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Linux Kernel 2.4.4 Released
Marek Kupsta writes: "Linux 2.4.4 is out! Go get it! =)" Check the Changelog. As I write this, the bandwidth meter on kernel.org says 34.4 MBit/s.
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- Alan Cox: syncup (AFFS might even work, and official VIA workarounds) ^-- That might be it.
It also includes the official IPtables FTP MASQ security fix, which is good. Time to upgrade... ;-)
Are there any significant updates to the VIA chipset code that can help prevent people with 586b and 686b southbridges from corrupting the data on their hard drives?
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It's in, in the Filesystem support, as a "Virtual Filesystem."
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WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Almost no applications (shells included) interface directly with the kernel. Rather, they make calls to the standard C library, which then interfaces to the kernel. Replace one C library with another (with different kernel backends and the same interfaces) and everything works as it should.
In this manner, a standard compatibility layer is provided, and most apps become fairly portable.
What is the real difference between a shell and an application that looks like a shell?
None. The shell is simply a particular class of application. If it looks like a shell and quacks like a shell, it's a shell.
--
I noticed
--
I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
I've got a src rpm for memtest86 2.5 at http://www.mattdm.org/misc/memtest/memtest86-2.5-2 .src.rpm.
/usr/src/redhat/SPECS/ (or wherever is appropriate for your distro), and do rpm -bb memtest86.spec. This will generate a memtest RPM in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/ (or again, wherever...). Installing this rpm will set up a memtest entry in your lilo.conf -- very handy. We do this by default for all of our installs at Boston University.
Install this on your system, change to
Coool.
Nice one, Orasis! Hopefully someone will be quick enough to mirror the next release on Mojo Nation as well.
I'm looking forward to the imminent open-sourcing of Swarmcast. I think that the emergent ("p2p") networks are maturing enough that we will start trying to link them together soon. Perhaps the second O'Reilly p2p conference will spark some work in that direction...
Regards,
Zooko
Short answer: No
Slightly longer answer:
Adding ACL support to the kernel would require large-scale changes to the entire VFS, as well as the individual filesystems. This isn't going to happen in a stable kernel series. IIRC, this is one of the major goals for the 2.5 development cycle (along with generic extended atributes and maybe named streams), so the ACL support introduced in 2.5 may be backported to 2.4 (but that would be up to Alan Cox).
Although patches currently exist to add extended attributes and ACL support to the current VFS, I don't think that the kernel gods are entirely happy with its architecture. (This has been a frequent topic on the linux-fsdevel list.)
2.4.3 does have serious issues.
The reader-writer semaphore implementation is broken, resulting in processes getting stuck in the D state in down_semaphore. Heavily threaded programs (like Mozilla) are most likely to hit this bug, resulting in lots of stuck threads and an unusable program.
(Nothing actually used the rw-sems until fairly recently, which is why this bug went undetected for so long.)
Also fixed: the iptables FTP connection tracking security hole, some potential filesystem corrupting bugs and a bunch of other bugs that weren't likely to affect anybody.
And Dave Miller's zerocopy networking changes were merged in, which is pretty cool.
I'll hold off until that (or at least until the current patch for 2.4.3 is tested)...
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
From the cronjobs reporting to the Linux Counter:
2.4 - 110 out of 422, 26.1%
2.4.4 - 2 out of 422, 0.5%
Watch this space.
The same way as the CygWin guys ported over BASH.
Win32 has a posix subsystem after all, and even if it requires help from an userlevel C library like cygwin32.dll, it can work just as any other POSIX (including Linux) OS.
The Linux 2.3 tree did not fork from the Linux 2.2 tree until 2.2.8. Be patient, my son. Any bets as to which Linux 2.4 kernel will fork to become Linux 2.5.1?
cpeterso
I agree with your claim, however Red Hat 7 actually keeps those files in /usr/include/linux instead of symlinking them to /usr/src/linux/include/linux. This caught me off guard, but now I've found its handy.
I wonder how many net.admins noticed the sudden traffic spike and thought, "Oh, Crap! Another weekend e-mail virus attack!"
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is not a 'new kernel'. It hasn't got 'new features'. It has bugfixes and improvements on existing features. Whenever fixes and improvements are considered stable, they should be released. Or to quote the OSS mantra 'Release early, release often'.
Too fast? this is no faster/slower than any other kernel in the past.... this is normal.
In my 9 years of linux kernels, I've never put kernels anywhere but /usr/src/linux
And I've never compiled them anywhere else either.
Never caused me a minute of problem.
Upgrade if you aren't running something mission critical and if the worst that can happen (filesystem corruption) won't be the end of the world (you really want an excuse to install that new distro anyway!)
If you come across a bug then congratulations, you've made a first step in making Linux better. Distribution and use is a vital part of an Open Source development process.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I've put up a Swarmcast mirror of the content here.
Swarmcast is BETA (it gots boogs) software that will soon be released under the GPL. The installation procedure sucks right now but the situation will quickly improve.
Swarmcast is peer-to-peer software that uses the bandwidth of the peers that are currently or recently downloaded a piece of content to help boost everyone elses download. So its basically like having a bunch of partial-horsepower mirrors.
If you're not into that "altruism" stuff then you can just ignore this post and hammer directly on kernel.org.
You can join the Swarmcast devel mailing list here. and let us know what you think.
http://www.hardcorelinux.com/kernel-howto.htm
come off crisp and play up to the cynic
clean and schooled right down to the minute
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I "made" it as soon as I downloaded it.
