Re: What i would like to see in upcoming kernel releases...

["Albert D. Cahalan" <acahalan@cs.uml.edu>]

> 2. Kernel dumps:
>    Same applies for this one: kernel dumps have been proven to be
>    a very helpful debugging tool.

NetBSD is known for dumping onto the WRONG partition.

> 3. Log-structuered and/or journaled filesystem:
>    There has been lots of talk about those two as well.  They are
>    a definite must for HA systems.  Despite all the talk about
>    reiser-fs and such, the best would be to simply port the BSD stuff
>    to Linux (same goes for Berkeley FFS as a replacement of EXT2FS).

Compared to Reiserfs, the BSD stuff sucks. BSD doesn't have a working
log-structuered or journaled filesystem, and FFS isn't fast at all.
Our ext2 works quite well, though Stephen Tweedie is adding new stuff
like journaling, fast B-tree directories, and fast B-tree allocation.

Only AdvFS (in Digital UNIX) and XFS (in Irix) stand a chance
against Reiserfs. Both FFS/UFS and Ext2 are obsolete now.
FreeBSD can kiss its ass goodbye.

> 4. A comprehensive set of kernel development tools:
>    Drop the stuff in scripts and create a stable set of tools (not
>    unlike the stuff found on BSD, DEC-Unix or Solaris) which would
>    be distributed seperately from the kernel sources (after all this
>    stuff does not change very often!).

Such as?

> 5. A complete and bug-free console terminal emulation (not the "linux"
>    crap, but rather a complete VT220 emulation). Again BSD shows us how
>    it is done.

We have one serious scrolling bug that vttest exposes, we don't bother
with the obsolete vt52 mode, and we don't implement features that can't
be done on VGA hardware. Other than that "linux" is great. BSD sucks.

> 2. PNP:
>    Is that stuff still being developed? Last time i checked it was quite
>    out-of-date...

Someone needs to convince Linus.
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