Gentoo Linux Touts DTrace 2.0 Support

Written by Michael Larabel in Operating Systems on 23 October 2024 at 10:53 AM EDT. 3 Comments

More than a decade ago the DTrace tracing framework from Sun Microsystems was one of the long sought features from Solaris desired by Linux developers. Oracle ended up porting DTrace to Linux over the years but without too much fanfare outside of Oracle Linux especially since the advent of (e)BPF on Linux and other tracing/debugging open-source advancements. With the recent DTrace 2.0, it's now built atop the BPF engine and other upstream kernel tracing features on Linux. Gentoo Linux today announced their support for DTrace 2.0.

Those on Gentoo Linux can now emerge the dev-debug/dtrace package to enjoy DTrace 2.0 on this source-based Linux distribution. All the necessary kernel options for BPF and friends are already available with the latest Gentoo distribution kernels.

👁 Gentoo DTrace packaging

The Gentoo project began their announcement today with:

"The real, mythical DTrace comes to Gentoo! Need to dynamically trace your kernel or userspace programs, with rainbows, ponies, and unicorns - and all entirely safely and in production?! Gentoo is now ready for that! Just emerge dev-debug/dtrace and you’re all set."

On the Gentoo Wiki is also more DTrace information for those interested.