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672 lines
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<title>Linus at Fermi Lab LG #42</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<H1><font color="maroon">Linus at Fermi Lab</font></H1>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:adler@bnl.gov">Stephen Adler</a></H4>
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FNAL main building. It's 5:28pm and I'm rushing to get to Ramsey
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Auditorium, which is through and on the other side of the main
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building.
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<b>Linus at Fermi Lab</b>
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Authors note: Slashdot posted this page on their site but the article
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really starts at <a
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href="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/adler/Torvalds/comdex99.html">http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/adler/Torvalds/comdex99.html
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</a>. It's an introductory page which puts my FNAL and Comdex write-up into
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perspective. If you are only interested in what Linus had to say at FNAL,
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then just read on.
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<P>
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Editor's note: In the original article on Adler's website, many of the
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inline images display a larger copy of themselves when clicked on. These
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larger images are not included in the <EM>Linux Gazette</EM> version, to
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keep the total size of the <EM>Gazette</EM> small.
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<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9997Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10>
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A clear day for flying. Long Island Islip Airport lies ahead.
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<p>
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April 19th, the day of Linus's talk at FNAL, dawned to be a gorgeous
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day on Long Island. I'm going to fly Southwest, the 1:20pm flight,
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through Baltimore, and transfer to the Chicago Midway flight. I'm to
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arrive in Chicago at 4:30pm. Linus's talk is scheduled for
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5:30pm. Trying to get my reservation setup to fly out to Chicago was a
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mess. Originally, Linus was scheduled to talk at 7:30pm. And I planned
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my flight scheduled around that. (4:30pm arrival, 7:30pm talk, no
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problem.) But, that changed when I got a message about Linus's talk
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being rescheduled. By then I had no choice except brave the tight
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time table. So, I had a relaxing morning, enjoying some quality time
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with my wife. Flight time came and off to the airport I go. With such nice
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weather, all flights were on time. (The Free Software Gods were
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looking after me...)
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<p>
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<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9996Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10 align="right">
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4:25pm arrives, the plane wheels up to the midway terminal gate, and
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bam, I'm off running. Those 1970's or 80's commercials of OJ Simpson
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running through airports was the title theme of my thoughts at the
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time. (Where is the running lane!!!) I hit the National Car Rental
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booth. Two rather relaxed attendants are shooting the breeze. I
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quietly but firmly tell one of them that I have a rental
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reservation. ("Get me my car <b>now</b>!!!") The attendant gets a little
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nervous, shuts up and starts processing my car rental. The rental cars
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are located in an adjacent parking lot just out side the main terminal
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building. No need wait for a bus to take me to the car rental lot,
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(again, the Free Software Gods are looking over my shoulder...) Within
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10 minutes after landing, I'm in my car looking for a way out of the
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airport. For those of you familiar with the Chicago area, I got on I-55
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south (south west really...) to I-355. I-355 north to I-88 west. Turn off
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on 59 heading north. From there you hit Batavia rd west and bang, your
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at the FNAL main building. 4:45pm, on I-55. 5:00pm 355 north, 5:08 I-88
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west. 5:18pm 59 north. 5:20 pm Batavia rd. 5:25pm FNAL main
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building. 2 minute walk to Ramsey Hall, site of Linus's talk. (Mind
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you I did not break any traffic laws. The Free Software Gods will
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attest to that. You can take the issue up with them.)
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<p>
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<table align="left">
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<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9991Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10>
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<caption align="bottom">
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<font size=-1>
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My first shot of Mad Dog. Dan Yocum is on the left and G P Yeh on the
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right.
