Linus Torvalds goes on epic rant about Linux kernel code

Torvalds goes on epic rant about Linux kernel development

Linus Torvalds is not known for suffering fools when it comes to Linux kernel development. And he recently proved that again by going on an epic rant about some code he considered useless.

Silviu Stahie reports for Softpedia:

Linus Torvalds is known for his abrupt style, and he’s never been shy about saying exactly what he’s thinking, even if this got him in hot waters more than once. It looks like he’s again in the middle of the discussion for all the wrong reasons after using some harsh language in the official mailing list.

Linus Torvalds is the undisputed leader of the Linux project, even if he technically works for the Linux Foundation. When he says something, people do pretty much one of three things: they listen, they do what they were supposed to do in the first place, or they leave the project. The latter actually happened quite a few times in the past few months, so it’s not exactly something unheard of.

The problem is not that he criticizes the developers or that he corrects them when they make mistakes, but the strong language that he employs. In fact, he comes down so hard on them that they are unlikely to forget they have been scolded by Linus himself.

More at Softpedia

You can read Torvalds’ comments in their entirety at the Linux mailing list link below, but here’s a sample of what he said:

Christ people. This is just sh*t. The conflict I get is due to stupid new gcc header file crap. But what makes me upset is that the crap is for completely bogus reasons.

The above code is sh*t, and it generates shit code. It looks bad, and there’s no reason for it.

Really. Give me *one* reason why it was written in that idiotic way with two different conditionals, and a shiny new nonstandard function that wants particular compiler support to generate even half-way sane code, and even then generates worse code? A shiny function that we have never ever needed anywhere else, and that is just compiler-masturbation.

Tell me why. Because I’m not pulling this kind of completely insane stuff that generates conflicts at rc7 time, and that seems to have absolutely no reason for being anm idiotic unreadable mess.

And it’s a f*cking bad excuse for that braindamage.

Anybody who thinks that code like this is “safe” and “secure” because it uses fancy overflow detection functions is so far out to lunch that it’s not even funny. All this kind of crap does is to make the code a unreadable mess with code that no sane person will ever really understand what it actually does. Get rid of it. And I don’t *ever* want to see that shit again.

More at Linux Kernel Mailing List

Lenovo 100S Chromebook review

Chromebooks are red-hot sellers at Amazon, and now the Laptop Mag site has a full review of the Lenovo 100S Chromebook. Is it worth buying? Laptop Mag found the Lenovo 100S’ price tag to be very attractive and noted the great battery life.

Andrew E. Freedman reports for Laptop Mag:

As a group, Chromebooks are among the least expensive laptops you can buy, but even in this budget-minded segment, Lenovo’s 100S Chromebook stands out by offering a lot of laptop for very little money. For a starting price of $179.99, you get a lightweight 11.6-inch laptop with solid performance and more than 11 hours of battery life. As you might expect, Lenovo cuts a few corners to get there, but if you can live with shortcomings like a mediocre display and weak audio, the 100S Chromebook is a really compelling buy.

The 100S is powered by a 2.16-GHz Intel Celeron N2840 processor with 2GB of RAM. It’s fairly snappy for light loads, but it maxed out once I really got to work on it. With a Google Doc and 10 Chrome tabs open and Spotify streaming in the background, tabs lagged when I switched between them. When I added a game of Cut the Rope in the background, this lag was even more noticeable.

The Lenovo 100S Chromebook lasted an impressive 11 hours and 19 seconds on the Laptop battery test, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits of brightness, beating out the Asus Chromebook Flip (9:19) and the HP Stream 11 (6:34).

Whether you’re buying it for a kid or you just need a very portable device for email, document editing and social media on the go, the Lenovo 100S Chromebook is a great choice. If you’re willing to spend more, the $279 Dell Chromebook 11 has a better design with a better keyboard and touchpad. However, with its epic battery life, solid performance and light weight, the 100S Chromebook is a bargain that’s hard to ignore.

More at Laptop Mag

Google says Chrome OS is here to stay

There have been reports in the media that Google is getting ready to phase out Chrome OS by blending it into Android. A post on the official Chrome blog purports to quell such speculation by touting Google’s desire to keep Chrome OS around.

Here’s some of Google’s post:

Over the last few days, there’s been some confusion about the future of Chrome OS and Chromebooks based on speculation that Chrome OS will be folded into Android. While we’ve been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there’s no plan to phase out Chrome OS.

With the launch of Chrome OS six years ago, we set out to make computers better—faster, simpler and more secure—for everyone. We’ve since seen that vision come to life in classrooms, offices and homes around the world. In fact, every school day, 30,000 new Chromebooks are activated in U.S. classrooms—that’s more than all other education devices combined. And more than 2 million teachers and students in more than 150 countries have the Share to Classroom Chrome extension, which launched in September and gets students onto the same webpage, instantly. Meanwhile, companies such as Netflix, Sanmina, Starbucks and of course Google, are using Chromebooks given the ease of deployment, the ability to easily integrate with existing technologies, and a security model that protects users at all levels, from hardware to user data. (Chromebooks are so secure you don’t need antivirus software!) IT administrators can manage tens of thousands of Chromebooks through a single web console, making them ideal for both classrooms and the workplace.

This year we’ve also worked to redefine the different forms Chrome OS can take, introduced the first designated Chromebook for Work, and brought more of your favorite Android apps to your Chromebook via Apps Runtime on Chrome (a.k.a. ARC). But there’s more to do. We have plans to release even more features for Chrome OS, such as a new media player, a visual refresh based on Material Design, improved performance, and of course, a continued focus on security. With our regular six-week software cycle and guaranteed auto-updates for five years, Chromebooks keep getting better over time. Finally, stay on the lookout for dozens of new Chromebooks in 2016.

More at The Google Chrome Blog

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