Author Archive

Whether or not the graphics subsystem is part of the operating system’s kernel or not is highly controversial, and popular opinion seems to change over time. For example, a certain other major OS has had graphics in, and then out of, the kernel several times now.

Arjan Van De Ven shines some light on the issues, projects, and techniques that characterize kernel performance.

Power consumption is a hot topic — from laptop, to datacenter. Recently, the Linux kernel has made huge steps forward in power conservation, thanks to tickless kernels.

Power consumption is a hot topic — from laptop, to datacenter. Recently, the Linux kernel has made huge steps forward in power conservation. This article focuses on the so-called “tickless idle” feature being integrated into the 2.6.21 and 2.6.23 kernel versions.