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2.4 Kernel Delayed, Says Linus
cnkeller writes with this snippet from an article in InfoWorld: "BERLIN -- THE much-anticipated 2.4 version of the Linux
kernel will take at least another two months to
complete, Linus Torvalds, creator of the open-source
operating system, said here Friday.
'It's been a slower process than many people would
like,' he said, remarking that developers are no
longer adding new features, only fixing bugs. 'With
luck, we'll see it in early December, and with not so
good luck, I still hope that we can do it this side of
the year.'"
Thank you
> we were on 2.0 for a LOT longer
Mmm.
2.0.0: Jun 96
2.2.0: Jan 99
That's two year and a half. We'll be on 2.2 for nearly two years *if* it releases in december.
So, no. Not a LOT longer...
Cheers,
--fred
I don't know if anyone here still remembers the days when Linus jumped the revision numbers of the kernel from the .Teens to the .9x...he was sure it was almost ready...but we had at least 50 revisions before the 1.0 kernel was ready. It was challenging to keep track of the various number/letter/level version...but I didn't mind. We eventually got the 1.0 kernel, and I was happy to wait until it's done, because it was done well. And I expect it is the same with the 2.4 kernel.
It's chick to slam Linus and Co., but it's one heck of a job they are doing, many in their spare time...let's cut them some slack, eh?
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
While I don't know about HDs, USB audio devices and scanners are supported. (Your particular device may not be, but many are.) There is USB storage support in the kernel, but I think it's going to remain marked as experimental even in the final 2.4 release. (Of course, some of the "experimental" code in Linux works quite well...)
:)
The kernel support for USB mice definately kicks ass. I finally moved my IntelliMouse Explorer from the PS/2 port to the USB port (Higher sampling rate with USB), and I'm 2-3 times as lethal with the sniper rifle in Q3Fortress and Unreal Tournament.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I have to agree... Yeah, 2.4 may be a bit late. But it's going to be rock-solid when it comes out...
I'm running 2.4.0-test8 (was running test7) on my box, and it's a champ. This pre-release already kicks the crap out of anything our friends in Redmond can put out...
The only time my box is unstable is when doing 3D work. But that's because NVidia sucks and won't release open-source drivers that people can debug.
In an offtopic note: Could NVidia's refusal to release source have to do with the fact that the GeForce and Quadro are identical chips, only differing in their device ID number? (i.e. from what I've read at http://www.geocities.com/tnaw_xtennis/, the driver is what makes the difference between the two "chips" - If the card reports itself as a GeForce, the driver disables some features.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I've been running 2.4.0-test8, and most of the 'test' patches have been *big* patches. Along with that, I've also patched in support for reiserfs, arla, and ALSA.
:)
Since the filesystem code has been overhauled somewhat, the first patches I got broke, and I had to fix them; alsa was fine (sound code), reiserfs was fairly stable, and arla was just broken. After waiting a bit longer, I got the latest patches; it all compiled cleanly, and reiserfs is solid, the kernel is a little less stable, and arla is still somewhat buggy, but much improved.
So half the reason for delaying a kernel release is to fix bugs, but the other half is to make sure that everyone else relying on the kernel has time to catch up and write for the new API. OpenWall will have their patch for 2.4 when it's stable, which they predict to be around 2.4.10.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It's not vaporware -- you can use a 2.4.0test kernel right now.
And as for Microsoft? Most importantly, Microsoft uses product announcements and projected delivery dates to deflect interest in competitor's products and they time releases to benefit their business. Why? Their product decisions are driven by their marketing efforts. They seek to create demand, and then fill it.
Linux kernel development and feature advancement are technology-driven and aim to supply solutions for existing demand. (Note that I'm referring to the kernel, not to application SW.) There is no marketing machine at the heart of Linux, and vaporware is the product of marketing.
-dwd-
Different reasons for different projects.
In Mozilla's case, (according to JWZ at least) it was the combination of a poor decisions and bad management of the overall project.
Linux releases are always "late" because they've always been that way, because there is no due date. Who cares when a release comes out? True, Linus would like to get stuff out, but only because it's important to keep things moving. He's certainly not motivated by any corporate interests, if his resistance to whiny coders complaining about features not being added or APIs being changed is any indication of his stalwardness.
But 2.0 and 2.2 did make it out eventually, and they weren't too late to still be a progressively royaler pain in every competing operating systems' ass. What more could one want?
s/NFS/VFS/ -- Yup, wishful typo... :^)
Alexander Viro might be arrogant, but the VFS is still something extraordinary. Of course, there are major bugs. After all, he did a major overhaul of it. The performance gains with the new VFS is mostly on the SMP level. And the major gain isn't even the performance question. The VFS rewrite was done to make the code sane.
The rewrite is not finished; Al is still working on fixing the remaining non-working filesystems. But some of the filesystems doesn't have a maintainer anymore, and they'll probably remain broken. But we can't possibly set the VFS in stone forever on just to make sure filesystems that lack a maintainer still work for all coming kernels. Drivers/subsystems without a maintainer is a breed-reactor damn closed to having a nuclear meltdown.
It seems that everyone around here has ants in their pants whenever kernel 2.4 is mentioned anywhere. Linux is growing up folks, and some people around here are acting like 5 year-olds in a toy store - they see it, they want it now, and they'll kick and scream untill they finally get it.
