Why complexity is bad and open source is good
Attack of the Killer ftrace
When a test kernel starts wrecking network cards, the community gets busy.
Complexity is an amazing and terrible thing. One of the first Intel CPUs was called the 4004 (released in 1971) and contained 2,300 transistors. The Pentium 4 (released in 2000) had 48 million transistors, and a modern Quad core CPU has around 2 billion transistors. In 2008 the Linux 2.6.27 kernel surpassed 10 million lines of code. Personally, my experience has been that more transistors mean a better computer. On the opposite side, despite faster hardware, Linux still seems to take the same amount of time to boot up and present a working desktop.
Network Card Killings
In late August 2008, a number of reports regarding e1000e network cards became public [1]. Not just the typical "I upgraded my driver and my network stopped working," but actual "my network card has stopped working and is not being enumerated at boot time and it's completely dead now" reports.
The good news is that hardware is cheap. The bad news is that hardware is cheap.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
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
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.
-
So Long, ArcoLinux
The ArcoLinux distribution is the latest Linux distribution to shut down.