Thread regarding Oracle Corp. layoffs

Solaris to Linux kernel engineering

Sorry to hear my former colleagues are going through this. I'm sharing the following hoping it is helpful rather than tasteless:

  • ZFS -> ZFS on Linux, or btrfs (also developed by Facebook)

  • DTrace -> bcc/eBPF (needs Linux 4.9 for all features or later)

  • Zones -> containers (which are cgroups + namespaces)

  • SMF -> systemd

  • mdb -> gdb or lldb

  • release notes: here e.g. https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_4.9

  • maintainers: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/MAINTAINERS, which includes mailing lists for each subsystem

  • source: https://github.com/torvalds/linux, but patches are submitted via lkml or sublists, not github PRs

  • putback checklist -> https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/SubmittingPatches

  • Bill Joy coding style -> https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst

  • cstyle -> scripts/checkpatch.pl

  • companies hiring Linux kernel engineers: Red Hat, SUSE, Intel, IBM, Linaro, AMD, Google, Facebook, ARM, Oracle, plus many device manufacturers (Mellanox, Broadcom, etc) and appliance manufacturers.

  • companies hiring Linux system engineers: pretty much everyone, including Microsoft.

Solaris may be dead, but the spirit of engineering excellence lives on with us. Good luck, and see you on the flip side.

by Anonymous
| 3061 views | | 10 replies (last September 9, 2017) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+P4LHLoH
Comment! It's anonymous!

10 replies (most recent on top)

illumos stands no chance now. Everyone knows Linux has answers to DTrace, ZFS, etc. Just a matter of time until iillumos is gone too. They should have worked with Oracle, like Fedora and Red Hat, instead of throwing rocks and dividing the Solaris pool. Divided we failed.

by Anonymous
| | Reply
Post ID: @7ggr+P4LHLoH

illumos has been dying as fast as Solaris - OpenIndiana has been barely alive for years, OmniTI threw in the towel on OmniOS earlier this year, and Tribblix is a single person hobby project. SmartOS is the last semi-viable illumos distro, and it's essentially a custom hypervisor for the Samsung cloud, not a general purpose OS or something with even measurable market share. BSD has a bit more life, but Linux has essentially conquered the market with "good enough at the right price".

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @4abq+P4LHLoH

Good post OP. I will add, Sun blew it by scoffing at Linux 20 and more years ago. Sun blew it again when upper management let the Solaris / SPARC mafia destroy Cobalt after the acquisition. Cobalt would have been a nice springboard for Sun into Linux street cred. Opportunity lost. Forever.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @3cjl+P4LHLoH

Sorry to hear this sad news. For those seeking other opportunities, Qumulo is always seeking systems engineers and folks interested in filesystem and kernel development.

If interested, please ping recruiting@qumulo.com with your resume

by Qumulo
| | Reply
Post ID: @1voq+P4LHLoH

If you want to learn more about eBPF and other Linux replacements for Dtrace, check out http://brendangregg.com/ for many links, blogs, and talks.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @1spl+P4LHLoH

illumos might hang around long enough to get paid for a few more months, if that's what you need to reach retirement. Linux will be around forever and used by everyone, and is safer bet long term.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @1abr+P4LHLoH

This is a great list for those looking to make a transition to Linux -- but it's also worth mentioning that (perhaps contrary to popular belief), not everyone on the planet runs Linux. For those who still believe in the core missions of ZFS, DTrace and Zones (along with SMF, FMA, mdb, etc.) there is plenty of opportunity in the illumos community. And speaking for Joyent (where I am the CTO), we have lots of hard, interesting kernel work to do. (Joyent was bought by Samsung a year ago; our illumos derivative, SmartOS, is the basis for a very large build-out currently underway within Samsung.)

Regardless where ex-Sun folks land, I would echo the OP: the spirit of excellence has survived its corporate vessel, and I know that the folks cut yesterday will be making a difference, wherever they land!

by Bryan Cantrill
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Post ID: @1xxm+P4LHLoH

Some more detail for kernel engineering in particular... If you actually do kernel engineering on Linux, you'll be dealing with the "maintainers" for that subsystem. There are over one thousand subsystems (including drivers) and each usually has one or two maintainers (documented in the MAINTAINERS file). The maintainers will send you feedback (often on a separate mailing list that is not lkml), and then they will pass your patch to Linus (on lkml). Linus has delegated almost all decision making to the maintainers -- he can't scale otherwise. Some engineers are worried about getting into flame wars with Linus, and the reality is that that is extremely rare, you'll be dealing with maintainers, not Linus.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @1dph+P4LHLoH

Awesome! Thank you OP, this is great stuff...

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @1pal+P4LHLoH

Good list. Also, checkout jenkins , artifactory, ant build server, yum, dockers, kerbenetes. Kvm.

by Anonymous
| | Reply
Post ID: @1bzc+P4LHLoH

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