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</font>
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</caption>
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</table>
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Ramsey hall is an elegant auditorium. It has a red motif to it. Red
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carpeting and seating is the cause of that. Many a physicist have given
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talks in this auditorium, including <a
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href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553380168/o/qid=924795188/sr=2-1/002-2436774-1420814">
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Stephen Hawking</a>. Now it's Linus's turn. The guy who organized this
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event is named Dan Yocum. He wrote to me in an e-mail that it was easy
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to get Linus to come out to FNAL. He e-mailed Mad Dog an
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invitation. ("It's easy, I just asked!") I
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later learned that Linus and Mad Dog had a rather thorough tour of the
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Lab. This included some accelerator facilities, one of the large
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collider detector facilities (CDF) and the computing center. Now it
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was Linus's turn to entertain some question from the audience. In
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some e-mail exchanges with Dan, I told him that I may not make it to
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Linus's talk and that his Comdex keynote address would probably be
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very similar. Dan replied telling me that Linus hates speeches. His
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plan was to make this a question and answer session. He wanted to hear
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from the physicists and not to hear himself talk.
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<br clear="left">
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<p>
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<table align="right">
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<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9990Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10>
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<font size=-1>
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Linus sitting amongst curious Ph.D. graduate students answering
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questions before his talk. This shot was taken seconds after I saw
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Linus for the first time.
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</font>
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</caption>
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</table>
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You have to walk through FNAL's main building to get to Ramsey. I got
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there, went down to the front seats so that I could get a good
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position from where to take some snaps of Linus giving his talk. I
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put my notebook down and looked around to see if Linus was around. I
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was sitting on the right side of the auditorium. I looked over to the
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left and noticed a cluster of people. The first one who stood out was
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this guy with rather long beard, and frizzy white hair. It took a
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minute, but soon realized he was "Mad Dog". Out comes the camera and I
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walk (rush?) over to the left side of the auditorium, go right up to
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Mad Dog and take his picture. He looked at me like, who the hell are
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you! I waved at him or something to try and let him know that I'm a
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friendly guy, not this weirdo maniac running around taking pictures
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of strangers. I then turn to my left and sitting amongst a bunch of
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young guys, I see Linus. I remember the phrase going through my head,
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"There his is, Linus". He didn't notice me, he was too busy talking to
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the guys who were sitting next to him. Again, I take my camera, try and
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get as close as I can, zoom in and snap, I take another picture. I'm
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in this rather "fanatic" state right now. I'm not really thinking
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clearly, and all I can seem to do is take pictures of the guys who in
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reality are total strangers. I stand around and try and take some more
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pictures. I then go over to Mad Dog, introduce myself, give him my
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card and ask a bunch of dumb questions he really does not want to
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answer. Finally, my mental state settles down a bit, and I manage to
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get myself back over to my side of the auditorium from where I sit
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down, take out my note book, clear my head, and try to take some
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sensible notes of the talk.
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<br clear="right">
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<p>
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<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9989Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10 align="left">
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With that, Dan Yocum gets up, and starts the standard Fermi Lab/Ramsey
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Hall tradition in introducing speakers. He introduces John Hall, and
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in turn John introduces Linus. (I've seen it worst at BNL where there
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were 4 introductory speakers ...) John gets up and starts in with this
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story about how he met Linus 5 years ago at a DECUS meeting in New
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Orleans. He gave some specifics about getting Linus's trip financed,
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(I thought I had it tough) and then some detail of Linus at the New
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Orleans convention. The one bit of John's introduction which stuck in
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my mind was his piano analogy. If one sits down to play a piano, the
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pianist can get a feeling for the quality of the piano as he plays
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it. A rough piano has a rough feeling, a great piano has a great
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feeling. It's in the touch. At the New Orleans conference, a Linux
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installation was underway, I believe headed by Mad Dog himself. He
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heard a voice over his should saying "Can I help you?". It was Linus,
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offering assistance in getting his Linux kernel up and running. Mad
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Dog tells the audience that within about 10 minutes, with Linus's help,
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Linux was up and running. (I can't remember if Mad Dog mentioned the
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hardware specs of this machine.) In any case, Mad Dog, keyboarding on
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this machine, was getting that first feel of Linux. 10 minutes later
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he made a mental note. Linux was going to be inevitable. It has that
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feel of a great piano. He continues on to talk a bit about his
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relationship with Linus which is clearly a deep one. With that, he
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ends and Linus comes up on stage to start his talk. Or rather his
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question and answer session.
