Linus Torvalds releases probably unnecessary release candidate eight for Linux 6.2 Work on version 6.2 of the Linux kernel will stretch into an eighth release candidate, despite emperor penguin Linus Torvalds now saying it isn't really necessary. In late January, Torvalds rated release candidate five as "fairly sizable" due to "pent up testing and fixes from people being off." He therefore flagged his …
Anytime Linus makes a comment, or statement, then I trust it, Linus Torvalds worked to create an operating system but also used it; Most other operating system seem to be just created and upgraded without too much thought about about potential issues for users. He's always done a great job!
This Linux kernel release thing is becoming like watching paint dry : there have been exactly 0 (zero) innovations in Linux for years. Where are generalized user-space drivers ? Where is the hard realtime kernel ? Where is the hybrid Linux kernel ? Linus made a version control system over the week-end, but can't be arsed to come up with a good init solution ?
As much as you might like to see someone with more ... skill, care, discipline, etc. take on the problem of init in Linux, assuming you believe the traditional needs replacing, I doubt it will be Linus.
AIUI he knocked up his VCS to facilitate his main project: the Linux kernel. Prior to that he was seemingly content to use others' solutions in that area, until situations changed.
Perhaps if systemD were to somehow pose a threat to Linux, you might see Linus get more involved in that area. He's had public disagreements with certain systemD devs, but that was apparently more about code quality and similar, rather than a vociferous opposition to systemD itself.
Linus has said in the past he "does not mind" (doesn't care about?) systemD, iirc; I take that as simply that userland things are not his primary focus.
Top of my head I don't know what Linus' daily driver distribution is, assuming he has a preference and doesn't "distro hop" like some folks. But e.g. if we were to ever see him switch to a systemD-free OS and make a point of it, then that might be a sign he would consider taking a stronger hand outside the kernel. But that's probably not a likely event.
Well, the point is : a kernel alone cannot do anything, it needs a bootloader and an init. Bootloaders are platform specific, so it wouldn't make much sense for Linus to intervene there, but the init .... well, initializes userland. And Linus very much cares about userland. So it would make a lot of sense that the kernel provides also the userland initialization process.
Incidentally, it would avoid all the bloat about a supposedly init process that makes much more than initialising userland. I'm sure Linus could come up with a stripped-down init process that would do only that, and do it well. But no, he keeps saying that "-rcX has been smaller/bigger than usual ". Who needs such information ? That's what I call watching paint dry.
Bingo, you win the award today for the most opaque comment and it's only 10:34.
I am deeply impressed with three sentences that together mean absolutely nothing to me whatsoever, but clearly is very important to you. Your comment is so opaque I am now going to look up whatever RK3588 is and try and work out why its so vital :)
Thanks
Rob
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