From: Rik van Riel (riel@nl.linux.org)
Date: Wed Dec 29 1999 - 06:36:23 MST
On Wed, 29 Dec 1999, Charlie Stross wrote:
> [ posting delayed -- I've been away from this mailbox for a week of
> drinking :]
It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it :)
> On Fri, Dec 24, 1999 at 08:59:03AM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> > >
> > If the Linux companies are making it easier to configure and beef
> > up the file system (to support journaling [perhaps using SGI's code],
> > support raw devices [for databases], etc.), get up-to-date with the
> > fast-moving hardware, then you may be right.
>
> Both of those items are in the feature list for the 2.4 kernel,
> which should be coming out some time before March. (SGI's XFS
> filesystem does journaling; so does Stephen Tweedie's ext3
> filesystem, which has the advantage of being upward -- and
> downward -- compatible with the current ext2 filesystem.)
Don't forget reiserfs...
But while both ext3 and reiserfs are more or less ready,
I don't know if they'll be included in the stock 2.4 kernel
as released by Linus. They _will_ be in modified kernels as
shipped by distributions anyway, so we shouldn't really
worry about that.
Another important feature is Large File Support (confusingly
flagged as LFS), transparent support for up to 64GB of memory
on ia-32 machines, good SMP scalability and an overhaul of the
networking stack to make it more scalable.
> What I find really interesting is the way Windows NT has evolved.
> Originally touted as a cross-platform OS, Microsoft has quietly
> dropped support, processor by processor ... until it's now an
> IA32-only system. Given that Windows 2000 is huge -- I pass no
> judgement on whether this is good or bad -- I can't help wondering
> how easy they're going to find the process of moving 30MLoc of
> platform-dependent code to a new architecture. (The phrase
> "painted themselves into a corner" springs to mind.)
They won't be able to do it. Merced^WItanium could be the
killer for Microsoft...
Firstly, they never managed to make their Alpha port fully
64 bits. This means that NT is not yet 64-bit clean, which
it will need to be on Merced because that architecture is
64-bit only.
Secondly, Intel and the other ia-64 companies are wildly
investing in Linux, almost as if their life depended on
it. This, to me, is a Major Clue that Microsoft hasn't
delivered on their promises and doesn't have NT running
on Merced yet...
Of course, this is all wild speculation. But _if_ MS
did have NT running on Merced, we'd surely have seen
a demo by now.
regards,
Rik
-- The Internet is not a network of computers. It is a network of people. That is its real strength.
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