burden of reliability, since users relied on them for their very lives. Unlike many software problems that could be fixed with a simple reboot, he said, if a filesystem lost user data, there was no way home. In light of this, Andreas added, "the general rule of thumb is 10 years before a new filesystem is stable enough for general use."
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Digital Autonomy
• The Answer Was Already on the Shelf
• Changing the Chip Industry: How Public Investment Has Grown Open Silicon
• United Nations Open Source Portal Goes Live
• EU Open Source Strategy Plays Key Role in Tech Sovereignty Package
• France Says “Au Revoir” to Microsoft
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Advanced Video Coding Still Under Patent
Brazilian patent BRPI0109962B1 has expired, which means that DivX and Xvid are no longer problematic for Linux, but it doesn’t mean that video is all of a sudden fully unleashed.
-
2,000 Vulnerabilities per Linux Release
Thanks to AI bug hunters, the Linux kernel is seeing record numbers of vulnerabilities, and it's overwhelming developers.
-
Linux Exempt from California’s Age Verification Law
So long as Linux is distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses, the OS is exempt from being required to verify the age of its users in California.
-
Roll Out the Cake: Linux Turns 35
35 years ago, a Finnish student began a humble project that would forever change the course of technology.
-
China Switching from Windows to Linux
China has ordered several government agencies to drop a Chinese-developed version of Windows 10 in favor of either KylinOS or UOS.
-
Pine64 Halts Production of Linux Devices
With continued DRAM and eMMC shortages, Pine64 has decided to discontinue production of Linux devices.
-
The Bullet-Proof KDE Software Initiative Is Coming
KDE, Techpaladin, and Kubuntu Focus have announced a new initiative that will provide at least three years of support for KDE Plasma 6.6 LTS and related software.
-
Linux Mint Shares a Possible Kernel Cleanup Solution
For those on Linux Mint who like to keep multiple kernels around but don't want them to take up too much space, you might be getting a new automated tool.
-
CachyOS Gets an Update
CachyOS August 2026 release is now available with the latest version of KDE, some new features, and plenty of improvements.
-
The Linux Kernel Dev Staging Area Now Rejects AI-Generated Patches
Unless a kernel patch is a valid security fix, it will be rejected if it was created using AI.