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<p>
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Linus starts by saying he does not like podium and thus will not stand
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behind one for this Q&A session. He has this wireless mike which Dan has
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hooked him up with. I also notice that the FNAL media guys are
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recording this session for posterity, so if you don't like my write-up,
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you can contact them to get a full playback of Linus's talk. In
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any case, Linus starts off with a very brief history of Linux. It was
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1992(?), he had a PC, but there was no Unix available for it. Since,
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and I quote "he was the best programmer since Jesus," he would fix
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that. He would write his own Unix like OS. So off he went and wrote
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it. The concept that need fosters development was key in getting the
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Linux kernel going and has been key through out all of its
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development. And then he did something which was, as he says, the
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most important decision of his life. He posted the code on the
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Internet, via some news group and asked for feedback. That he got. He
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expected people to download his code, run it and tell him whether it
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works or not. "Linus, this really sucks!" He got some of those
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responses; but more importantly, he got code back in the form of patch
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fixes and enhancements. And from then on it was history. With that he
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ends his introductory talk and starts in on the questions.
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<p>
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Dan Yocum starts it off by asking about the 2.3 kernel and/or plans
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for large files systems (i.e. file system journaling.) A good question,
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since in High Energy and Nuclear Physics there is a big need now for
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this type of file system. Petabytes of data will soon be recored and
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file systems which can handle this type of data load will be
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necessary. (Maybe not a petabyte file system, but terabyte file systems
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will be a must.) Linus's answer to that question was that up to this
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point, large files systems were not an issue. He reminded us that back
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in the days when he was starting the kernel, there was a 64 Meg
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partition limit which he had to solve. He then said something about
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how new users bring new problems and how this was the "development
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model" for the kernel.
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<br clear="left">
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<p>
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At this point my notes get rather fuzzy so I'm just going to
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paraphrase from what I can decipher from them.
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<p>
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Someone asked about security issues with Linux. Linus said that people
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are keeping after the bug fixes. From my personal experience with Linux
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and the Red Hat distribution, this is the case.
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<p>
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Someone asked about addressing more than 2 Gigs on a 32 bit
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system. His answer was to use a 64 bit machine. Linux is fully 64 bit
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compliant.
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<p>
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There was a complicated SMP question to which the answer was that 2.0
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and to some extent 2.2 are really a single spinlock SMP
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implementation. Linus will work on making it more fine grain.
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<p>
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<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9987Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10 align="right">
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He then talked about how one should not design for the theoretical
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perfect implementation since this will screw up another
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implementation. The kernel lives in a world of diverse needs and one
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needs to try and fit them all in. Therefore no one need gets all the
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attention but all needs are tended to some extent. This type of
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clear-headedness of Linus is an indication to me as to why the kernel
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has gotten as far as it has.
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<p>
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There was a question about capabilities. I believe this is like
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splitting up the super user function into separate users through
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access control lists. Theoretically it's a good idea, but in practice
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it's too complex. Most of the time, one sets up the system in the wrong
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way, making it less secure. He claimed it's a feature which needs to be
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added to Linux just so that one can check it off on the "Linux can
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do this" matrix, but then have a README on how to disable it.
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<p>
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Someone asked the copyright question. Linus talked about the license
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he released his original kernel code under. Basically, its intent was
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that anyone could use it, distribute it and modify it. But the
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modifications had to be freely distributable as well. The people were
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starting to sell the Linux kernel at computer shows by charging a
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couple of bucks for the floppies. They asked Linus if this was
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OK. Clearly, Linus said that it was obviously OK, since he wanted the
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code to be distributed and could not expect people to lose money on
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the distribution cost. So he modified his license. I'm not sure
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whether he modified his license further, but the fact is that he
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eventually switched over to the GPL license. He said that it was an
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awful piece of legalese but it fulfilled all his requirements. Also,
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the one bit of software which it really depended on was the GNU C
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compiler. That played a role in the adoption of GPL for the Linux
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code. Again, the main emphasis was that the source code had to be
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available to the "community" as well as the modifications, which were
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brought back into the Linux source repository.
