How kernel development goes wrong and why you should be a part of it anyway

by Jonathan Corbet

The Linux kernel is at the core of any Linux system; the performance and capabilities of the kernel will, in the end, place an upper bound on what the system as a whole can do.

The Linux kernel is at the core of any Linux system; the performance and capabilities of the kernel will, in the end, place an upper bound on what the system as a whole can do. This talk will review recent events in the kernel development community, discuss the current state of the kernel and the challenges it faces, and look forward to how the kernel may address those challenges. Attendees of any technical ability should gain a better understanding of how the kernel got to its current state and what can be expected in the near future.

[Salemboot]

Intel was allowed to make massive changes graphics stack: regressions.
The changes made to Reiser3 to remove the Big Lock hurt performance.
Con's scheduler used round-robin for allotment of resources to processes. CFS caused major regressions compared to O(1). Hence why Google removes Ingo's code in favor of O(1).
Ext4 has huge regressions with various tests run by Phoronix.
In the real world, stable stays untouched, feature complete. Company can't afford breaks. Takes Millions to fix.

[Garegin]

@Salemboot your talking about the kernel, propably the most stable piece of software in the linux stack. the rest is mostly alpha quality cack compared to windows, osx or other nixes. if finder was as buggy as nautilus there would have been mobs of people with firetorches.