How big should the Linux kernel be?

Great news. The Emulex Virtual Host Bus Adapter (HBA) driver is being made part of the Linux kernel.

What this means is support for enterprise scale fiber connections is actually going to be inside the core of the operating system. Cool.

It's just another indication of how robust Linux is becoming, thanks in part to its descent from Unix, which itself is nearly 20 years older than Microsoft Windows.

The Emulex capability is not part of Version 2.6.22, the kernel update distributed starting Monday. It will be part of the 2.6.23 release expected later this summer.

In response you might ask, isn't Linux becoming bloatware? The jibe has been around for years, in both serious and non-serious versions.

How many users must support a feature before it becomes part of the kernel is always a good question. I suspect it's the kind of question Linus Torvalds enjoys, as opposed to those about GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 licensing.

Embedded systems already need to adapt the kernel to their needs, reducing the amount of code they load and the features they support. The Linux in a TiVo isn't everything the Linux in an enterprise server needs to be.

Abraham Lincoln was once asked how long his legs needed to be. "Long enough to reach the ground," he said. How large your kernel needs to be depends on how far away your ground is.

But isn't ironic that a Finnish programmer is making an operating system smorgasbord? That's Swedish, you know.