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Several people have written in lately to note that LinuxHQ has moved to Kernel Notes. But the plot thickened recently when LinuxHQ sprung back to life looking quite similiar to its predecessor, but with a different license. Kernel Notes is GPL, copyrighted by the LinuxHQ Project, but the "New" LinuxHQ is copyrighted by ECS and not GPLd (as well as not crediting the creator of the nice logo up top). Can anyone clarify the confusion for us all? I'm getting a lot of questions about this and a lot of it smells pretty fishy.

adraken writes "It just seems like minutes ago that 2.3.1 was out, but 2.3.2 is out... " Remember folks: use a mirror. Standard "don't use unless you know what you're doing" disclaimer applies.Update: 05/15 02:43 by J : There seems to be a ChangeLog available.

30 bazillion readers wrote to say that kernel 2.3.1 is out: a ChangeLog is available here. Standad warnings, everyone-don't play with what you don't know, and expect to have everyone bail you out. In related news, Linus will be appearing at the Lotus DevCon 99' - more information is availible.

Some guy named Chris was the first to write in to say Linus has blessed us with 2.2.6. Additionally, Alan has already posted 2.2.6ac1, and the mirrors will hopefully be synced by now. Cutting Edge Linux has the changelog.

Linus has finally released Linux 2.2.3 after several prepatches and lots of testing. Hopefully, it should be the last one for quite awhile. Check out the changes summary on Cutting Edge Linux, and don't forget to use a mirror!

John Fulmer sent us a link to LinuxHQ where you can read that Toshiba has released devel info for the IRDa on their laptops. I'm hearing other rumblings about Toshiba making an about-face as well, but nothing substantial yet. They really ought to see the light- those little Prot

jdesbonnet writes "Java 2 SDK preview is available". There is a bzipped file on his site, but I did not download it. edgy writes "According to LinuxHQ, Toshiba has relented and has released specifications for IrDA so that Toshiba laptops can use their built-in infrared ports." 3fer writes " The site interactive.linuxjournal.com is now open. Anybody who subscribes to LJ can now search all previous issues via the site. " It's really worth a visit. Tramm Hudson writes "After quite a long time, Digital (now Compaq) has released fast math libraries for Linux. Many people have been using DU's (now Tru-64) compilers to take advantage of the faster routines, but this runs afoul of the rather restrictive licensing on the output of the compiler. The hope is that this signals a possible first step towards releasing the DU compilers for Linux. Possibly one of the most discussed topics on comp.os.linux.alpha is the lack of high performance compilers for Alpha Linux. There is so much computational horsepower in these chips, but egcs just isn't harnessing it... " Finally ASUGeek writes "Reuters has retracted the satellite crack story." Update: 03/05 05:55 by S : Now AntiOnline says Reuters did not retract the story, and NASA's records indicate the satellite drifted by an abnormally high amount. Thanks to Kythe.

Dave Miller, the ultracool hacker who does (definitely) work at Red Hat, wrote in to let us know Linux 2.2.2 has been released. A summary of changes should appear on Cutting Edge Linux shortly. This new kernel should fix the recent autofs bug (fixed in ac7). Update: 02/22 11:35 by J :Dave Whitinger, the guy behind the fabulous Linux Today site, wrote in with the linux-kernel-announce(ment). Update: 02/24 03:13 by CT : Dave Miller does work at Red Hat.

GTM writes "I have just seen this on the main page of LinuxHQ, and haven't even taken time to download it yet : after 2 years of development, the GNU C Library 2.1 is available. Nice to see it appear short after the release of the 2.2 Linux kernel. "

GTM writes "I have just seen this on the main page of LinuxHQ, and haven't even taken time to download it yet : after 2 years of development, the GNU C Library 2.1 is available. Nice to see it appear short after the release of the 2.2 Linux kernel. "

Myrdraal writes "As the subject says, 2.2.1 is released. It just has bugfixes for the showstoppers in 2.2.0. I'll have a changelist on Cutting Edge Kernels in about 10-15 minutes." Linus announced it as the "Brown Paper Bag" Release. Cute.