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<p>
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A question on the Merced was asked. Linus said he would not sign any
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Non-Disclosure Agreements. The reason for this is that he does not want
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to be put in the situation where he cannot release his source code due
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to conflicts with an NDA. A very wise choice on his part. He lets
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others sign the agreements, which has been done by others. Notably,
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there are some people at CERN who are working on the Merced
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port. Linus defended Intel's move on asking for NDA's to be signed. It's
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done so that Intel can keep control over the flow of the technical
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information into the public domain. Once the CPU has been fully
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released by Intel into the "market," then they certainly want every one
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to know how to use it. But before that, it's clear that they need to
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keep their specs under wraps to keep the competition at bay. The big
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problem with the Merced is in the compiler technology sector. All the
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kernel needs is a version of gcc that will generate
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a Merced executable. It's up to the gcc guys to get it to generate
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Merced instructions. Linus is confident that once gcc is
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ready, which should be by the time the Merced is released, then the
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Linux port will follow within a couple of days or weeks.
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<p>
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Someone asked what is better, one really fast CPU or many not so fast
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CPUs. Linus's answer was that the best SMP system for the Linux kernel
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is a dual CPU one. If one were to build a Beowulf type cluster, one
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should do so using a set of dual CPU systems.
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<p>
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There was a question about SVGAlib -- what its viability was for the
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future. Linus's response to that was that 2 or 3 days after working
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with X11, he decided never to go back to console mode. All he needs,
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graphics wise, is to have 15 xterms open with the kernel compiling in
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one of them. He kept reminding the audience that all he really likes
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to do is compile the kernel. The fvwm2 window manager coupled to 15
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concurrently opened xterms was all the graphics functionality he
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needed. This question was one directed towards games. He said that
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there was a good OS for running games called Windows. He claimed that
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MS admitted to the fact that they could not write an OS very well and
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basically kept out of the way of the software games developers by
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letting them take over the system when the game app was active.
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<p>
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A question was asked about how he decides whose code is to be included
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in the kernel. He said that drivers were no-brainers. Since the code sits
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outside the kernel, he tends to include them without much
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thought. When it comes to adding something that exists in kernel
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space, then his main requirement is that there be at least one person
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who will take charge in maintaining it. My take on this is that items
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like the TCP stack or the kernel version of NFS etc. are coordinated
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and maintained by someone besides Linus.
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<p>
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<br clear="right">
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<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9981aSmall.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10 align="left">
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A question was asked about the recent benchmark comparison between NT
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and Linux. The
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<a href="http://www.mindcraft.com/whitepapers/nts4rhlinux.html">
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benchmark</a> was done by Mindcraft, and the results showed that Linux
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was 2 or 3 times slower at file and web serving than NT. There was an
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interesting story behind this. Linus was paneling on a session down
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in Atlanta. There was a Microsoft representative on the panel. Linus
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was presented with this benchmark report from Mindcraft, who seem to
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have a lot of credibility in the IT world regarding doing
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benchmarks. The report was presented to him just as he was sitting
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down at the panelist table. This left Linus in a rather awkward
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position of having to defend Linux against NT with this Microsoft Rep on
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the same panel and not having any time to digest these benchmarks. It
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turns out later that this company specializes in Microsoft OSes and
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has done a series of benchmarks comparing NT with Solaris etc. All the
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benchmarks come out in favor of NT and the large Unix companies (Sun
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etc.) have to mount a PR campaign to refute the results. Linux in this
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case has no corporate machine backing it up with resources to fight
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back. What surprised Linus was that the journalists came out
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defending Linux. It was the journalists who came out questioning the
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validity of this Mindcraft benchmark. As of this time, it seems that
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the benchmarks are going to be performed again, this time with an
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equally well-tuned Linux system.
