Yesterday, Dan
Aloni came by and visited HRL. We spent a few hours
together, talking about Linux, kernel hacking, the stuff I’m
working on, OLS
2004, coLinux, etc. Much
fun was had. After lunch, Dan gave a demonstration and
talk on coLinux, a.k.a. “that crazy hack”. Seeing KDE running in
coLinux with a remote display via a cygwin X server running on
the windows host is … interesting.
Dan has some interesting ideas with regards to the future
directions for coLinux. It is obvious that the allocation of
Linux pseudo-physical memory from the Windows non-pageable pool
is a scalability problem that needs to be solved. The top two
things on my personal wishlist are a coLinux native Linux port
(two or more Linux instances sharing ring 0), and I would love
to see MOSIX and coLinux
integrated. I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be done,
since each patch modifies different aspects of the kernel. MOSIX
is fairly detached from the hardware, dealing with the syscall
entry and exit path, page fault path and scheduler data
structures, while coLinux is a few i386 specific changes and
several virtual drivers. *finger-tips start itching*.
In other matters, I’ve been asked to give a one day workshop on
Linux development with an emphasis on kernel development. Here’s
the syllabus I have in mind:
Linux Kernel Overview, just to get us started.
Introduction to Writing Linux Device Drivers,
a.k.a. Muli can’t talk enough about klife.- Common Programmer Misconceptions – this talk will deal with
several areas that most programmers find murky. Userspace
vs. kernelspace, processes vs. threads performance
characteristics, premature optimization being the root of all
evil, the importance of coding style, why errors should always
be checked, and using the right tool for the job. - Lunch break! (my favorite part of the day)
- A very technical talk such as “hard and soft interrupt
handling in the Linux kernel”. Specific subject TBD.
Linux Kernel Debugging, because that’s what you end up
doing most of the tiem anyway.- Last two hours – an exercise, specifics TBD.
Comments appreciated… Would you like to attend such a workshop?
What subjects would you like to hear about?
In syscalltrack
matters, Amir continues doing impressive work. Yesterday
he committed a fix for a long standing race condition with
unloading of the rules module of the kind that makes my brain
hurt. I think it’s time for a new release soon, as soon as Amir
deems it stable enough.
Muli Ben-Yehuda's journal 
interesting. would attend if you buy me an air tix 🙂
Comment by ideawerkz — March 1, 2004 @ 7:26 AM |
Sounds great to me.
Fortunately, said workshop will not take place at our un-AC’ed building, so that’s nothing to worry about.
The only thing which does worry me is that we won’t have enough time for a proper excercise – but if you think 2 hours are enough than I assume you are correct, as I’m unfamiliar with the subjects at hand.
Other than that, you should tell me (or even call Barak directly) if you’ll have a need for a projector, or anything else specific to your workshop (for example, a specific version of kernels on the linuxes we’ll use for the excercise, certains packages you need installed (kdb? kgdb? I don’t think all our computers have them)).
Comment by nimster_lj — March 1, 2004 @ 7:49 AM |
> The only thing which does worry me is that we won’t have enough time for
> a proper excercise – but if you think 2 hours are enough than I assume
> you are correct, as I’m unfamiliar with the subjects at hand.
Let’s put it this way – I will tailor the exercise to the time we will have for it. Do you think I should allocate more time for the exercise?
> Other than that, you should tell me (or even call Barak directly) if
> you’ll have a need for a projector, or anything else specific to your
> workshop (for example, a specific version of kernels on the linuxes
> we’ll use for the excercise, certains packages you need installed (kdb?
> kgdb? I don’t think all our computers have them)).
Could either you or Barak call me, please? you should have the number, or email me if you don’t.
Comment by mulix — March 2, 2004 @ 4:02 AM |
hi,
just saw that you’d friended me, and figured i’d say hi. i’ve added you back, because after checking out your journal and website, i definitely think that you’re doing some pretty cool stuff, and that we’re working in the same area. 🙂
i’d love to see more linux kernel development/workshop stuff going on. it’s cool to meet up with other people doing similar things and hear all about the stuff they are doing, and try to absorb a bit of their knowledge on their particular area of expertise.
anyways, sorry to leave the comment randomly, just figured i’d say hi and let you know i’m around and all that. hope to catch you around at some point!
Comment by thirdson — March 2, 2004 @ 10:56 PM |
> hi,
>
> just saw that you’d friended me, and figured i’d say hi. i’ve added you
> back, because after checking out your journal and website, i definitely
> think that you’re doing some pretty cool stuff, and that we’re working
> in the same area. 🙂
Sentiments echo’d, that’s why I added you in the first place, I think…
> i’d love to see more linux kernel development/workshop stuff going on.
> it’s cool to meet up with other people doing similar things and hear
> all about the stuff they are doing, and try to absorb a bit of their
> knowledge on their particular area of expertise.
I agree… where are you located? will you be going to OLS?
> anyways, sorry to leave the comment randomly, just figured i’d say hi
> and let you know i’m around and all that. hope to catch you around at
> some point!
Likewise, pleasure to meet you 🙂
Comment by mulix — March 3, 2004 @ 12:33 AM |