Gross review of tiny, midi, and enterprise Linux distros?
Many Linux distros now have splintered into flavors? Even slackware is v11 or 12? Rhel and Fedora. DSL and DSL/N. Ubuntu window manager flavours?
The reason is kernel 2.4.x and 2.6.x are both suitable for use independently. The difference being /dev or /usr drivers. /dev drivers do support many ambiguous devices that needed firmware installation before they are recognized by port assignment. The need to go with kernel 2.6.x with /usr drivers, is not necessarily the wisest approach; when you have to suppress the /dev at boot time.
However, most of us did not appreciate, that we boot into bios vga, keyboard and mouse console. Then we select our best drivers. We could stay with bios and run with browser though.
The main difference between 2.4.x and 2.6.x is the data updating synchronization; yet 2.6.x still failed to update correctly. So, new drivers are more problems than using bios drivers.
It will be 5 more years to learn realtime threads and posix packets, for kernel 2.6.x to be mature enough to be used to advantage. In the meantime, those of us still using simple operating system, is upgrading browsers for realtime threads and packets usage.
It is beginning to see the end of the tunnel for browsers to operate better in older operating systems. The bloated operating system is also being improved on the browser level.
The age of industrialization forced the invention of interchangeable parts. And Linux is made of parts or modules compiled into file systems for automation of computer tasks. Eventually microkernels will do independent tasks in many threads and by packets for data transfer. What is 5 years, to make it happen? Two of the tasks are printing and monitor display, straight to maximum resolution by pixels, zooming from thumbnails?
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Many file systems of Linux OS ? Just which memory devices ?
Any one working with hdd knows the three file systems ext2, ext3 and reiser4.
Then, the livecd people, on cdr(multisession or track-at-once) and cdrw, knows isofs well. The isofs gets the cdrom machine to send files to ext or reiser file systems or squashfs in drams.
But when you work with files only in drams; you use squashfs over isofs(isolinux is a copy of vmlinux or syslinux on hdd).
File systems are data storage solutions. They are spelled out in their definition of file allocation locations and data compression methods used to retrieve data. Utility such as fsck gets pretty complex; when you switch memory devices, even when flash cards emulate scsi hdd with Fat16 tables.
Reviewing tiny, midi and enterprise Linux operating system distros, means a look at the architecture of file systems especially fsck command?
Memory management ? Speed vs. expense ?
Since computers are, add or subtract in the registers, it is important to have cache or temporary memory to handle many stages of calculations.
Today, search engine reads a table(huge) to get you all the answers without slow calculations(just data transfer or faxing webpages). But memory requirement becomes excessive; however, we can contain the data within a page(monitor resolution dependency). Data management is by page switching not banks of memory switching.
This understanding will improve memory management for Linux distros. Many distro founders have not yet fixed the open sourced community's squandering memory without garbage collection. But squashfs can be used to advantage. Then cached framebuffers(links) can speedily makeup a webpage without downloading the same data repeatedly. Virtual drams(hdd, flash cards, and cdr/cdrw/dvdrw) are inexpensive but slower. Direct memory access of drams are now much less expensive compared to older dram production cost. Flash memory is now extremely cost attractive.
So, review of Linus distros takes a new turn, watch the memory usage/wastage? Why waste time and money, if memory management is the key to efficiency?
Massive parallel data transfer ? The RTOS and microkernels ?
Symmetrical processors had a problem to do load balancing without a data controller. Mosix efficiency is atrocious(100%, 50%, and all others 25% only).
When you have 5000 streams of data to transfer, you need a controller to management each stream of data, each in real time packets, serial data in each allotted time slice. So, RTOS uses the computer as a whole to manage packets of data no matter how many streams. Each in a separated packet. Efficiency can reach over 90%, using all the multicored cpus? Most of the distros did not understand RTOS.
In addition, RTOS has a microkernel layer to be used in Posix packets. By avoiding Linux kernels and go directly to the port address and use device instructions, microkernels can do work avoiding the many logic statements in Linux codes. Just transfer the data and get printing done on a lineprinter without cups? All fonts and pictures are merely pixels of colors.
Review of Linux distros must include RTOS and microkernel layers in Linux monolithic operating system; we must add short cuts using Posix packets.
MonteVista RTOS added patches since kernel 2.6.9 rc3?
Quick way to follow Linux version number compatibility ? Easy ?
What distroWatch had done with each distro is to provide the version numbers that fit together with Linux kernel versions, and GCC version used and other library versions of programming tools used.
This gives many distros the opportunity to reach dependency issues very quickly. Assuming that all version numbers are true to its source codes.
As usual, Kernel version is the start of the compatibility task, but it must have the correct library of programming tools. A slight difference in version numbers will cause many bugs.
So, thanks to DistroWatch, distros in the near future know, ahead of time, which versions to include in their efforts. A simple test of the released distro will tell the new distro whether he needed to fix any thing?
I hope this gross review of tiny, midi and enterprise Linux distros may help stamp out the bugs galore by specific knowledge to be copycat according to the version number list compliance in DistroWatch?