Myrdraal writes "As the subject says, 2.2.1 is released. It just has bugfixes for the showstoppers in 2.2.0. I'll have a changelist on Cutting Edge Kernels in about 10-15 minutes." Linus announced it as the "Brown Paper Bag" Release. Cute.

Joseph Pranevich has written up an excellent piece on Linux 2.2 where he practically sums up the major features of the new kernel. This will be quite useful to any of you who are curious, but haven't been reading LinuxHQ every patch for the last year. Related, 2.2.0ac1 is now out. The following was written by Slashdot Reader Joseph Pranevich The Wonderful World of Linux 2.2 Well, the long wait is over and 2.2.0 has finally appeared for the masses. For the sake of history, Linux 2.2 was officially released on 1/25/99. As of this writing, the mainstream press has not caught on to the release so it is hoped that this will not get out too late to be useful to those folks. At this time, no distributions have announed dates as to when they will begin shipping 2.2.x kernels but it is reasonable to expect that there will be mainstream 2.2.x options by March.

Submitted for your approval, my final i386 change summary. (I've now had three separate "final" versions, but I really mean it this time.) This document is intended as an expanded laundry list of new features and additions to the 2.2.x kernel, a major milestone in the history of Linux.

Please note that this document does not cover all the new hardware that Linux supports. Many devices, such as scanners and printers, are handled exclusively in user space. Other devices, such as video cards and mice, are handled by a combination of user and kernel drivers. If you don't see a device class that you are interested in listed in this document, it is quite likely that Linux 2.2 supports it -- just not necessarily using the kernel to do so.

Also, I do not claim that everything in this document is PC. I believe that I am being fair and I have pulled some puches with respect to how I phrased certain portions. If you think that I should reword a certain portion so as not to offend someone, let me know but I will not make any promises.

Chips Galore The world of Intel chips is a fast and interesting thing to follow, if you have nothing better to do. Merced, Celeron, MMX... the names of Intel technologies float past to be replaced by new cutting-edge technology. (Whether or not these technologies are worthwhile is a matter that I'm not even going to begin to try and debate.) In addition, AMD, Cyrix, and other companies have become solid competitors in the market and each have their own little optimizations, quirks, and bugs. It's a mess, to say the least.

Linux 2.2 will be the first stable Linux to support options for the various non-Intel processors in the kernel configuration tool. Perhaps even more importantly, Linux 2.2 (and later revisions of 2.0 for obvious reasons) supports bugfixes and workarounds for widespread processor bugs including the infamous F00F Pentium bug. Other bugs that can't be worked around, such as an AMD K6 sig11 bug, are reported during startup.

Merced hasn't arrived yet and probably isn't immediately forthcoming, but Linux 2.2 has already been ported to Sparc64, Alpha, and other 64-bit platforms so the infrastructure for a 64-bit native kernel is already happily in place. (There are, of course, other obstacles that would have to be overcome before Linux/Merced could be released but having a 64-bit ready kernel is an important step.)

Multiple-Processor machines now will operate much more efficiently than they did in Linux 2.0 with issues such as the global spinlock removed. Up to 16 processors are supported (the same as with 2.0) but the performance difference should be amazing. Also, there is now greater support for the IO-APIC on Intel boards that will make SMP generally better supported. And finally, it is now possible to specify a multi-processor configuration without ever leaving the kernel configuration tool.

In terms of other ports, Linux 2.2 will feature improved support for a large number of 'workstation' machines such as Sparc, Sparc64, and Alpha machines. As for 'desktop' machines, Linux 2.2 has been ported to Motorola's m68k and PPC processors and now can be expected to run on many of these platforms, including the Macintosh. (with varying degrees of hardware support, of course. Support for m68k Macs in particular is not ready for prime-time.) Linux is also moving to processors, such as ARM that are increasingly popular for embedded systems.

On somewhat of a tangent, there is continuing work to support a subset of the Linux kernel on 8086, 8088, 80186, and 80286 machines. This project will never integrate itself with Linux-proper but will provide an alternative Linux-subset operating system for these machines.