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<p>
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Someone asked him if he ever has talked with Bill Gates. His reply was
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that, no he has not, but if he did, he would "be talking money." (His
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palms rubbed together as he was finishing his answer.)
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<p>
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More questions on benchmarks. The conclusion to his answer on
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benchmarks is that the best benchmark is your own application. It's not
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easy since this requires the vendors to give you access to their
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hardware and you have to do some porting. The bottom line is that your
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own application is truly the best benchmark.
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<p>
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Someone asked about frame buffers or rather how one could get a DVD
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app ported to Linux. Linus said that most of the work is in setting up
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the hardware. Once done, the hardware takes care of getting the DVD
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imagery onto the screen. The trick is to get this to interface to
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X11. He didn't seem to have any immediate plans on taking on this
|
|
project. Also he mentioned that DVD encryption is a trade secret. I
|
|
assumed this means that an open source application would be difficult
|
|
to implement.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
Someone who works at Lucent asked a question related to drivers for
|
|
modems made by Lucent. The question lead to a discussion about how one
|
|
can get companies to release the specs of their hardware. Linus made a
|
|
point about how sometimes it's not a question about keeping the
|
|
engineering design behind some gizmo a secret and thus keeping a market
|
|
advantage. But rather one wants to keep secret the bad engineering
|
|
that went into making the gizmo. He hypothesized an example of a gizmo
|
|
that in order to get it to run, you need to write to xyz registers in
|
|
some specific order, then toggle some interrupt lines, followed by
|
|
holding the reset bit in the CSR high for 30 clock cycles
|
|
etc. etc. This kind of kludgey design is the real reason behind not
|
|
releasing specification. It's all hidden in the binary version of the
|
|
driver.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
Someone asked about UDI, Unified Driver Interface. Linus replied that
|
|
it's in the Nice Theory stage but he is keeping an open mind about
|
|
the idea.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9982Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10 align="left">
|
|
Some question was asked which led to some interesting statements by
|
|
Linus. This regards software development through Internet
|
|
collaboration. Talk is very cheap, and he never takes anyone at face
|
|
value. The best way to collaborate with Linus is to show him code
|
|
that works. That is what he want to see. Otherwise, my guess is that
|
|
unless your ideas are of obvious importance, they will go ignored.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
A question came up about GUIs. He as no interest in GUI design or
|
|
interfaces, and has no influence in current GUI theological
|
|
discussions ongoing right now. (My guess is that this refers to
|
|
GNOME vs. KDE type of theoretical friction.) He is happy using fvwm2
|
|
and his 15 xterms to apply patches to the kernel and rebuild it again
|
|
and again.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
I asked a question about how he maintains the Linux source
|
|
repository. I wanted to know if he used CVS. His reply was that he has
|
|
his own method. I should think of it as lovingly hand-crafted
|
|
maintenance of the kernel source. He does not use CVS because he does
|
|
not need it. He is the only one who applies patches or updates the source
|
|
code, and he does not care to use the history logging mechanism CVS
|
|
provides. He does use CVS at work, so he knows what it's capable of
|
|
doing, but chooses not to use it.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
By this time we started to run out of time, and a few more questions
|
|
were asked. From these questions, the following general statements
|
|
were given by Linus. MS is a good OS for running games. The bottleneck
|
|
in the development cycle of the kernel was the users. A project
|
|
should never grow beyond the scope of what can be kept in one person's
|
|
head. My take on this is that the kernel is broken up into many
|
|
"projects," each one with a leader in charge of it. And whatever that
|
|
one person is in charge of, he must keep the whole concept and source
|
|
code layout/structure/functionality in his head. Keeping "things"
|
|
modular is the Unix way.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
Developers grow linearly, while the users
|
|
exponentially. The users of Linux have grown by 7 orders of magnitude,
|
|
and his goal of global domination is only 2 orders of magnitude
|
|
away. "What's 2 orders of magnitude after growing 7..." (Global
|
|
domination is in reach.) Avoid black and white when trying to solve a
|
|
problem. There is never a silver bullet which can be applied to a
|
|
project or problem to "fix it".
