Post A5dnX2uPUv1eixV5Xs by shine@mastodon.technology
 (DIR) More posts by shine@mastodon.technology
 (DIR) Post #A5dnX0C1ayKiIiic5I by shine@mastodon.technology
       2021-03-27T16:19:52Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       I was researching on system load averages and came across this blog post : http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-08-08/linux-load-averages.htmlI was surprised with the dedication that this person went ( literally ) digging into archives from 24 years to find the source of one particular change - why #linux factors disk usage ( or any TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE process ) into the system load equation.( thread )
       
 (DIR) Post #A5dnX16ODPQ57X5cwK by shine@mastodon.technology
       2021-03-27T16:21:30Z
       
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       > I dumped "git log -p" for the entire Linux github repository, which was 4 Gbytes of text, and began reading it backwards to see when the code first appeared. This, too, was a dead end. The oldest change in the entire Linux repo dates back to 2005, when Linus imported Linux 2.6.12-rc2, and this change predates that.
       
 (DIR) Post #A5dnX23EgcUW42ccfA by shine@mastodon.technology
       2021-03-27T16:22:06Z
       
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       > Trying to discover, at least, when this change occurred, I searched tarballs on kernel.org and found that it had changed by 0.99.15, and not by 0.99.13 – however, the tarball for 0.99.14 was missing. I found it elsewhere, and confirmed that the change was in Linux 0.99 patchlevel 14, Nov 1993. I was hoping that the release description for 0.99.14 by Linus would explain the change, but that too, was a dead end:
       
 (DIR) Post #A5dnX2uPUv1eixV5Xs by shine@mastodon.technology
       2021-03-27T16:22:38Z
       
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       > My search was starting to feel cursed. Thankfully, I found some older linux-devel mailing list archives, rescued from server backups, often stored as tarballs of digests. I searched over 6,000 digests containing over 98,000 emails, 30,000 of which were from 1993. But it was somehow missing from all of them. It really looked as if the original patch description might be lost forever, and the "why" would remain a mystery.
       
 (DIR) Post #A5dnX3t1rXVzkxrV20 by shine@mastodon.technology
       2021-03-27T16:23:46Z
       
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       > Fortunately, I did finally find the change, in a compressed mailbox file from 1993 on oldlinux.org.<hyperlink:oldlinux.org>http://oldlinux.org/Linux.old/mail-archive/</hyperlink>
       
 (DIR) Post #A5e3F3k9Fru7Mm9692 by djsumdog@djsumdog.com
       2021-03-27T19:29:28.022037Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @shine Crazy how much old shit is still archived out there compared to the new shit that often just disappears. Also the reasoning does make intuitive sense to me.
       
 (DIR) Post #A5e4swDGlu3TY6LXPs by moth@husk.site
       2021-03-27T19:47:53.319762Z
       
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       @djsumdog This convinced me to redouble my search for an old song.