Torvalds

Torvalds replied, "It's much easier to find developers; we have a lot of developers. Some people think that you have to be a superdeveloper who can do everything to be a maintainer, but that's not actually true." Also: Linux might be your best bet for heightening your desktop computer security"To be a maintainer," Torvalds continued, "You have to have a certain amount of good taste to judge other people's code. Some of that may be innate, but a lot of it just takes practice. You must be able to look at other people's…

Image: Amanda Lucier/For The Washington Post via Getty ImagesLinus Torvalds on Sunday announced the availability of Linux kernel 6.1 stable, the first version to bring initial Rust infrastructure, and says he's "much happier" about its state than he was a few weeks ago.In October, during a Linux 6.1 release candidate, Torvalds complained about kernel developers submitting code at the last minute, comparing their submissions to students who "do an all-nighter to get the paper in the day before the deadline".  While…

IntelYou can famously run Linux on anything. And, when I say anything, I mean anything, e.g. a Nintendo Wii, an iPod, DeLaval's robotic system for milking cows, and possibly even a dead badger. Only Doom may have been ported to more devices. But, for practical purposes, all good things must come to an end, so Linus Torvalds is giving serious thought to discontinuing support for the 486 architecture.Why? Well, why do you think?486s are old. Very, very old. Intel discontinued the 386 chip family in 2007. True, some…

Image: Amanda Lucier for The Washington Post via Getty ImagesLinus Torvalds has announced the version 6.1 release candidate for the Linux kernel, and added a stern message to developers: stop submitting code at the last minute. This release isn't that big, Torvalds noted, as it only features 11,500 non-merge commits during the merge window, versus 13,500 last time. But he's been dealing with hardware problems while getting the infrastructure set up for developers to use the Rust programming language for updating the…

For most people, hardware problems and slow deliveries annoy them. But if you're the person behind the operating system that underpins much of the cloud, Android and IoT, your problem could easily become a problem for lots of other people too.Linux creator Linus Torvalds told a kernel contributor on Sunday that he's doing merges "very slowly" from one of his laptops as he waits for "new ECC memory DIMMS to arrive".ECC refers to "Error-correcting code" memory that's designed to prevent certain styles of attacks. As for…

Getty Images/Nitat TermmeeLinus Torvalds has announced the stable release of Linux 6.0 but flagged it doesn't contain the "core new things" coming in Linux 6.1. Since the first release candidate (rc1) for Linux 6.0 in August, Torvalds has played down the meaning of the major version number change, which would have otherwise been 5.20. While has called 6.0 a "fairly sizable release", he also said at conference last month "I wanted 6.0 to be boring."  As he wrote on Sunday in an update: "So, as is hopefully clear to…

Image: Linus Torvalds/TED/YouTubeThe Rust in Linux debate is over. The implementation has begun. In an email conversation, Linux's creator Linus Torvalds, told me, "Unless something odd happens, it will make it into 6.1."The Rust programming language entering the Linux kernel has been coming for some time. At the 2020 Linux Plumbers Conference, developers started considering using the Rust language for new Linux inline code. Google, which supports Rust for developing Android -- itself a Linux distro -- began pushing…

Linux FoundationAs they do at almost every Open Source Summit, Dirk Hohndel, chief open source officer at the Cardano Foundation, and Linus Torvalds, Linux's founder, talked about all things Linux and the keynote discussion at Open Source Summit Europe in Dublin Thursday. Usually, it's interesting, but there's no breaking news. "Usually." This time was different. Torvalds announced that he would propose adding Rust to the next Linux kernel, Linux 6.1, at the Linux Kernel Maintainers Summit later today.This had been…

krdDublin, Ireland: I've known Linus Torvalds for decades, but since Covid hit, we haven't had a chance for a face-to-face interview in years. Finally, at 2022's Linux Plumbers Conference, the annual get-together of the world's top Linux developers, we had a chance to talk in person again.Before the conference, Torvalds had spent six days scuba-diving at Bonaire, an island in the Dutch West Indies. Given the choice, he said he'd "rather be diving than going to conferences." Wouldn't we all?Torvalds also said that,…

Linus Torvalds has announced Linux 5.19, and this time released a version of Linux from an Arm-based Apple MacBook running Asahi Linux. Torvalds says Linux 5.19 contains "nothing really interesting" and a "lot of random stuff". The most interesting thing about the release, according to Torvalds, is the fact he used an Arm64 development platform. Torvalds has been keen on using an Apple M1 MacBook Air, which he's previously said would be "almost perfect, except for the OS." Last year the Asahi Linux project was working…