Kernel/Linux News and Analysis
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Linux kernel 6.3 is out now here's some quick highlights
Linus Torvalds announced the full release of Linux kernel 6.3, and with it plenty of the usual improvements everywhere.
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Linker notes on AArch32
This article describes target-specific details about AArch32 in ELF linkers. I described AArch64 in a previous article.
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The ptrace syscall
ptrace (“process trace”) is a system call in Unix and Unix-like operating systems that intercepts system calls. It’s a powerful tool that enables tools like debuggers (e.g., gdb), reverse engineering tools, tracing, code injection, and even simple sandboxing. (see proot for an example of a ptrace sandbox). The most interesting part of ptrace is that you can do all of these things completely in user space (even sandboxing!).
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Tanenbaum–Torvalds Debates, Part 1
Their exchanged messages on Usenet would later be called the “Tanenbaum-Torvalds debates.” While sometimes veering off topic and into “flame war” territory, they touched on issues still relevant today in system design.
In them, Tanenbaum makes three predictions:
Microkernels are the future
x86 will eventually lose to RISC
Everyone will run a free GNU OS
Breaking each down, what happened, why it happened, and the important lessons.
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QEMU 8.0 hatches more support for Arm and RISC-V
Version 8.0, released last week, doesn't alter any fundamentals but does add support for plenty of hardware and instructions.
Some of the additions are simple, such as the ability to handle Intel's Sapphire Rapids fourth-gen Xeon silicon, or emulate Arm's Cortex-A55 and Cortex-R52 processors.