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
<table align="right">
|
|
<tr><td>
|
|
<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9980Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10 align="right">
|
|
<caption align="bottom">
|
|
<font size=-1>
|
|
Linus, Dan Yocum, and G P Yeh. Dan works in the FNAL IT department
|
|
providing Linux support to anyone who needs it at FNAL and
|
|
G P on CDF working on "event builders" for CDF. A bunch of Linux boxen
|
|
tied together with an ATM switch.
|
|
<font>
|
|
</caption>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
The next great challenge for Linux is
|
|
to conquer the desktop. When it comes to servers there is no
|
|
loyalty. Servers are black boxes that sit in windowless rooms and
|
|
are used to serve files and printers etc. As soon as a newer, better
|
|
server comes out, the old one is replaced. No questions asked. This is
|
|
one of the reasons why Linux has been able to penetrate the server
|
|
market. It's the easiest one to crack. The desktop is totally
|
|
different. There are very strong loyalties attached to desktops. If a
|
|
new, better desktop comes out, people tend to get their shotguns out to
|
|
defend their old, not-so-good technology, often resorting to falsehoods
|
|
in order to defend them. Linus wants people to get used to using
|
|
Linux for their desktop. Linus also wants to see the day when he can
|
|
walk into CompUSA or equivalent store and find that one has a choice in
|
|
the OS one wants to run on their new PC. He does not want to see one
|
|
default OS, and does not want people to default to Linux either.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
Linus concluded with the statement that there has always been a
|
|
physical invariant regarding building his kernel. This being 12
|
|
minutes. It always took 12 minutes to compile the kernel. When he
|
|
started out with his 386, it was 12 minutes, when he moved up to a
|
|
66MHz 486, the code has grown such that it still took 12 minutes. The
|
|
growth of the code and the speed up of the Intel technology kept pace
|
|
with each other such that the kernel compile time always took 12
|
|
minutes. This has changed recently. With his quad CPU development
|
|
system, it now takes him 73 seconds to build the kernel. He admitted
|
|
that the hardware development has now been recently out-paced his
|
|
software (kernel) development.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
With that, a physicist from FNAL named G P Yeh, who is one of FNAL's
|
|
strongest Linux advocates, closed the session by thanking Linus for
|
|
all his work. FNAL is now using Linux in a <em>big</em> way to process all
|
|
the data coming out of the large collider detectors that will start
|
|
taking data within a year or so. The data rate from these detectors is
|
|
expected to increase 200 fold from the last time they took data. This
|
|
is due to an upgrade to the Tevetron called the Main Injector. It's
|
|
designed to increase the proton flux by <em>a lot</em>, and thus 200 times
|
|
more data will flow out of the detectors. Linux will play a big part
|
|
in analyzing all this data. (I can attest that Linux is playing a big
|
|
role at BNL as well. It will be used on about 500 processors to
|
|
analyze the data coming out of the 4 detectors being built for the
|
|
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The RHIC is scheduled to turn on
|
|
this summer, and by this coming winter the Intel Linux farm will
|
|
start its first production data processing.)
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<center>
|
|
<table>
|
|
<tr><td>
|
|
<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9983Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10>
|
|
<caption align="bottom" width=80%>
|
|
<font size=-1>
|
|
The audience crowds Linus after his talk.
