Linux 2.4.1, which will be available in the near term, will give the operating system its last missing piece: a journaling file system (JFS). This is expected to be the latest version of ReiserFS. Like any JFS, its journaling support will eliminate the need for file system checking after emergency shutdowns—making for faster and safer disaster recovery.
Meanwhile, IBM plans to contribute improved code for even bigger and better logical-volume-manager control. Big Blue also is working toward what it calls Networking RAM for Linux. With Networking RAM, programs will not only be distributed between processors, multiple processors will be able to divide up work among each processors RAM allocation. This supercomputing concept will, in theory, enable Linux clusters to be scaled up to address problems such as weather analysis.