Linux News: Systemd, Linux 3.14 Release, Future Releases
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-03 11:38:39 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-03 11:38:39 UTC
Systemd
Systemd has been working on network support for this leading open-source init system. As part of this, systemd developers have now achieved support for obtaining a network connection in less than one millisecond... With that said, systemd developers are working towards having DHCP client and server capabilities built into the init system for having a super-fast booting OS and quicker network connections when resuming the system.
When systemd sees "debug" as part of the kernel command-line, it will spit out so much informaiton about the system that it fails to boot... The init system just collapses the system with too much information being sent to the dmesg when seeing the debug option as part of the kernel command-line parameter. Within the systemd bug report it was suggested for systemd not to look for a simple "debug" string to go into its debug mode but perhaps something like "systemd.debug" or other namespaced alternatives. The debug kernel command-line parameter has been used by upstream Linux kernel developers for many years. However, upstream systemd developers don't agree about changing their debug code detection. Kay Sievers of Red Hat wrote, "Generic terms are generic, not the first user owns them."
kGraft
SUSE has released kGraft to the public, the technology it developed to deliver live runtime patching of the Linux kernel.
Kgraft, which allows live patching of the Linux kernel without downtime, is available under the GPLv3 license
Future Releases
The highlights covered by Daniel for "neat" i915 DRM 3.15 changes include per-process address space support (currently limited to Ivy Bridge and Haswell but Bay Trail and Broadwell support is coming), fine-grained display power domain handling, runtime power management infrastructure work, support for inheriting the firmware frame-buffer as another step in Fastboot support, a lot of Broadwell patches, improved support for frame-buffer compression, 5.4GHz DIsplayPort support, generic DisplayPort aux helpers, and large cursor support to benefit HiDPI displays. For Intel's 4K display support, they now support 5.4GHz DisplayPort but they don't yet support multi-stream support (MST) as most 4K DisplayPort screens expose themselves as two displays to the driver.
There's many bug and performance fixes that landed while some corruption fixes and other patches will land later in the 3.15 merge window. The Btrfs code was also changed to avoid using its own async threads in favor of regular kernel work-queues, in hopes of using more generic code, but it might affect the file-system's performance.
Hopefully the Linux kernel LTO support will finish up in the Linux 3.15 kernel otherwise Linux 3.16 so we can move onward with some benchmarks of an LTO-optimized Linux kernel to see the performance wins at the cost of greater compile times and memory usage during the compilation process. It's worth noting that with the upcoming GCC 4.9 are also some significant link-time optimization enhancements.
With the Linux 3.14 kernel that was released over the night, Intel UMS support was deprecated. Intel hasn't maintained their user-space mode-setting support on Linux in about a half-decade with pushing everything these days through kernel-based mode-setting. The Radeon and Nouveau drivers have also become completely dependent upon kernel mode-setting too, with user-space mode-setting these days mostly being left to really old X.Org drivers without a DRM/KMS module. Modern Linux distributions are also beginning to drop support for these old GPUs.
Latest Release
After adding an extra release candidate to solidify the final result -- to the tune of a week's delay -- Linux creator Linus Torvalds on Sunday unleashed version 3.14 of the Linux kernel.
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, formally released the Linux 3.14 kernel March 30. The new 3.14 Linux kernel follows the Linux 3.13 kernel that was released in January. Given that the new kernel carries the release number 3.14, which is a number that is also well-known as the mathematical Pi constant, there was early speculation that Torvalds might name the new kernel Pi. It's something that Torvalds shot down early on in the Linux 3.14 development process.
Latest Linux kernel has baked-in support for more cutting-edge ARM and MIPS processors, adds hardware support for Xen paravirtualuzation
While no official announcement has come down yet, the Linux 3.14 kernel will most likely be released in the hours ahead.
Kernel Level Misc.
Jovi Zhangwei, the lead KTAP developer, has posted the 28 patches implementing KTAP on the Linux kernel mailing list and is looking for code review in hopes it will be accepted into the mainline Linux kernel. KTAP is a script-based dynamic tracing tool that has a powerful scripting language, a register-based interpreter, is considered lightweight, and supports multiple architectures. The currently supported architectures for KTAP include x86/x86_64, ARM, PowerPC, and MIPS.
Linux kernel block maintainer, Btrfs lead developer and new Facebook employee Chris Mason revealed the news at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in Napa Valley on Thursday, Phoronix reported. Mason said that Facebook will trial Btrfs in its "web tier" servers, explaining that's the easiest tier to recover if necessary, though we imagine Facebook might ask the NSA for its backup copy in the event of disaster.
This small but important change would support a cgroup to swap to a particular file as setup by a new control file. This change is to allow the limiting of cgroups to a given swap file without being able to thrash the entire system's swap file. With this set of three patches, individual cgroups can be limited in their swap capacity.
Graphics Stack
While most of the open-source driver efforts around accelerating 2D with OpenGL are centered on GLAMOR, a set of patches were published today that provide performance improvements to the XA Gallium3D state tracker that also accelerate 2D using 3D driver code.