In terms of memory consumption, the average Linux 2.2 setup will require more memory than Linux 2.0. (Although a larger number of components can now be modularized or compiled-out to allow a system administrator more flexibility if memory is tight.) There is some debate as to what is the lower limit in terms of functionality with a text-only system but it should still be possible to have only 4 megs of RAM in many situations. (8 megs are still recommended.) On the bright side, Linux 2.2 includes a number of new optimizations that should actually improve the performance of machines with at least 16 megs of RAM. The more, the merrier.

System Busses and Assorted Ilk Although somewhat less crucial and cutting edge, Linux 2.2 will support a larger proportion of the existing x86 computers with the addition of complete support for the Microchannel bus found on some PS/2s and older machines.

In addition to hundreds of minor patches to the bus system (including many new PCI device names), larger improvements have taken place. The PCI subsystem, in particular, has undergone several major changes. Firstly, the PCI device reporting interface has been changed and moved to allow for easier addition of new information fields. This particular change doesn't spell much of a difference for an end user but it makes the lives of developers much easier. Additionally, it is now possible to choose whether you want to scan your PCI bus using your compatible PCI BIOS or through direct access. This allows Linux 2.2 to work on a larger set of machines as several PCI BIOSes were incompatible with the standards and caused booting problems.

Sadly, there is still little kernel support for Plug-and-Play ISA devices. While that would be a great addition, there are some problems with the currently proposed systems that will need to be resolved sometime in 2.3 before inclusion. Fortunately enough, there happens to be a great user-level utility, isapnp, for setting up PnP devices that requires just a tad more work than we'd like but gets the job done in true Linux fashion.

Laptops and many workstations can also benifit from improved support for power management, including worksrounds for a number of incompatible BIOS implementations. Also new in 2.2 is the ability to use some functions of an APM BIOS on multi-processor systems.

IDE, and SCSI, and USB... Oh my! As far as Linux IDE is concerned, not much obvious has changed for Linux 2.2. The most obvious change is that it is now possible to load and unload the IDE subsystem as a module, just like SCSI. (This also has the added bonus of allowing one to use a PnP-based IDE controller.) For less bleeding-edge machines, the updated IDE driver now supports older MFM and RLL disks and controllers without having to load an older version of the driver. Linux 2.2 now also has the ability to detect and configure all PCI-based IDE cards automatically, including the activation of DMA bus-mastering to reduce CPU overhead and improve performance. And finally, more drivers have been developed for controllers that are buggy or simply different. It's amazing how even excellent things can continue to get better.

Elsewhere in the IDE world, parallel port IDE devices have become more common and are now supported by Linux 2.2, for the most part. It is a good assumption that many devices that are not supported currently will be added as 2.2 progresses.

The SCSI subsystem's main improvements have been the addition of many new drivers for many new cards and chipsets. Too many, in fact, to even begin to name here.

PCMCIA adapters (or PC-card slots, as they are called now) are not supported in the standard Linux 2.2 but are supported by an external module provider. Thus, while not in the kernel, PCMCIA support will be included in most distributions.

IRDA support has also been added to the kernel although many controllers are not yet supported. As this feature was added only in the closing days of Linux 2.1 development, it may not be as generally usable as other, more mature, portions of the kernel.

Alas, there is some bad news here. Despite ongoing efforts by several parties to finish USB support, no support was included in time for a Linux 2.2 release. Several prominent developers have looked at USB support and it is likely that there will be some support before we get too far into Linux 2.2.x. (Alternatively, USB support could be provided through an external source in the same way that PCMCIA support is now.)

Ports: Parallel and Serial Nothing much new on this front, Linux has always had incredible support for these basic building blocks. The parallel port driver has been rewritten with cross-platform issues in mind and thus what was once just a 'Parallel Port' is now a 'PC-Style Parallel Port' Functionality-wise, the only obvious change is that you can now effortlessly share a single parallel port device with multiple device drivers. (Note however that the naming convention used to label parallel ports has changed so you may find that your lp1 has become your lp0. Distributions should allow for this change automatically however.)

