this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Although the proposal to remove support for Intel's infamous Itanium architecture - aka Itanic - from Linux was rebuffed in February, just weeks ago, in October, the move was approved for kernel 6.7.

To summarize the summary, when Intel began its EPIC project – no, really, it stands for Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing [PDF] – the idea of out of order execution (OoOE) in microprocessors was new, and for x86, unproven.

In brief, the concept of OoOE is that processors can break down complex x86 instructions into smaller, RISC-like chunks, resequence them on the fly to run them as fast as possible, and then reassemble the results into the order that the software originally expected.

In 1994, it wasn't certain that future x86 processors would be able to effectively exploit the instruction level parallelism, or ILP as HP called it [PDF], in machine code.

The Pentium Pro provided the design of the CPU core in the Centrino family of chips from Intel Haifa in Israel, which saved the company from the big, hot, and uncompetitive Netburst architecture of the P4.

The only other VLIW machine that the FOSS desk knows reached the market was Transmeta's Crusoe – one of our articles about which, ironically, also mentioned Intel's Fred Pollack.


The original article contains 558 words, the summary contains 209 words. Saved 63%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Thanks for the summarization of that summarized summary!