Interview with the father of Linux: Designing the kernel for fun

2010-09-20 10:36

"Some people are born with leaders who command millions of people, while others are born to write software that overturns the world." The only person who can do both at the same time is Linus Torvalds. "This is the American Time magazine's evaluation of the father of Linux, Linus. In addition to being an IT whiz, Linus is an optimistic and humorous scholar. IT168 reporters to take you into the father of Linux interview scene.

Figure: From left to right: Linus Trovalds, Andrew Morton, Jim Zemlin

Linus Trovalds seldom appeared at the meeting, and speaking to the crowd in front of him was few and far between. However, he made an exception to the LinuxCon conference held in Brazil in August, where he and Andrew Morton attended a question-and-answer session chaired by Jim Zemlin, chairman of the Linux Foundation. This conversation involves a variety of topics such as the kernel development process and the history of development.

Question 1: Do you imagine that Linux has grown to this size?

Jim started by asking, "I wonder if Linus and Andrew have ever thought about how big Linux is going to grow today?" Linus's answer was no; He said he had written Linux as a short-term project and was ready to replace it with a better one. Because there was also the GNU project and the very good BSD camp, he thought there would be someone else to make a stronger and more professional kernel. At the same time, he was just a little hobby of Linux. Andrew added, "but, finally, no one is doing better than Linux." I am a kernel rookie (modestly speaking, in fact Andrew has been in this field for at least 10 years), although there is no long-term vision, but I personally think that the development of Linux is really amazing. ”

Question 2: How do you deal with the rapid development of the kernel?

Jim went on to ask how did you deal with the rapid development of the kernel? Andrew replied that as the kernel continues to evolve, the number of developers is expanding. The kernel's responsibility for development was then assigned to everyone, and now I and Linus are just a small part of the work of the Linux master project. Dealers play a big role in code quality assurance. Based on this, Andrew also says that the kernel community is now providing technology, but resellers can get the kernel from the community and then turn into the actual product.

Linus says people are generally not interested in the Linux kernel. For example, he says he always thinks the server market is a boring place, but someone has successfully applied Linux to the server domain. This is one of the main advantages of Linux, Linus points out that no one company will be interested in all the uses of Linux, but their use of Linux has often surprised him. He expressed some of the areas of Linux applications that he did not even think of. This also means that no one needs to be responsible for maintaining the full responsibility of users who use Linux kernel products. Especially Linus, really need to be concerned about yourself and make sure to integrate all the code snippets together. After all, the power of a single core is limited, and it is impossible to meet all of the application requirements, so it is possible to constantly refine the kernel to meet a wider range of environments.

Question 3: Is it wise to continue using a single core? Can a single core be used in a multitasking environment? Do you want to temporarily discard multicore features when dealing with a specific task of sharding?

From this interview, Jim asked about kernel splitting and whether it would be wise for Linux to continue using a single kernel, and whether a single core would be appropriate for a multitasking environment, or whether it would be independent of different versions of the kernel in the future to support different areas of development needs.

Linus thinks the single core works well and hates to see Linux split. There are many areas of the problem in fact there is a common, for example, the application of Linux in the field of mobile phones , this requires the system for Power management more points, but the fact that the server domain, power Management is also very important. In general, users of different application areas are actually concerned about the same thing, but the timing of attention is different. For example, only high-end server applications will be concerned about symmetric multi-processing, and now basically can't buy a desktop computer that does not support SMP, now SMP is also used in mobile phones . This is the benefit of a single-core approach: If the phone user needs SMP support, Linux is waiting for you at any time.

Andrew says the widespread use of Linux is largely due to the unique technical attributes of the kernel. The Linux kernel is now very easy to work with. The current Linux kernel in the efforts of everyone has been from the original "small" device has become more and more large. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of small embedded systems in the community will not be very good technical support, but the entire Linux community is very concerned about this group, and in the future we will also provide the embedded community with good technical support.

Question 4: Where do the kernel developers come from, and how do Brazilian developers get involved in kernel development?

Linus responded that the Linux kernel's developers were mostly from North America, Europe and Australia. Because of the differences in culture and language, it is more difficult to manage the whole community. Linus says running a global project begins with the need to address language commonality, and Linus is also funny: "Unfortunately the community isn't using Finnish (Linus is Finnish). "Linus says there are many good developers in the world, but it's hard to find good and good English developers. To address regional and linguistic differences, Linus says their usual job is to build a local community and then use these communities as bridges to other communities and headquarters.

Andrew points out that many people in Japan have been involved in kernel development in recent years, and he has documented many community members who have worked the Linux Foundation. He also found that the use of e-mail for non-native communication is very helpful, because the two sides have enough time to understand each other's meaning. As for where to start communication, Andrew's advice is to choose a fun and challenging job to start with.

Linus that open source software is a good way to understand the world of programming. Open source is not like a classroom project, an active project needs to communicate with people to solve problems. Some companies need technical talent and often find activists in the open source community. So being involved in open source projects is a great way to sell yourself to the world. Finally, Linus that good programmers are hard to find, they generally get good pay and often work for open source software. Andrew also agrees that programmers with firm convictions can shine everywhere. At Google, Andrew often receives internal staff to send him some resumes to choose who to hire. The first thing he does is open the Git log and see what these people have done in the community.

Linus says that while the kernel may not be the best learning starting point for a good programmer. But the kernel has a lot of developers, people often think the kernel is mysterious, and even have a fear of approaching the mentality. Small projects are a good starting-place for those junior developers.

Question 5: Will it always work for Linux?

Linus replied, "It's always a long time," and initially he was just thinking of the kernel as a two-month project, but he said he would continue to do the kernel, because now he still has fun. Because there will always be new problems that need to be addressed and new hardware needs to be compatible. This interesting project he has been doing for 19 years, or continue to do the kernel for a long time.

At the end of the interview, Jim did a summary of the Conference, mainly citing Linus and Andrew's contribution to the Linux kernel. It was impressive when Jim said that Linus and Andrew were the two most influential people in the field of technology. They are at the same level as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison. They are all the richest times in the world. Linus and Andrew both said to Jim, "Are you crazy?", "What's your motive?". And then there was a piece of laughter.