Serial support is chugging along as well as it always has but with one notable difference. Previously, a serial device such as a modem involved two devices, one for call-in and one for call-out. (ttyS and cua respectively) As of Linux 2.2, the two are combined in one device (ttyS) and accessing the cua devices now prints a warning message to the kernel log. On the bright side, Linux 2.2 includes support for having more than 4 serial ports, it allows serial devices to share interrupts, and it includes a number of drivers for non-standard ports and multi-port cards. My only complaint with serial support is its lack of support for the standard methods for modules to pass device parameters at module-load time via the modules.conf file and kmod. (Instead, these parameters are set using the 'setserial' command. Somewhat yuck.)

It should also be mentioned that Linux 2.2 will support newer UART chips than 2.0 which may translate into higher transfer rates using newer modems.

CD-ROMs, Floppies, and removable media Thankfully, the hodge-podge of hundreds of CD-ROM standards has solidified behind the 'standard' of ATAPI CD-ROMs. This reprieve has given developers time to completely rewrite the CD-ROM driver system to be more standardized in terms of support. Small, quirky differences between the individual drivers have now all been fixed for better support.

Rewritable CD-ROMs aren't supported nearly as well as one would like, unfortunately. SCSI CD-ROMs are well done (and most IDE drives use SCSI-over-ATA, the SCSI-emulation driver). With other rewritable CD-ROMs, your mileage may vary.

Floppies are working as well as ever. There are new developments in terms of large volume floppies and it remains to be seen whether or not all of these will be supported. Those devices that communicate using ATAPI (a large number of them, actually) are already supported to some degree.

IOMEGA's zip drive, an increasingly popular storage solution, is fairly well supported under Linux 2.2. These beasts come in three versions: SCSI, ATAPI (IDE), and Parallel. Under SCSI and ATAPI, the Zip drives are supported just as any other disk would be. The parallel version of these drives actually use a sort of SCSI-over-parallel protocol that is also supported in Linux 2.2. (Other IOMEGA solutions such as DITTO drives may also be supported using the ftape drivers.)

DVD drives are already supported, to some degree, under Linux as they represent themselves largely as ATAPI drives. (SCSI DVD drives may not, but they will probably work using the excellent SCSI CD-ROM driver.) Unfortunately, this does not necessarily mean that all will be rosy in the Linux/DVD world as Linux does not currently support any DVD-centric filesystems that have been proposed nor are any user-space tools developed to display DVD movies and etc. Once the standards stabilize a bit, it is highly likely that the requisite parts will be added to the Linux kernel sometime during the 2.2.x cycle, following the initial release.

Other removable media may or may not be supported under Linux 2.2. If the device connects through the parallel port, it is possible that it is supported using one of the Parallel Port IDE device protocol modules that are included in the kernel.

Glorious Sounds! At long last, the sound code has been partially rewritten to be completely modular from start to finish. Distributions will be able to more easily include generic sound support out-of-the-box for their users as well as making it easier for the rest of us to load and configure sound devices. (Especially pesky Plug-and-Play ones.) Lots of new sound devices are supported as well and it looks like this is one area where Linux will really improve in the next year.

One very notable defect here is the remaining lack of support for the PC internal speaker, if only for completeness. Then again, Windows 95/98 doesn't do it either so who am I to judge?

Video4Linux Linux 2.2 now has amazing support for a growing number of TV and radio tuner cards and digital cameras. This is a truly bleeding edge addition to 2.1's roster so there may still be some outstanding issues but it is reasonable to assume that they will be fixed in time. In my humble opinion, this is just an amazing area for Linux to be in at all. Back me up, Scotty! Linux 2.2's backup and tape device subsystem has not changed much since the 2.0 release. More drivers for devices have been written, of course and substantial improvement has been made for backup devices that work off of the floppy disk controller (including the IOMEGA DITTO).

Rewritable CD-ROMs have become a popular solution for backing up data and they are supported under Linux 2.2 There are still outstanding issues in this regard, see my note above on CD-ROMs for details.