|
|
</font>
|
|
</caption>
|
|
</table>
|
|
</center>
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9984Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10 align="left">
|
|
With that final congratulatory announcement, the talk came to an
|
|
end. People got up and scattered about. I headed over to the left side
|
|
of the auditorium where Linus and Mad Dog were located. Linus was
|
|
surrounded by people asking questions. I was out of earshot, so I
|
|
could not listen to the back and forth between the guys and Linus. I
|
|
did get a chance to get over to Mad Dog and reintroduce myself. My
|
|
intent was to invite him out to BNL if and when he and/or Linus got
|
|
out to NY. I'm not sure if Mad Dog is interested in seeing yet another
|
|
collider facility, but he did encourage me to try and contact the
|
|
Bizzar Show people and set up a talk or panel. Something with a topic
|
|
along the lines of Linux in Physics. I told him I could do that, and
|
|
I'll try to follow up with the organizers of the Bizzar. I then hung
|
|
out with the Linus crowd for a bit, taking a couple of pictures. There
|
|
was this one guy who had on a tee shirt with an Intel logo announcing
|
|
the i80666 CPU. The phrase "Runs hotter than
|
|
hell" was written underneath. Linus told the guy he like his tee
|
|
shirt. This guy then took off his shirt so that Linus could see the
|
|
back of his tee shirt. It sported a picture of Bill Gates with horns,
|
|
looking like the devil. After another snap or two, I had my chance to
|
|
introduce myself to Linus. I gave him my business card (not that I
|
|
do any business, it's more like an identity card), and thanked him for
|
|
his work on Linux because it's made our lives some much easier. He
|
|
replied saying that he did not do it for me, he was just doing it for
|
|
himself and the users are just a big pain. "Yeah", I replied, "Users
|
|
are loosers..." I was a bit flush as I was talking to him, I really
|
|
don't know what I was saying. The fact of the matter is, Linux has made
|
|
my life a lot more complicated. Ever since I installed Linux on my
|
|
first PC 3 years ago, (built from parts bought at a computer show),
|
|
I've been so tied up in this Linux Open Source thing, and it's become
|
|
such a central theme in my work, that I can hardly say it's made my
|
|
life any easier. It's made it more fun, and it has save BNL and FNAL a
|
|
lot of money. It has saved millions of dollars at FNAL alone. But as I
|
|
said, I really wasn't thinking straight since I was talking to Linus for
|
|
the first time in my life.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
<br clear="left">
|
|
<img src="gx/adler.fnal/comdex9986Small.jpg" hspace=20 vspace=10 align="right">
|
|
So I've had my chance of meeting Linus and Mad Dog. I must say that
|
|
Mad Dog comes across as a very serious, level headed guy. It's hard to
|
|
imagine someone with such a fantastic beard being so calm and
|
|
decisive. My guess is that he has to be in his line of work at DEC
|
|
(now Compaq?). I would also venture to guess that once you get to know
|
|
him, and he gets to know you, if you manage to get a beer in his hand,
|
|
then you're in for a ruckus of a good time. Linus impressed me as being
|
|
very down to earth. He is not aloof and was willing to take time to
|
|
talk to those interested in talking to him. He was very generous with
|
|
his signatures at the end of his talk. He also impressed me as someone
|
|
who has a practical approach to solving problems. In many of his
|
|
answers, he alludes to the fact that one should follow the middle
|
|
road. Don't make a project too grandiose. "A project has to sit inside
|
|
one person's head", "There is no silver bullet", "Never design to the
|
|
100% theoretical limit", and on and on. I'm sure that this is one of
|
|
the reasons why Linux is as successful as it has been. He also
|
|
mentioned during his talk that he is willing to listen to new
|
|
ideas. He said that it always starts off being a really dumb
|
|
idea. But the idea is not dismissed. (Maybe there are a lot of ideas
|
|
that are really dumb which he <em>has</em> dismissed.) But the point is that the
|
|
idea would be knocked around the kernel development news group or
|
|
e-mail list group and evolve into a not-so-dumb idea and finally into
|
|
something important that could be included in the kernel.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
I left Linus and Mad Dog behind in Ramsey. My plan was to stay at FNAL
|
|
for the night and drive in early to catch the opening keynote at
|
|
Comdex. Bill Gates was giving this keynote. From Linus to Bill, this
|
|
was going to be a real contrast.
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<center><H5>Copyright © 1999, Stephen Adler <BR>
|
|
Published in Issue 42 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, June 1999</H5></center>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
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