Debs has been a firmware writer for a while now, however, she’s specializing in device drivers for embeded stuff. Had an interesting discussion Sunday evening, which kinda left both of us more confused. Apparently, she’s still using the kernel 2.4.x series to write stuff, and I was insisting how 2.4.x is not that widely used now. I may be wrong tho, cuz I know zilch about embeded devices. The stuff that left us both confused was when I pointed that the API in the 2.6.x series is not stable, and sometimes has been reported to break backward compatibility.
She said API doesn’t matter or somethin like that. (I don’t wanna misquote her cuz I only have a vague idea of what an API’s function is and the specific area where she’s workin.) She also tried to explain me the difference between the 2.4.x and 2.6.x series of kernels on how functions or instructions are called and executed. Well, I’m no geek, but I can say this confidently that I understood absolutely nothin. Bal and Suchos, who’re both computer science students and later switched to pursue MBAs and were getting pretty irritated with the discussion, also pitched in with some basic stuff that seemed pretty advanced to me none the less. Anyhow, since the other two were really not interested in the discussion, we thought of just letting it go. But hey it’s fun to talk to geeks man, cuz most of the time u don’t really know what they are explaining. lol!! OK but I’m serious.
Anyway, y’day being a Monday, was reading the DWW and Ladislav mentioned how two Mandriva developers have criticized (one, two) the kernel developers and derived how “Linux” will never be ready for the desktop. Interesting thing they’ve noted and again pointed to the same thing how the kernel API needs to be stable so that third-party hardware vendors can write drivers which work alright even after a kernel upgrade. So I’m back to square one: Hello kernel API!! Now the real problem arises from the fact that I’m not a technical person by any means, Debs on the other hand is an electronics major who’s just recently starting to take a hard look at Linux. (Please note that when I mention Linux, I mean only the kernel, otherwise I’ll say GNU/Linux.) So, anyone who can chip in with some info in lay-man terms will be very helpful.
Meanwhile, certain kernel developers like Greg KH need to get over their ego and pull their acts together so that they can offer a stable API, which others have been asking for a while now. Certainly the Mandriva developers made some sense, too bad that most of the DistroWatch readers and the site itself bashed the company over nothing w/o trying to give it a thought. Was the first one way off mark when he said: “…Now if those kernel-developing idiots would get their act together and give us a 2.6 kernel that was a) stable and b) supported for more than a week, then I’d really be pleased”? I don’t think so.
The two blog entries were constructive criticism. Besides other high-profile kernel developers like Alan Cox and Andrew Morton have also wanted an API that is stable and doesn’t break stuff. Over to Beranger’s if u want the quotes and sources from a while back… Adios!!
powered by performancing firefox
Hey, did you check out FF V2.0 RC2? Were you already on RC1?
Sorry, nothing to add to the topic of your post, though.
I dont exactly know which version I’m using in me Ubuntu Edgy thingy… It’s FF 2.0 RC somethin… lol didnt check!! Ubuntu is slooooowww so it’s waiting for me to replace it with Mdv 2007. Othewise as for FF, it’s got some cool features like tab resume and stuff like Opera’s got. Otherwise am using v1.5.x on my other O/Ses.
BTW! Isn’t life is a lemon some song from Bat Out of Hell II or somethin? I guess it’s the one that has this pretty cool chord riff.
Oh, so you are already on RC2.0! I am still trying Ubuntu on VM player on my XP box (Blasphemy!).
And yes sir – Meatloaf with Jim Steinman, that melodramatic operatic song. Yep, some pretty neat arrangements by Steinman.
Which Ubuntu? 6.06 LTS? I didnt really get the deal with LTS, cuz it just got slower all of a sudden with that version. In short: Ubuntu sucks. But then, I dig it’s documentations and wikis (if only Debian had those) and of course ‘apt-get install bitchx’ (I’m not kiddin… there’s this thingy called bitchx, a CLI-based IRC client, that I dunno how to use). Anyway, why use stuff on VMware when you can have your way with Live CDs? (I’m actually just jealous cuz I dont have RAM enough to use it.)