Linus Calls Linux 'bloated And Huge'

[Peaches]

Linus calls Linux "bloated & huge"

No diet plan in sight

By Austin Modine

LinuxCon 2009 Linux creator Linus Torvalds says the open source kernel has become "bloated and huge," with no midriff-slimming diet plan in sight.

During a roundtable discussion at LinuxCon in Portland, Oregon this afternoon, moderator and Novell distinguished engineer James Bottomley asked Tovalds whether Linux kernel features were being released too fast, before the kernel is stabilized.

Citing an internal Intel study that tracked kernel releases, Bottomley said Linux performance had dropped about two per centage points at every release, for a cumulative drop of about 12 per cent over the last ten releases. "Is this a problem?" he asked.

"We're getting bloated and huge. Yes, it's a problem," said Torvalds.

Read more at The Register - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/22/li...x_bloated_huge/

[iccaros]

sad but true..

features people want take space..

the nice part.. you can trim it down a lot by building your own..

[hitest]

the nice part.. you can trim it down a lot by building your own..

Yeah...I'll do that on occasion, but, lately I've become lazy and I use the kernel that is offered with Slack. Building a kernel is fun:-)

[martymas]

yes i agree

it has decome to big for ordinary

compt

each time a new version comes something te has to be increased

like hdd space

it has become a notorious ram hog

as each version comes out

ive had to increase my ram three times now

god knows what it will need next time

several times i havent bin able to install

some versions of ubuntu

and i have found it is because i needed more ram

so the next version

ime reluctant to install

because of this ram thing

marty

Edited September 26, 2009 by martymas

[hitest]

Hey marty,

One way to speed up Ubuntu is to turn off system services that you don't need. For example, if you're not running a web server or a mail server then you don't need apache or sendmail launching when your system boots-up. Also, you could try a different desktop environment. You could install XFce on your Ubuntu box. XFce runs a lot lighter than KDE or Gnome, it uses less RAM.

My point is you can make your Linux box faster with a bit of tinkering. To install xfce:

sudo apt-get install xfce

Then when your computer boots up and you get to the log-in screen for Ubuntu you can choose an xfce session instead of the default gnome.

[martymas]

thanks hi-test

my compt i use now will handle the versions

but in the past ime sure ive posted and asked for advice

but i have 2 0ther compts

and the rig i want to use ubuntu

on

hasent enough ram

so

ive let it be for now

marty

[hitest]

but i have 2 0ther compts

and the rig i want to use ubuntu

on

hasent enough ram

so

ive let it be for now

marty

You're welcome, marty:-)

Think about it though. You can make Linux run very well on older PCs. My oldest Slackware 13.0 box is a Plll 667 MHz IBM 300PL with 256 MB RAM. It runs very well using the Fluxbox window manager.

True. Ubuntu will not run very well if at all on a low RAM box with the default configuration. But, if you use a lighter desktop environment it will work if you have the bare minimum amount of system resources. Also you can download the alt Ubuntu iso which is designed for low RAM boxes.

Any time that I get my hands on an older piece of s#** computer that no one wants I enjoy the challenge of trying to get it to run well with Linux.

[martymas]

i havent been to this thread for some time

but thanks for the advice

ime still learning

i like it

and it is becoming more user friendly each version

in the past ive critersized linux for this reason until ubuntu came on the scene

my compt out let gave me a linux disk

called lycoris

and ive used an old machine to

practice on

quite paractical

with this sys do you have to pay for the updates

marty