Benchmarks
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Fedora is IBM and There's Hardly Any Community Left
- It's more like an onboarding mechanism for unpaid labour at (and for) IBM
- IBM to Announce 'Results' Shortly, Expect Lots of Chaff Like "Quantum" and "Hey Hi" (Nothing Material to Show)
- We're still seeing layoffs and an exodus
- Upcoming Techrights Series About the Failure of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to Stop Hired Guns Who Work for Americans That Abuse Women
- The SRA has demonstrated nothing but considerable incompetence at many levels
-
- Links 29/01/2026: Neocities Is Blocked by Microsoft, “Intellectual Freedom Centers” as the New "Intelligent Design"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft XBox Dying Not Only as a Console, Reveals Microsoft
- Microsoft is trying to rebrand or repurpose the brand
- Don't be Mistaken, Microsoft Boasts About Money That Does Not Exist and Revenue (Buying From Oneself!) Is Not Income
- the company's debt grew
- IBM's Financial Performance in IBM's Own Words: Money Down, Debt Up Sharply
- IBM isn't a healthy company
- In Dominica, GNU/Linux Has Risen to All-Time High in 2026
- a lot of America is moving to Free software this year
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XV - EPO is on Strike Tomorrow, Lots to be Angry About (Except Money)
- We'll soon finish the series
- Gemini Links 29/01/2026: "Lady Audley's Secret" and "The Value Of Our Fear" (Carney's Speech)
- Links for the day
- Emmanuel Macron on Europe's GAFAM Addiction/Dependence: "There is No Such Thing as Happy Vassalage"
- Microsoft has long worked to prevent commodification
- It's Official, Mass Layoffs at IBM Again (2026)
- In a matter of days we'll just see how much IBM's debt has grown
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 28, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, January 28, 2026
- Laos and Microsoft: About 10% Windows, 0% Bing
- There are many more nations like it
- EPO Technical Meetings Show no Breakthroughs, a Strike Goes Ahead This Friday
- Apparently there was another (fourth) meeting today [...] The industrial actions are working already
- Google News as the Sole Source of Slop About "Linux", a Feeder of Slopfarms or Serial Sloppers
- At least it's no longer hard to 'contain' the slop problem, knowing which domains are the culprits and seeing that Google is their main 'feeder'
- Links 28/01/2026: ChatGPT Has Financial Problems, White House Sharing Fakes (or Deepfakes) in Official Accounts/Sites
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 28/01/2026: FlatCube NES Port Finished and "Why I Still Write on the Small Web in 2026"
- Links for the day
- Upcoming Techrights Series About the Public Appearances of Richard M. Stallman (RMS) in the United States
- we plan to drop all pretences about "Open Source" and instead focus on Software Freedom
- Upcoming Techrights Series About the Experiences of EPO Insiders
- We'll start the new series some time next week
- Links 28/01/2026: Microsoft Ordered to Stop Spying on School Children, Apple's Brand Tarnished by Its Complicity With Human Rights Abusers
- Links for the day
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XIV - The EPO Vice-President Steve Rowan and the Hidden Alicante Connection is a Big Deal
- We'll soon take a closer look at Ernst
- Gemini Links 28/01/2026: Particle and AirMIDI
- Links for the day
- Amandine Jambert (EDPB/CNIL/FSFE), motive for lying, trust in blockchain and encryption
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 27, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, January 27, 2026
- Expect More XBox Layoffs Shortly
- As expected
- Links 27/01/2026: Japan-China Feud Escalates Again, "Iran's Internet Blackout Persists"
- Links for the day
- Online 'Gathering' Held Today to Organise Industrial Actions in EPO, Strikes Will be Starting Shortly
- "Online Extraordinary General Meeting on Action Plan"
- It's Not About What You Know, It's About Who You Know (and Stay Quiet About the Cocaine)
- This is not an organisation that exists to ensure laws are followed
- FOSDEM 2026: democracy panel: FSFE uses women as stooges, gerrymander
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Must Use Proprietary JavaScript to Submit Feedback to the European Commission About Moving From GAFAM to Free Software
- Nevertheless, go tell them why Software Freedom would benefit Europe's defence and economy
- Distortion of the Facts About Mass Layoffs at IBM
- more layoffs are ahead
- Gemini Links 27/01/2026: "Waiting Isn't a Waste", Posting from Lynx, and Bookmarks
- Links for the day
- Links 27/01/2026: "Oracle Debt and TikTok Transition Troubles Vex the Ellison Media Empire", Richard Stallman Quoted on Copyrights
- Links for the day
- Steven Field (Red Hat) Speaks of "Recent Layoff" (RA/Wave) in Red Hat
- IBM really doesn't like it when people talk about "RAs"
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XIII - Is EPO Vice-President Steve Rowan in Cahoots With the "Alicante Mafia"?
- that deserves much media attention, political intervention, and condemnation
- A Week Ago We Contacted the EPO's Stephen (Steve) Rowan About Cocainegate
- Tomorrow we'll write some more about Rowan
- “Wikilaundering” Explained
- "London PR firm rewrites Wikipedia for governments and billionaires"
- IBM Reports 'Results' Tomorrow, Expect More "RAs" (Mass Layoffs)
- they use words like "efficiency", "optimisation", "AI", "pivot", "modernisation" and so on
- Earlier This Month Microsoft Lunduke Said in Public It Was Good That Renee Good Was Murdered, Now He Mocks or Demonises People for Saying the US is Unsafe
- Don't be easily conned by demagogues
- Google News and "Linux" Slop
- Why won't Google be interested in tackling this issue? Instead Google has been trying to participate in this issue.
- IBM Kills Red Hat in the Darkness
- What IBM does to Red Hat is malicious
- IBM Red Hat's Goal Is Not Real Security (It Probably Never Was)
- Spies and trolls are very malicious people and sometimes they're the same thing
- With Absurd Lies About Slop, Which Lacks Intelligence or Financial Potential, GAFAM and IBM Will Twist Mass Layoffs as 'Efficiency Drive' or 'AI Pivot'
- More layoffs are on the way
- Animal Advocacy Works
- All it takes is effort and determination
- EPO Strike This Week
- What has happened to Europe?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, January 26, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, January 26, 2026