On: Linux Uprobe: User-Level Dynamic Tracing

[halayli]

I just wish they integrated dtrace into linux back in the day. It would have received a lot of support and improvement.

Now every platform has its own complicated set of tools. Even dtrace on osx is not the same as dtrace on freebsd :(

[brendangregg → halayli]

Linux integration would have been tricky, since Sun chose a license that they knew was incompatible with the GPL from the get go (http://www.slideshare.net/brendangregg/from-dtrace-to-linux/...). But yes, would have been nice! :)

Having such fragmentation in the Linux tracing space makes my job tricker, but for a lot of end-users it won't ultimately matter, given front-end analysis tools. In my current job, the team I'm on is building such a front-end analysis tool, and for a lot of end-users, they won't care much what the underlying tracer is, provided it meets their requirements.

[halayli → brendangregg]

agreed. Abstracting the tracers to provide similar information is a challenge.

I had a plan once to create a SaaS around dtrace like tools but it's just too fragmented and couldn't find a common ground. Not to mention that most users don't have the proper debugging symbols around, nor the required kernels. So I bailed. :)