Joysticks, Mouse, and Input Devices Joysticks are better supported in 2.2 including a large number of new joysticks and joysticks with an inordinate numbers of buttons. Likely, your joystick will work under Linux 2.2.

Mice in 2.2 aren't really different from mice in 2.0. (As in 2.0, there are some inconsistencies regarding mouse support that will be addressed in the future. For the most part, mouse control is provided through a daemon external to the kernel. Some mouse drivers however deliberately emulate a Microsoft standard mouse. The reasoning behind this is obvious but it would be nice if it was decided on in one way or the other.) It should be noted that, while not solely a kernel issue, mice with Microsoft's spinning wheel extension are supported in recent versions of the XFree86, Linux's most popular GUI. (However many Linux applications have not been designed to take advantage of this feature.)

Additionally, several other input devices are now supported under Linux 2.2 including some digitizer pads. If your devices emulates a mouse (as many do) then it is already supported by Linux 2.2 (and, in fact, Linux 2.0).

Video Perhaps the most surprising and cutting-edge addition to the Linux kernel version 2.2 is what is called the 'frame-buffer console' driver (or 'fbcon', for short.)

Previously, the Linux kernel (for Intel-based machines) only understood and manipulated the video devices in text mode. Graphical support was to be provided by two other systems: 'svgalib' for console-based graphics, and a specialized X Server for window-based graphics. This kludgey system often required configuration information to be repeated and each system supported only a limited slice of the myriad of video devices in common use.

Since this addition is rather new, it remains to be seen whether it will truly replace the previous and long-standing duality. Unfortunately, it could be nearly a year after Linux 2.2 ships before this new system could be robust enough to support the cards and technologies that we already take for granted as working. My personal opinion is that this is the right idea, but I'm going to withhold judgment until we see exactly how far Linus and the developers decide to take this feature.

As an added side-effect of this new feature, primitive multi-heading has been added into the kernel for some devices. Currently, this is limited to some text-mode output but it is reasonable to assume that this very new addition to the Linux kernel will mature somewhat during the 2.2.x and 2.3.x cycles.

It should also be mentioned that it is now possible to remove support for 'virtual' terminals as provided by the kernel. This allows very memory-conscious people to save just a tad more.

Although unimaginable to the desktop user, Linux can now work even better on systems that do not actually include any sort of video device. In addition to being able to log in over serial or networked lines, as Linux 2.0 and previous Linuxes allowed, it is now possible to redirect all the kernel messages (usually sent to the console directly before any hardware was initialized) to a serial device.

Networking: Ethernet, ISDN, and the lowly modem. I don't have a huge amount of experience here; I've been using the same network cards in all my machines for several years. But, it doesn't take an Alan Cox to see that the number of supported Ethernet and ISDN devices supported in Linux 2.2 has risen sharply. I have been told that newer solutions such as cable modems are supported, also.

My only gripe in this regard is the continued non-support of so-called 'Winmodems.' Not that I blame Linux for their absence, making modems that are 80% software is just a dumb idea anyway, but the idealist in me hopes that some day these pesky devils will be supported like their less stripped cousins.

Amateur Radio people are Linux people, too. Since before Linux 2.0, Linux has been one of the few desktop OSes to include native support for computer-based amateur radio people. (Not that I actually know what that entails but it seems to be a more popular option outside the US.) Linux 2.2 adds support for NetROM and ROSE amateur radio protocols. The basic AX.25 layer has also been materially enhanced. Filesystems for the World Linux 2.2 has a wide array of new filesystems and partition types for interconnectivity. In addition, many of Linux's supported filesystems (including those I haven't listed here) have been updated with a new caching system to markedly improve performance. (In fact, not updating the drivers wasn't even an option if one wanted them included in Linux 2.2.)

