Just this morning, Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel 3.1 into the mainline branch. This was merely a few days after Linux kernel 3.0 hit the Internet. Apparently the new version numbering scheme is doing its job well. Still this release has been relatively silent and without much fanfare, as neither Linus or Kernel.org have published any announcements or posted on their mailing list yet.
Changes
The current lack of publicity in this version does not mean that there is nothing nice in this new release. There have been a plethora of new improvements whipped up in this batch of the kernel. Here are a few highlights:
- Open source graphics driver improvements
- This is an epic win for GNU/Linux! Notable GPU fixes and speedups include the buggy Ivy Bridge, Intel GMA 500, Nouveau, and ATI drivers, among others.
- Filesystem usage
- Dynamic Writeback Throttling
- “Writeback” is when programs copy data from RAM and write it to your hard disk. To keep busy programs from overwriting their own RAM data, “context throttling” comes in handy. Throttling is telling a process or two to not create any new data until the current data has been copied to disk (hint: think of a street crossing guard).
- Unfortunately, the older writeback was not very mindful of the filesystem dutifully tidying up your hard disk, and would sometimes interfere with its cleanup work and corrupt its structure. The new writeback system can now intelligently check when the filesystem is busy and adjust its throttling habits accordingly, keeping your hard disk clean and boosting performance.
- OpenRISC support
- Yay! OpenRISC is a project by the OpenCores organization aimed at creating a modern computing CPU platform based upon the classic RISC, fully licensed under the GNU LGPL License, and now Linux can boot on it. I’m not surprised, as Linux can be made to run on basically anything. 🙂
- Wiimote Controller support
- Finally, the Wii remote works! The driver has been around for a while, but it has now been added to the official kernel repositories.
More Information
To see a full description of the new Linux kernel 3.1 fixes and improvements, I’d recommend you visit this page at KernelNewbies.org. It explains the rather cryptic changelog in a well-organized, plain English wiki page. Now, all that is left is to wait for Linux kernel version 3.2, which (unsurprisingly, given the new warp-speed version numbering scheme) is already in the works…
Eyal Kalderon 