Linux has gotten a lot of press lately and that means that in addition to all the hackers' eyes, we've got the media paying quite a bit of attention too. Rather than bashing Linus for going 'corporate' and doing his job at Transmeta instead of devoting every single waking moment to 2.4, we should be grateful that such attention is being payed to quality. If we're going to win the battle agains MS we're going to need some pretty kickass software to do it with.
There is no one stopping you from using kernel 2.4.0test9 right now, and completely free. With Microsoft software, and other closed-source software, you cannot take advantage of any of the new features, although maybe you wouldn't want to because it's so buggy. Also, if they'd done anything on the product, they're preventing any of the good stuff they've been creating from being used by the public.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
And for those who want to follow things more easily, read Kernel Traffic. (Click latest on the left bar).
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Sorry, you've been busted by the FUD police. I don't know what you do with your box, but I run an Oracle 8i instance on mine which is heavily used by software developers. I had to go back to 2.2.16, test8 is atrocious under heavy load. Windows 2000 would never run as poorly as test8 does. Note they've put in an new VM for test9, which is in the "pre" stage right now.
--jbIt might be worth you time then to bring this up on linux-kernel. A large amount of 2.4 stuff (USB and the kernel DRI code at least and I think more) is being backported into the 2.2.18-pre's. If you asked nicely (or better yet helped if you have the know-how) you might get that wish.
The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
It may be annoying that 2.4 will be later, but I'd rather stick with 2.2 and wait for a really good 2.4, than have to go to 2.4.1, 2.4.2, etc. If this were any other *cough* operating system it would have been released anyway. Besides, we've not been on 2.2 for an extremely long time, we were on 2.0 for a LOT longer...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
I take it you've never worked on a big software project? Every big piece of software I can think of has been late, including the ones I've been on.
My theory is that you initally can't see all the problems you're going to hit in software development. So the first schedule is never right, because nobody can truely estimate what it takes to ge the job done. And once the first date is off, then you're slipping and the pressure is on to bring in the dates. But that just makes things worse because now people get burnt and hurried.
It comes down to the fact that unlike other engineering efforts, nobody can accurately estimate software development.
It has little to do with open source v. closed source, IMHO.
-- topher71
I didn't know that there was a schedule. I coulda sworn that the official statement of kernel releases was that "It'll be out when it's done."
We need stable, reliable software, not buggy software. People have come to love and use Linux because it's stable and reliable. The last thing Linus needs is pressure to release the most important part of _our_ OS because of marketing hype. Look at some of the Open Source Releases lately (trying not to point fingers!!).. markey hype pushes them to release software before it's ready, then they trickle the patches and updates through the Internet.
I never was afraid of using a x.x.0 kernel, and I don't want that to change. People wanting the bleeding edge can simply compile the PRE kernels!
I mean, uh, I have an idea guys, how about we NOT worry about it, since this isn't really news? :)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Tux the Linux Peguin lived in a Red Hat box
and debugged the kernel with a guy named Alan Cox
Little Linus Torvalds loved that rascal Tux
and wrote him strings and bits and bytes and took out all the cruft
Oh, Tux the Linux Penguin lived in a Red Hat box
and wished upon those closed-source guys a great big nasty pox
Together they would travel to a place known as Slash Dot
Old Bill kept a log-book of all the flames that MS got
All the Gates and Windows would close whene'er they came
Stevie B. would have bad dreams and call out Tuxs' name
Oh, Tux the Linux Penguin lived in a Red Hat box
and sorted the linked lists with a guy named Alan Cox
A Penguin lives forever, but not so old man Bill
E.S.R. and R.M.S., they shot his life to hell
One day it happened, Bill could no longer hack
and Tux the Linux Penguin let out a mighty quack
His belly filled with herring, free software fell like rain,
Every man and woman could change the stuff in main()
Without his life-long rival, Tux began a GNU
So Tux that Linux Penguin finally flapped his wings and FLEW
One of the main reasons that the v2.4 kernel has taken so long is the late rewrite of the VM. However, as of a released fix today by Rik van Riel, it's REALLY looking nice. I've tried extremely hard to make my 16MB memory/64 MB swap box to croak, and yet failed so far.
And the new VFS in the kernel leaves most, if not all other OS's NFS:es far behind, imho. Alexander Viro is a genious in this regard.
Some things will simply have to wait for v2.5, such as a good journalling layer for the journaling filesystems, but it would not be too wild a guess that we'll see a journaling filesystem going into the v2.4 series before v2.4.6.
It seems that the only BAD thing is that Linus started us out on the 2.4.0testXXX series way too early. It got peoples hopes up even when the VM was horribly broken and many kernel features were broken...
I can only see this as a good thing, because when 2.4 hits the streets, it will be used by LOTS of people... and we want it to be as stable and reliable as ever...
right?
-Chris
I have been following the development of the 2.4 kernel since test5, which is about 3 months ago.
For starters, a bunch of drivers that worked in 2.2.x are broken currently in 2.4. Those need a fix before 2.4 turns final.
Recently there was a lot of work on the VM (virtual memory subsystem). It's a very smooth VM, reminds you of FreeBSD ;). But it's also a bit buggy at the moment, so it must be fixed before 2.4-final.
With more people testing the 2.4 kernel, with more bug reports, it will be a lot better for the developers to fix 2.4 to perfection, so hurry up and try the new kernel. I recommend trying out test8 or test7, or test9 with Rik van Riel's latest VM patch.
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