For the Microsoft nut, Linux will now read NTFS (Windows NT) drives and Windows 98's FAT32 drives (also used by some later versions of Windows 95). Linux 2.2 also understands Microsoft's Joliet system for long filenames on CD-ROMs. And finally, Linux also understands a new type of extended partition that Microsoft invented. Drivers to read and write Microsoft and Stacker compressed drives are being developed but not yet included in the kernel. There is continuing work with NTFS to allow for both reading and writing, but that support is still experimental.

For Mac connectivity, a HFS driver for reading and writing Mac disks has been included. HFS+ and MFS (ancient floppy format) are not yet supported. Macintosh partition tables can now also be read by the kernel; this allows Mac SCSI disks to be mounted natively.

Sadly, OS/2 users will still not be able to write to their HPFS drives. Some updates have been made to the HPFS driver to support the new 'dcache' system but not the complete overhaul that some were hoping for. There is ongoing work outside the kernel to include read/write support in this driver but those changes did not make it into the initial release of 2.2.0.

If there are any Amiga users left (and there are), they will be pleased to know that the FFS driver has undergone some minor updates since 2.0. This is especially useful as the new generation of PPC Amigas will continue to support this format.

For connectivity to other UNIXes, Linux 2.2 has come forward in leaps and bounds. Linux 2.2 still includes the UFS filesystem which is used on BSD derived systems, including Solaris and the free versions of BSD. Linux 2.2 can now also read the partition table formats used by FreeBSD, SunOS, and Solaris. For SysV-style UNIXs, Linux 2.2 features a somewhat updated version of SysVFS. Linux 2.2 can also read the Acorn's RiscOS disks. And finally, Linux 2.2 features a somewhat updated version of the ever-popular Minix filesystem, which can be used for small drives and floppies on most UNIXes. With so many incompatible formats (and Linux 2.2 reading so many of them), it's amazing anyone ever got any work done.

In other news, support for 'extended' drives (the format used by much older versions of Linux) has been removed in favor of the 'second extended' filesystem. (This shouldn't matter to many people, 'ext2' is far superior to its predecessor.) With the increased support of initial ramdisks, a 'romfs' has been created which has very minimal overhead.

While not quite a filesystem, Linux 2.2 includes enhanced support for stretching a filesystem across several disks transparently. At present, this support can be used in RAID 0, 1, 4, and 5 modes as well as a simple linear mode.

Networking II: Under the Hood On the protocol front, a lot has happened that I simply don't understand completely. The next generation Internet protocol, IPv6, has made an appearance. SPX, a compliment to IPX is new, as well. DDP, the protocol of choice for older AppleTalk networks has also been improved. And, just as you would come to expect by now, the existing protocols have been improved, as well. I only wish I had the need to use some of this stuff...

On the low-end front, not much has changed. PPP, SLIP, CSLIP, and PLIP are all still available for use. I guess some things don't need much improvement. (Although each of those drivers have been updated in one way or another.)

The list keeps going, however. Linux 2.2 will have an excellent new networking core, new tunneling code, a completely new firewalling and routing system called 'ipchains', support for limiting bandwidth consumption, and a ton more. It's just amazing. I wish I could keep track of it all. (But, who am I kidding?)

It should be noted that file and printer sharing protocols have also been improved and markedly enhanced. SMB, the protocol for accessing Windows-based shared filesystems has been somewhat improved with bugfixes and the like. If you are a fan of NetWare (some people are...), you'll be happy to know that Linux 2.2 supports a large number of improvements in this area, including access to two different kinds of NCP long file names. Trusty NFS has also been improved, both at the server level and the client level. And finally, those eggheads over at CMU have been hard at work developing the new distributed network filesystem, Coda. This filesystem supports a large number of highly-requested features including disconnected operations for laptops, an advanced cache system, and security improvements.

On somewhat of a tangent, Linux 2.2 also includes a driver which will allow one to share (and remotely mount) whole disk images over a network.

