back to article Linux 4.12 kernel lands: 'Go forth and use it' quoth Linus Torvalds

As anticipated last week, version 4.12 of the Linux kernel landed Sunday amid a storm of … well, placidity, as it happens. Linus Torvald's release announcement is suitably low-key for something he expected to land without fuss. “Things were quite calm this week, so I really didn't have any real reason to delay the 4.12 release …

Page:

  1. redpawn
    Pint

    Thanks!

    Again thanks to all who code and work to improve the kernel. Cheers!

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Thanks!

      Cheers!

      Had my first kernel driver bug fix accepted for, I think, this release!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Thanks!

      It is utterly ridiculous that drivers ship with a kernel. They need to fix that and make kernel updates independent of driver updates and use a modular approach. Even Windows manages that.

      1. John Sanders
        Windows

        Re: Thanks!

        Sanders rolls his eyes.

        Mate go inform yourself a bit more.

        Nothing stops anybody from distributing drivers that are not in the kernel.

        Drivers are distributed with the kernel because they are maintained along the kernel as the internal ABI of Linux changes from kernel to kernel. (yes, done on purpose)

        Also the drivers in Linux usually cover "entire device families".

        1. James Hughes 1

          Re: Thanks!

          What John said. Learn how it works before commenting.

          After all, Linux is the worlds most common kernel (as the underpining kernel for android) , I guess they must have got something right.

          1. FIA Silver badge

            Re: Thanks!

            What John said. Learn how it works before commenting.

            AC said that they thought it was crazy that linux ABI version changes per kernel release, John's comment suggests they do this, and indeed it's deliberate??

            They didn't say you couldn't distribute separate drivers, merely that it'd be nice if you had a stable and well defines and versioned ABI. (Well, that's how I read it anyway). This isn't a bad thing, and one of Linux's major weaknesses.

            After all, Linux is the worlds most common kernel (as the underpining kernel for android) , I guess they must have got something right.

            Linux has done many things right, you may argue that not getting sued by AT&T helped a bit. :) As did not being Hurd.

            However, if you take any lessons from Linux, don't let it's driver model be one of them.

            Google is attempting to address this in Android with it's project Treble. It may eventually end up going further than that....

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Thanks!

          "Drivers are distributed with the kernel because they are maintained along the kernel "

          That's part of the issue being raised above. Drivers should ideally be distributed and maintained separately!

          As an example if I get a new Linux kernel I have to test not just the kernel works, but also that all the new drivers work too. That's far from ideal. I should be able to by default change them separately so that I can isolate where a problem lies more easily.

          If the internal ABI changes then it should be a matter of simplicity to check if a driver was built to a compatible version... If the ABI / ELF build really changes that much and that frequently then that's going to break loads of other stuff too - such as drivers that don't ship with the kernel... And if that's deliberate then it's extra sucky.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        You might want to try Linux-libre kernel

        You can avoid a lot of the driver clutter by using the Linux-libre kernel. Linux-libre strips out all the proprietary driver blobs from the kernel, and is used as a primary or alternate kernel by a wide number of distributions, including Debian, Arch, Gentoo, and Slackware. My personal favorite is Parabola - an FSF-approved variant of Arch Linux - which only uses the Linux-libre kernel. FSF-approved Ubuntu variant Trisquel is also based on Linux-libre.

        Linux-libre is supported by a strong community, which usually puts out its blob-free kernel within just a few hours of Linus's release of a new kernel version (including point releases).

      3. Ramazan
        Pint

        Re: It is utterly ridiculous that drivers ship with a kernel. Even Windows...

        I've got a great idea. Don't ship any drivers with Windows. That way nobody will be able to install it on anything and the poor cripple will die the sooner the better.

        1. LaeMing
          Thumb Down

          Re: It is utterly ridiculous that drivers ship with a kernel. Even Windows...

          Why should Linux pander to the needs of closed-driver distributors. A moving-target API works (better than) fine with drivers that are being actively maintained (especially, but not exclusively, in-tree). If you want to rely on crufty, buggy, insecure, un-maintained, closed (and/all of) drivers, well, there are others OSes for that already.

