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5485623 story

Contributing To a Project With a Reclusive Maintainer? 162

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 08, 2009 @05:13AM from the pulling-a-davis dept.

zerointeger writes "I am still fairly new to programming in C, but I was asked to extend an open source authentication module by my employer. The project is complete, testing has been done and it works as designed. The extension/patch I have created is fairly robust, as it includes configuration options, help files, and several additional files. The problem is that I have been unable to make contact with the current maintainer about having this feature added. I think the only reason I'd like to see this included is to prevent any patching of later revisions. A few others I have spoken with agree that the patch would benefit administrators attempting to push Linux onto the desktop, as we have done at the University that employs me. Has anyone else submitted patches/extensions to what seems to be a black hole?"

1981965 story

Real-World Benchmarks of Ext4 249

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @11:39AM from the but-i-live-in-a-fake-world dept.

Ashmash writes "Phoronix has put out a fresh series of benchmarks that show the real world performance of the Ext4 file-system. They ran 19 tests on Fedora 10 with changing out their primary partition to test Ext3, Ext4, Xfs, and ReiserFS. The Linux 2.6.27 kernel was used with the latest file-system support. In the disk benchmarks like Bonnie++ Ext4 was a clear winner but with the real world tests the results were much tighter and Xfs also possessed many wins. They conclude though that Ext4 is a nice upgrade over Ext3 due to the new features and just not improved performance in a few areas, but its lifespan may be short with btrfs coming soon."

2360229 comment

Comment Re:traction control (Score 1) 1224

by cavehamster on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:22PM (#25289785) Attached to: Ford To Introduce Restrictive Car Keys For Parents

Good lord man, learn some physics.

The POINT of ABS simple: a tire that can turn is a tire that can steer. That's it! You lock up your tires, it doesn't matter what you do with that wheel, you are no longer in control of the vehicle. You will continue along your force vector until you have lost your momentum.

There is a second thing at work here. The coefficient of friction is different depending on if the tire is skidding over the pavement or if it has not broken free. Thus, you have more stopping power at your disposal if you do not break traction, and as such, you can stop quicker.

ABS is a good thing. It's a computer handling the details of these two items while your mind is busy panicing. So, let's see... more stopping power, the ability to steer at maximum braking, vs... sliding along in the direction of your force vector getting a front row seat to the excitement?

1149123 story

Best Shrinkable ReiserFS Replacement? 508

Posted by kdawson on Friday September 05, 2008 @12:19PM from the just-in-case dept.

paulkoan writes "I have been using ReiserFS for my file system across a few servers for some time now (follow the link below for details of my experience). I can't foresee the future of ReiserFS, but if I'm going to have to migrate as support diminishes, I'd like to begin that process now. My criteria are: in-kernel support, shrinkable, and has good recovery when the file system is not closed properly. That shrinkable requirement precludes a lot of options. What's a good replacement for ReiserFS?"

822949 story

Rat-Brained Robots Take Their First Steps 289

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 13, 2008 @02:53PM from the aside-from-snow-crash-and-politics dept.

missb writes "Brain tissue cultured from rats has controlled a wheeled robot around a lab, according to New Scientist this week. Researchers in the UK have harnessed signals from thousands of disembodied rat neurons, and manipulated them to get a robot to respond to instructions. The team at the University of Reading in the UK hope their research will help provide treatments for diseases like Alzheimer's and epilepsy."

647434 story

The File-System Fallout of the Reiser Verdict 605

Posted by timothy on Tuesday April 29, 2008 @01:17PM from the work-from-home dept.

perlow writes "Yesterday, the Open Source community took an emotional hit when veteran Linux programmer Hans Reiser was convicted of first degree murder in the suspicious disappearing of his wife, Nina. While I won't go into the details of the case, as this has been covered extensively in the press, I would like to talk a little bit about how this verdict will impact the technology in play for file system dominance in our favorite Open Source operating system, Linux."

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Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder 1395

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 28, 2008 @07:32PM from the so-much-for-the-geek-defense dept.

Anonymous Meoward writes "Today Hans Reiser was found guilty of first degree murder in Oakland, California. Quoting Wired: 'In a murder case with no body, no crime scene, no reliable eyewitness and virtually no physical evidence, the prosecution began the trial last November with a daunting task ahead... The turning point in the trial came when Reiser took the stand in his own defense March 3.' Whether he really did it or not, Hans basically just didn't know when to shut up."

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