3 Technology Preview
For the Red Hat Compatible Kernel in the current Oracle Linux 8 release, the following features are under technology preview:
kexec Fast Reboot
The kexec fast reboot feature is available
as a technology preview feature in Oracle Linux 8. This feature
significantly speeds up the boot process by enabling the
kernel to boot directly into the second kernel without having
to first pass through the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS). To
use this feature, load the kexec module
first, then reboot the system.
SGX Available
Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is an Intel technology for protecting software code and data from disclosure and modification. The Linux kernel partially supports SGX v1 and v1.5; version 1 enables platforms by using the Flexible Launch Control mechanism to use the SGX technology.
DAX File System Available
In this
release, the DAX file system is available as a Technology Preview for the ext4 and XFS
file systems. DAX enables an application to directly map persistent memory into its
address space. The system must have some form of persistent memory available to use DAX.
Persistent memory can be in the form of one or more Non-Volatile Dual In-line Memory
Modules (NVDIMMs). In addition, a file system that supports DAX must be created on the
NVDIMMs; the file system must be mounted with the dax mount option.
Then, an mmap of a file on the dax-mounted file system results in a
direct mapping of storage into the application’s address space.