Module 9 Blog

Long story short, the podcast was about the country of Brazil switching from Microsoft to open source software (such as Linux). I think this is a pretty good idea. One of their points was that it would save them a lot of money, and this seems logical. Newer versions of Windows can cost up to around $250.00 and I can only assume you would have to multiply that by millions (or at least thousands) of computers that will run the software. Linux, on the other hand, is not only free but it is more secure, updates constantly, and is widely available in several formats. The whole "we also want to do this because it's un-American" thing is kind of ridiculous, but whatever. Sounds like a good move though. I wonder how it's worked out for them over these last few years.

Kernel Numbering

Each new linux kernel is numbered using three numbers in an x.x.x format. The first number represents the version of the kernel, the second number corresponds to the major changes in that specific release, and the third number corresponds to the minor changes. The version number rarely changes, as there have only been 3 versions of the kernel since 1991 (and version 3.0 was only released to celebrate the kernel's 20th anniversary). Minor changes and release candidates for the kernel occur often, with the major changes not occurring as frequently. The development and numbering of the kernel has slowed down significantly in the recent years.