          Linux (and the GNU around it) was explicitly designed to be open, and has no need to devote limited resources to catering to the whims of the closed.

          1. FIA Silver badge

            Re: It is utterly ridiculous that drivers ship with a kernel. Even Windows...

            Why should Linux pander to the needs of closed-driver distributors.

            It shouldn't. A well defined ABI isn't 'pandering to closed-driver distributors' it's just good software engineering. Just because Linux doesn't do it doesn't make it wrong. (The IOKit interface in OSX is available as part of Darwin for example).

            A moving-target API works (better than) fine with drivers that are being actively maintained (especially, but not exclusively, in-tree).

            Why does it? Why is it better than a proper ABI? (The in source drivers would still exist, they'd just conform to it).

            Also there are some drivers that are essentially done, they make their old, possibly unmaintaned hardware work. Why should they require source code changes and the associated testing/qualification/packaging/documenting just because there's a new kernel version. If there's a breaking, unavoidable change, then yes. (Not all NT4 drivers work on 32bit Windows 10 quite understandably after all).

            If you want to rely on crufty, buggy, insecure, un-maintained, closed (and/all of) drivers, well, there are others OSes for that already.

            Just becaise a driver exists on Linux doesn't make it a paragon of well written clean code. Crufty insecure buggy drivers are the preserve of all OSs, as are well written ones. Also, just being 'open' doesn't make it amazing too. NetBSD has had a much better designed hardware interface layer for years now, and that is open. (Not GPL though).

            Linux (and the GNU around it) was explicitly designed to be open, and has no need to devote limited resources to catering to the whims of the closed.

            But what does that have anything to do with the poor driver ABI? It would save some of the limited resources surely? You can be idealistically superior but if no one uses you then you'll have very little hardware to drive. Look at the mess with Android and it's poor security updates, a modular, well defined and versioned ABI would at least allow Google to push out Linux updates to devices that supported it (which would be checkable at update time). It's not a coincidence there are efforts afoot to improve this situation.

            Maybe I'm wrong, I've probably just spent too much time messing around trying to get various DVB devices to play nice together. It just seems mental to me that the manufacturer supplied drivers rebuild the entire DVB subsystem; at least it's their fault for being closed source and not Linux's for being poorly designed in this regard.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: It is utterly ridiculous that drivers ship with a kernel. Even Windows...

            ". A moving-target API works (better than) fine with drivers that are being actively maintained"

            So with Linux my printer driver might stop working as soon as the manufacturer stops selling that model and bothering to update the driver?! No wonder no one uses on desktops...

            1. LaeMing
              Facepalm

              Re: It is utterly ridiculous that drivers ship with a kernel. Even Windows...

              "So with Linux my printer driver might stop working as soon as the manufacturer stops selling that model and bothering to update the driver?! No wonder no one uses on desktops..."

              Maybe you should stop doing your IT purchasing in the supermarket/superstore stationary/IT section?

              And if the driver is open, anyone can update it (which generally just means it being recompiled along with all the others - the API moves about a bit as the kernel goes through various optimisations over time, but it doesn't generally run away from you and hide.)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It is utterly ridiculous that drivers ship with a kernel. Even Windows...

          "I've got a great idea. Don't ship any drivers with Windows"

          The above is not suggesting that you don't ship drivers as part of an OS distribution. Just that it's not great to tie them directly into kernel updates...

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Trollface

        Re: Thanks!

        Remember putting (S)ATA host drivers on a floppy and manually pointing to them so that the XP install CD can find *any* disks? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

        1. Ian 55

          Re: Thanks!

          Quite.

          A PC here became terminally ill recently. It was possible to take the hard drive out and stick it in another PC - different CPU (different maker of CPU!), obviously different motherboard, different graphics card, different expansion cards - and have it boot up Linux without a problem, ready for work in 30 seconds.

          Try that with a Windows hard drive.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Thanks!

            "Try that with a Windows hard drive."

            It's easy. All you need to do is change the SATA driver from the manufacturer specific optimised one to the Microsoft generic one before you remove and swap the HDD... Everything else will auto configure if the drivers are present or you can install them if not.