Not Everyone Speaks English. Linux 2.0 is a very international OS with support for international keyboards and the like. Linux 2.2 adds to this and other internationalization features the ability to load some Microsoft/UNICODE codepages for translating filenames into Linux's native system. (Which is UTF8, another encoding of UNICODE) Currently, the only filesystems that use these translations include Microsoft's VFAT and Microsoft's Joilet ISO 9660 (CD-ROM filesystem) extension. Unix98: The Next Generation Linux 2.2 will be a more 'standard' UNIX in a number of ways. The most pronounced of these ways to the end user will be the addition of UNIX98-style Pty devices using a new filesystem (devpts) and a cloning device to provide the functionality. And, finally... In addition to those noted above, there are a large number of other drivers and things that just don't fit in anywhere but should still be noted. So, in no given order, the oddball updates of Linux 2.2:

The loopback driver, which allows disk images to be mounted and manipulated just like any regular drive, has been improved in a number of ways. Of these improvements, the most notable difference to users will be its increased support for encryption and the mounting of encrypted hard disks and disk images.

A driver for accessing your computer's CMOS memory has also been provided in Linux 2.2 which may be useful in some applications. (Sadly, a similar driver to access your BIOS's flashable RAM did not make it, it will still be necessary to boot from a DOS floppy to flash your computer's BIOS to a new version.)

And finally, in the past, Linux used a half-user/half-kernel method of loading in and out drivers (called 'modules') called 'kerneld' This method was good but inefficient. Linux 2.2 has removed kerneld and replaced it with a smaller all-kernel solution called 'kmod'.

This is the 'revised millennium penguin' version of this document (1/26/99) and is really just a minor update over the last three final versions. Linux 2.2 is out now, so obviously no new features will be added and I should be safe.

As always, I can be reached at jpranevich@lycos.com.

Thank you, and Good Night.

Joseph Pranevich

A new development kernel has been released. You can get 2.1.131 from the usual and the unusual places. It's a 173K patch that contains updates to the joystick, i386 and alpha code. A more detailed summary will probably be available soon on linuxhq.

DrDev was the first person of many to write in and inform us that a new stable kernel:2.0.36 is out. LinuxHQ will have details of whats new rsn. If anyone has a list, please post it.

A new development kernel has been released. You will find it at the usual and the unusual places. For a list of changes have a look at the Cutting Edge site. I hope a recent aic7xxx driver makes it to the development tree soon, the 80M/sec Ultra2 rules.

Kernel development seems to go real fast these days. You can check out the updates in 2.1.119 at the Cutting Edge site. In the mean time 2.1.210 pre-patch 1 is already available at ftp.kernel.org.

It's been a while, but we have brand new development kernel: 2.1.116. You can read Linus' comments on this one at LinuxHQ and you'll find a summary of the updates at the Cutting Edge Linux site.

It's been a while, but we have brand new development kernel: 2.1.116. You can read Linus' comments on this one at LinuxHQ and you'll find a summary of the updates at the Cutting Edge Linux site.

Oliver Maruhn writes "I would like to use Slashdot to announce the recent improvements, I have done to Linux Ftp Watcher. Now lfw monitores more than 100,000 different files sorted in over 100 sections. It shows the newest files of each day and it has two powerful search engines for filenames and file descriptions. If you are searching for some file, you will probably find it here"

Oliver Maruhn writes "I would like to use Slashdot to announce the recent improvements, I have done to Linux Ftp Watcher. Now lfw monitores more than 100,000 different files sorted in over 100 sections. It shows the newest files of each day and it has two powerful search engines for filenames and file descriptions. If you are searching for some file, you will probably find it here"

The Mining Co (I'd never heard of them before, although it looks like a nice site) has posted their Linux "Best of the Net" site awards. The 10 winners include Freshmeat, Debian GNU/Linux, The Linux Documentation Project, LinuxHQ, and last/least, Slashdot.org. I'm sure everyone here has visited all the winning sites many times, but I'm sure all of them appreciate the recognition.

Raj Dutt has done a nice writeup on why you should, or shouldn't try a devel kernel. If you've never tried one, and wonder why or even if you should try, you should read on. Especially timely considering yesterdays feature freeze, we're on the home stretch for 2.2.0. The following was written by Slashdot Reader Raj Dutt

In the world of Linux kernel development, both Development-releases and stable-releases are developed concurrently. This is an extremely effective method of development as it provides the basis for improvement at both unbelievable speed and quantity. However, since the model does not follow the traditonal singular develop-release-develop-release cycle, it can create great confusion among users.

