Two new interviews with Linus Torvalds

Publications abclinuxu.cz and distrowatch.com published two new interviews with Linus Torvalds, taken during his visit to the conference Linux.conf.au.

Not remained without attention caused a great resonance with the fact that the transition Linus KDE to GNOME. The creator of Linux says that there is no reason to use different distributions for work and entertainment, and in the past few years, prefers the distribution Fedora. Due to the fact that in the last release of Fedora does not support KDE 3.x, had to switch to GNOME. As recognized by Linus, in GNOME he did not like not so much the degree of ease of use, as the orientation of the shell to a completely incompetent users. GNOME developers prefer to get rid of the customization options, though this may seem confusing and complicated (Linus few years ago, has developed a patch to configure the behavior of a two-button touchpad, which was rejected with the reasons that this option would be too complicated for users).

In an interview with Linus admits that he took the Eee PC notebook with you to the conference. He agreed with the opinion that a laptop should not replace a desktop computer, and thus have the same performance. It turns out that Linux - the best option for a laptop system, including for people who want to learn something new. Because the shift to Linux as a desktop system can really take a long time, and cause a temporary stretch out the process would be precisely the need to change the habits of people, not technology constraints.

Increasing the number of distributions, according to Torvalds, is not just positive, but a necessary phenomenon. This is due to the fact that any one distribution, in his opinion, can not satisfy all the demands placed on the market.

One of the main reasons for the choice of GPL for distribution of Linux kernel was important for the system compiler GCC, and is now difficult to imagine what could be different.

Torvalds says he does not remember when he confirmed the first patch to the system, mainly because from the beginning he rewrote them. However, it happened around November 1991, and of course, not immediately after the publication of the first version of the operating system.

But changes in the kernel Linus does not consider it interesting for the user - much more important that the system works stably, and debugging tools can fix errors as soon as possible. Linus Torvalds does not agree with the opinion that the quality of the kernel code is deteriorating, mainly due to lack of testing, but felt concern about the state of code a good thing, because it helps to improve the system.

He also said that he thought about the need to make changes to the numbering system kernel versions (for example, previously proposed for the first release in 2009 under number 2.9.1 release, the second - 2.9.2, first release in 2010 - numbered 3.0.1, and so etc.). It would be interesting to make it independent of the date of appearance, but in this case it would not be talking about significant modifications that might adversely affect the status of the system on the market.

As for adding support for file system ZFS, Torvalds believes it is technically less complicated than the inclusion in Linux technology DTrace. However, it seems unlikely that the company will replace the OpenSolaris license their software. But with the file system btrfs, whose support will be included in the next stable kernel release, Linus has great plans, considering this next step in the development of FS after ext3. Distributions are now actively promoted FS ext4, and probably she will make a milestone in the widespread transition to btrfs.

Linus has confirmed that the blog [[http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/torvalds-family.blogspot.com]] really belongs to him. At the conclusion of an interview with Linus admitted that he had not planned to become a programmer, saw their future in physics, biochemistry, or other basic science, and memoir writing is not going to. Although, who knows …

2 February 2009 | , , gnome, interview, kde, linus torvalds august version system, transition

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