Linux Is Fun

By popular demand, a few highlights from the Ottawa Linux Symposium last week.One interesting new feature in Linux 2.6 kernel is kexec / kdump. This allows you to keep a system running after the kernel crashes for the purpose of doing some debugging / forensics. Essentially you specify a second kernel to take over if the first one fails, which runs from a ramfs root filesystem. A tricky part is re-initializing your hardware, although some work is being done to extend the driver API to save and restore device state. Vivek Goyal’s slides are hosted exclusively here on Linux Is Fun. (more…)