Before detailing the implications of development kernels, it might be beneficial to some to understand the kernel versioning convention:
(Generation.Major.Minor)

It is the Major number that is the key here. An even Major version represents a stable, release kernel and an odd Major version is indicative of an unstable, development kernel. For example, version 2.0.33 means "33rd minor release of the Second generation, 0 (even therefore stable) Major version Linux kernel." Using the same classification, version 2.1.91 means "91st minor release of the Second generation, 1 (odd therefore unstable) Major version Linux kernel"

Hence, the 2.2.x series, which will be released starting with 2.2.0 in the near future, will be the next Major version of stable kernel releases.
With that out of the way, let us examine the PROs and CONs of using development kernels.

The PROS

Nobody (well almost nobody) will deny that the current crop of release kernels work great. Why then should one jump ship and run something that is not nearly as stable as 2.0.33? The development kernels offer three main advantages that often convince people to go with them :

Firstly, after 91 development kernels, ALOT of new hardware is now semi-officially natively supported. If you have a device that you can't use because of the simple lack of a driver, check out the 2.1.x series, there is a good chance that your hardware will be among the hundreds (Color Quickcams, Radio Cards and NCR53C9x SCSI just to name a few) of new components supported.

Secondly, there are numerous technical arguments for the superiority of the latest crop of creations. These include :

• Faster access to user memory (covering the 4GB user space in its entirity)
• Unbelievable improvements in SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processor)
• Major tcp/ip updates - (read: faster better networking)
• Better PCI access and support
• Major disk swap / buffer updates (including dcache)
• Lot's of improvements for non x86 (intel-like) architectures
• Improved x86 IRQ handling
• Lot's of filesystem code updates - FAT32 is natively supported, improved VFAT etc.

There are lots more. Literally hundreds. For a complete listing of changes, visit Cutting Edge Linux - a great site which keeps track of the additions on a per kernel basis.

Thirdly, in addition to the technical benefits and new device support that you may grow to love, you can bask in the knowledge that you are helping the Linux Kernel development. By sending in bug reports, you are aiding in the quality control department - something extremely important when talking about code which needs to be bulletproof.

The CONS

The very word Development carries some connotations that cannot be simply ignored. To put it bluntly, when you install a development kernel you are venturing into unchartered territory. Don't expect to receive sympathetic support when something goes wrong. Development is proceeding at an unbelievable rate and nobody is going to stop to hold your hand. "It's broken? Well it's a development kernel, what did you expect?"

Alot of people run Linux for the stability. Be prepared to give some of that up if you choose to run with 2.1.x. Since they have not been tested (at least not as thoroughly as mainstream release kernels =), your mileage with development kernels will vary. Even experiences using the same kernel on different machines can be very different. After running version 2.1.91 for just under a week, I have noticed a few problems. None of them have been serious enough to bother reinstalling 2.0.33 though. Namely, I had to upgrade my pppd to 2.2.3 and twice I had to bear some serious disk thrashing for no apparent reason.

IN CONCLUSION

Obviously, a non release kernel is not for everyone. If you run a mission critical server or have a strong need for stability, stick with the even-numbered kernel releases. But if, like me, you have a personal workstation to fool around on and are always looking to try something new, then you might wish to consider "upgrading" to a development kernel

When it comes down to the crunch, It's really a question of balance. If you can sacrifice a little stability and the possibility of a few problems for the excitement and improvements of being right on the bleeding edge, go for it.

Ed:With yesterday's feature freeze, hammering out those bugs is very important, if you're looking for something new to try, the next few releases in the 2.1.* series should keep getting more stable for the soon-to-be-ready 2.2.0.

tile wrote in to inform us that Linux 2.1.91 has made it's appearance on the usual places. Download, compile, reboot, repeat. LinuxHQ doesn't have the details yet, but I'm sure it will rsn.