According to Brian Stevens, Red Hat's director of engineering, version 2.4 is limited to 2 terabytes of storage, but the 2.6 Linux kernel will push the envelope much farther.
Which features will make their debut in the next Linux kernel? This question is always a source of speculation among Linux enthusiasts, but now more than ever, it is important for IT managers to follow Linux development as well.
Enterprise IT managers may be wondering why they should care about the Linux kernel, so long as it will run Apache, Samba and any of the thousands of other software programs used on Linux. To be sure, no matter how well developed the kernel is, it would be useless without all of these tools.
However, the kernel determines how well the overall operating system "scales" -- how many processors the kernel can address, the amount of system memory a computer can have, how well it switches between tasks and so on. It also determines which hardware and file systems are supported and what kinds of network protocols and devices can be used.
In short, the kernel truly is the heart and mind of a Linux system
News source: NewsFactor via Winbeta.org
View: Article
