Software Structure of Linux Kernel: Linux kernel 2.4 is more dependent on the ELF (Executable and Linking Format) than Linux 2.2. ELF is an advanced binary format that includes support for multiple code and data sections and increases the support for shared libraries. Fully exploiting the ELF binary format allows Linux kernel developers to increase code modularity and to simplify maintenance.

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by Thomas Wolfgang Burger, owner, Thomas Wolfgang Burger Consulting.

Does the 2.4 kernel have what it takes to make corporate America embrace Linux as an enterprise solution?

There are a large number of changes and additions to the Linux 2.4 kernel release that will result in more speed and reliability and a much larger base of supported hardware.

These modifications have three major goals in addition to bug fixes and general improvements:

• Greater speed, especially on large-scale servers. There should no longer be any configuration and load combination in which Linux is slow.
• Greater market penetration, because of broader (and easier) hardware support.
• Fewer kernel variants, in order to eliminate the plethora of custom versions; one kernel will now work, as is, on an embedded device, a laptop, a desktop, or a network server.

Linux ELF and POSIX Foundation strengthened
Linux kernel 2.4 is more dependent on the ELF (Executable and Linking Format) than Linux 2.2. ELF is an advanced binary format that includes support for multiple code and data sections and increases the support for shared libraries. Fully exploiting the ELF binary format allows Linux kernel developers to increase code modularity and to simplify maintenance. ELF allows drivers to be initialized based on how they are linked, rather than by having an explicit initialization line in the core code.

With the adoption of support for POSIX clocks and timers, Linux 2.4 becomes more POSIX-compliant, allowing for non-RTC (Real Time Clock) devices to be used as clocks internally.

Enterprise support: threading scheduling and capacity
Three core changes in Linux 2.4 add greater capacity in enterprise-level environments, without degrading performance in standard environments:

• First, Linux 2.4 can handle many more simultaneous processes or threads, because it is more scalable on multiprocessor systems and provides a configurable process limit. The threading model used in Linux 2.4 is now a scalable or soft version. Previously the thread limit was 1024, which led to poor performance with large numbers of users. The limit is now set at run time, so the only real limit is the amount of memory available.
• Second, the scheduler has been revised to be more efficient on systems with more concurrent processes.
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