            1. Ian 55

              Re: Thanks!

              SATA might well work. Things like the network chipset driver, the graphics driver, and much else will not. You can be stuck with the need to update a PC that has no network connection (the network driver) and will only boot into 800x600 (the graphics defaulting to VESA SVGA). Good luck.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Thanks!

          "Remember putting (S)ATA host drivers on a floppy and manually pointing to them so that the XP install CD can find *any* disks? "

          Only with newer hardware than the OS Service Pack version, or for a hardware manufacturer that refused to sign / update their drivers for XP.

  2. John Sanders
    Linux

    Looking forward to BFQ IO scheduler

    BFQ IO scheduler for workstations looks very promising indeed.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Linux Lord

    Linux Lord, Linux Lord riding through the glen.

    *gets wrestled to the floor by angry commentards*

    Graaaagh!

  4. Haldus

    I don't see a reason to use Linux as main OS, windows is the best of all!

    1. John Sanders
      Devil

      Bait...

      Daddy, daddy, what's this pointy sharp J shaped piece of metal with a worm in it?

      That is bait my son.

      1. James Hughes 1

        Re: Bait...

        Trolling much?

        I use Linux for everything.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Bait...

          Amazon Review:

          Its been 17 years since I started using Linux and I have to say it hasn't whitened my teeth, my dog still has fleas and my shit still stinks.

          That said my PC is faster, more reliable and generally more pleasurable to use. Which is a bonus.

          If you use this product don't expect it to do what it isn't designed for like I did. You'll be left confused.

          Would recommend to a friend with caveats above.

          5/5

    2. John G Imrie
      Trollface

      2 posts joined today

      Must try harder

    3. dmacleo

      damn straight. I run win10, server 2012r2, mint 18.x branch and centos 6.7/7.x here.

      really tired of rebooting after the multitude of critical updates pushed onto the nix systems every 3 days.

      least with windows you don't have to waste 30 minutes rebooting after every few updates apply more updates rinse and repeat.......

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        And with the linux system I had to waste time encrypting my own files, losing the key and then paying for them to be recovered.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. fruitoftheloon
      FAIL

      @Haldus the minor

      Haldus,

      are you old enough to use a computer without a grown-up making sure you don't venture into dodgy waters?

      I was going to ask if you were a virgin, but that may have been inappropriate...

    5. Adam 1

      <div class="TotallyCoherentAndLogicalObservationsAboutTheTopicAtHand" />

      EPIC LINUX FAIL

      -Nodae

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mabey linus can sort out Ubuntu. For some reason there has been lots of people that can not boot ubuntu on ryzen. I'm one of them. I'm not aware of any other distro breaking on RYzen.

    1. Richard Lloyd

      Ryzen works if you have a recent kernel

      Ryzen features were mostly added in the 4.10.X series (and I believe support for AM4 audio chipsets came in 4.11.X). I'm running Fedora 26 beta on my Ryzen system because of that and it works fine. Distros running pre-4.10 kernels (e.g. LTS versions such as CentOS 7) might have problems, even trying to be installed on Ryzen.

      1. kain preacher

        Re: Ryzen works if you have a recent kernel

        from, I've read any from ubuntu version 16.10 and older has issues with ryzen. That includes Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS. With the last two version of ubuntu I've had issues on AMD chips. I'm still having issues with the latest version of ubuntu on my Ryzen system. It does not all ways boot into it and when it goes to sleep it does not wake up. So I don't know why that AC was down voted.

    2. John Sanders
      Linux

      Ubuntu will sort out Ryzen on 16.04.3 LTS

      Ubuntu will sort out Ryzen on the next point release of Ubuntu LTS: 16.04.3

      In the mean time just grab the latest mainline from:

      http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.11.8/

      And sail away.

  6. Wensleydale Cheese
    Unhappy

    Cringe at the grammar though

    "it's all just normal development, just more of it that usual.”

    Seems to be a US thing, but why do so many use "that" instead of "than"?

    </grumpy pedant>

    (and being a pedant, I did check it against the original text)

    1. TomG

      Re: Cringe at the grammar though

      I think it is a combination of predictive text, autofill and not reading what has been written before posting.

    2. dmacleo

      Re: Cringe at the grammar though

      maybe due to english being a second language for him? he does well but autocorrect of spelling/typing errors combined with that may give the errant pedantic target..

    3. h4rm0ny

      Re: Cringe at the grammar though

      I don't think it's a US thing. More just an idiot thing.

  7. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    That was a rather pathetic trolling attempt above. I'd just be wary of this linux - I mean which company is it that provides linux? This linus torvalds guy, does he run the company on his own? Is this really a safe way of buying software?

    1. John G Imrie
      Trollface

      Mutch better trolling

      Haldus could learn a lot from you

    2. DropBear
      Trollface

      Still too generic. Better attempts would try to push one or more well-known triggers such as "should we really trust people who insist on using hard tabs instead of a sane, space-based indent and insist that three levels of code indentation should be enough for everybody...?!?"

  8. Barry Rueger

    Safe and trusted

    GF runs Windows 10. Hates updates because they invariably demand a reboot at the worst possible time - and yeah we've done everything possible to schedule them for a sensible time.

    Her other fear, from long experience, is that every update will "break" something, which is why she delayed replacing her XP box until the hardware died. (Having spent the last year beating Win10 almost into submission, I tend to think she was right.)

    Meanwhile I picked up nice used laptop last week. I did no research, just downloaded a distro to a USB stick and had a fully working linux install in about 25 minutes. Including disabling CapsLock and letting updates install. I let my other machine update whenever it asks, and can't recall ever having a problem.

    What does Linus know that seems to be so beyond Microsoft?

    1. Anonymous IV
      Joke

      Re: Safe and trusted

      > What does Linus know that seems to be so beyond Microsoft?

      Perhaps he is a better despot?

      Oh wait...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Safe and trusted

      "GF runs Windows 10. Hates updates because they invariably demand a reboot at the worst possible time "

      Windows 10 lets you defer updates repeatedly - it doesn't "demand" a reboot - it just tells you one is needed.

      "- and yeah we've done everything possible to schedule them for a sensible time."

      The Windows 10 update settings allow you to chose an up to 18 hour window each day when it won't try to install updates. Unless you work in a Redbull factory that should be enough!

      "and had a fully working linux install in about 25 minutes"

      Installing a clean build of Windows 10 from scratch onto a used Dell laptop from a USB 3 key took me 14 minutes today for the x64 version.

  9. h4rm0ny

    Secure Boot and Trusted Execution Environments.

    So many, many arguments I had with zealots about these things when MS started taking advantage of such technologies. Glad to see GNU/Linux finally getting up to scratch with this as well - it's been an annoying omission.

  10. KorndogDev

    Why so many kernel regressions?

    Just a month ago I tested 6 different kernels (4.4- 4.10) with my quite new laptop. In each case at least one hardware competent did not work properly, from the lit keyboard to power management to wi-fi. And the newest kernel was not the one I decided to stick with.

    The kernel should get stable at some point and stable means as few code changes as possible. 4.12 had over a million of LOC added, is there any other software piece which changes that much at that frequently?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Re: Why so many kernel regressions?

      @Korn - "Just a month ago I tested 6 different kernels (4.4- 4.10) with my quite new laptop. In each case at least one hardware competent did not work properly, from the lit keyboard to power management to wi-fi. And the newest kernel was not the one I decided to stick with."

      Vendors need to write drivers for your gear. No kernel on earth - not from MS, not from Apple, not BSD - is going to run all your gear perfectly without proper drivers. There's only so much you can stuff into a single kernel.

      1. KorndogDev

        Re: Why so many kernel regressions?

        Regression: things worked OK using 4.4, but they are broken in 4.8. What does it have to do with vendors? They pulled out their code/drivers?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Why so many kernel regressions?

          I have no idea which kernels you used, where/who you obtained them from, which modules were enabled/disabled before they got to you. Did you look into it to see what modules would need to be enabled for them to work to your satisfaction?

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like