I installed it and rebooted as soon as I made it.
I am running it right now and I haven't crashed yet. I haven't noticed any difference except that I forgot to load a few modules and stuff. Oh well, I'm not a power user and only use my box as a desktop machine. I did notice that there were a lot of options that weren't available for me to check (reiserfs most importantly). I don't know if they are disabled in this version or if I am just an idiot and don't have a higher level option checked.
P.S. I'm a newbie so don't take anything I've said with more than a grain of salt.
IANAL, but I play one on
TmpFS is an extension of shmfs able to swap off unused memory pages. This virtual filesystem *rocks* . Compiling new software in a TmpFS area is a lot faster than on a conventional filesystem. Since it was introduced, I can't live without it.
But why the hell is TmpFS only in -ac series and never in 'official' releases ? I will have to wait for 2.4.4-ac1 before upgrading.
TmpFS is now rock stable (it wasn't the case in the early times, I agree) . It's fast. It's easy to set up, and it's a very good enhancement to the Linux kernel.
When will TmpFS merged to the main tree ?
{{.sig}}
- mirrors organized by country
- UK
- US
In general, the form is www.country.kernel.org where country is the country's two letter code. For example, NZ is a link to New Zealand's mirror.Slashdot should maintain topic pages for each category with links like this, yes?
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
Are you sure about this? From the changelog:
-pre5:
- Mike Phillips: olympic driver update
- Alan Cox: continued resyncing (lots of small stuff, big NTFS merge from Anton)
- Martin Dalecki: cleanup (remove unused and unnecessary get_hardblocksize)
- Chris Mason: fix potential reiserfs journal overflow
- Jeff Garzik: network driver updates
- David Miller: sparc fixes, some network cleanups
I was wondering, after following the Linux development since the early 2.0.x days: is the total aomount of bugs in the Linux kernel always constant, instead of decreasing? (maybe a bit like the development of the old IBM System/360 - they were fixing bugs all the time, and all the time they were adding new ones... but this is not a perfect example, as the Linux kernel actually is adding always new features.)
I am a software engineer, and I certainly prefere adding a new cool feature to my code, than fixing old bugs, expecially if these bugs are not critical. Makes me feel kinda good knowing that even much better programmers have the same mentality.
Sigged!
Not only that, it tests to see if your system can handle the high computer usage. If it causes errors, then it could be either bad memory or your CPU is too hot. I had to go through with my Intel Pentium III 600 Mhz upgrade. That is how I found out it was a heat problem. RAM was fine. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Incorrect information is no uncommon on Slashdot
Neither is bad grammar.
XFS is really great but XFS is still beta and not merged with the main kernel tree, which is also a BIG problem. Ever see the fallout when Alexander Viro (kernel VFS hacker) takes a newly merged filesystem to task ? It is not pretty.
http://www.alancoxonachip.com/
Home Page
-
Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel
There are also some tests such as Memtest86 that you can use for checking the basic health of your hardware (some of which, like VA Linux' Cerberus, can be quite extreme). Memtest86 found a bad PC133 memory module in one of my machines that consistently passes the BIOS startup memory test.Suggestions for other test suites, strategies for testing the Linux kernel or other things I can write about on the general topic of quality assurance and better software practice are appreciated.
One test that's not mentioned in the article yet is memtester. It is a user-space program that will run on Linux or other Unix-like OS and will test as much of the memory as it can mlock; I found that I could test about half of my installed memory on a debian PPC macintosh.
Memtest86 is advantageous in that it will test all of the installed memory, but memtester will run on non-PC clone and non-x86 hardware.
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
cygwin is great - my life got a little better when I installed in on our NT machine @ work. I put perl on as well and could do things impossible otherwise.
Look for a BIOS update from your vendor - most mothersboards seem to have gotten one, except the ones from ASUS (unfortunately - I have one myself).. Also, if there is a choice in your BIOS, turn performance down from "Optimal" to "Normal". Using PIO instead of DMA would be beneficial - turn it off in the BIOS.
As for recompilation, remember to run "make mrproper" first - the tree we ship isn't clean (so people can compile modules without having to compile a kernel first).
What kernel to use varies... right now, 2.4.4 should be OK. 2.4.3 wasn't (we made fixes after 2.4.3 was released... but as we were working hard on stabilizing it, upgrading didn't make sense as it didn't solve the disk corruption problems we were seing on all hardware (and which we fixed)). The ac kernels are usually a little bit closer to what we ship (well, they have some patches we have and some we don't) - and you can also find newer kernels in rawhide.
Of course, it all depends on what you're previously running - if you're running a previous 2.4 kernel from Linus.
Many file system corruption bugs were found by us during development of Red Hat Linux 7.1. The 2.4.2-2 kernel in Red Hat Linux 7.1 should be safe, any kernel released prior to that (our release, not 2.4.2 in general - our kernels has lots of fixes, some made after the official release of 2.4.3)
#!/bin/sh
/usr/src
$ 0.tar.gz
# Note: this is untested code written ad-hoc
# in a slashdot comment box. You decide
# how much you want to trust it.
#
# Usage: lspinstaller <version-of-kernel> <previous-version-of-kernel>
# Must run as root.
ARCH=i386
cd
wget ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux-
# make sure we only have a linux-oldversion dir
rm linux || mv linux linux-$1
tar xvfz linux-$0.tar.gz
mv linux linux-$0
ln -s linux-$0 linux
# recover our kernel configuration
cp linux-$1/.config linux-$0/.config
cd linux-$0
# answering "no" to new kernel features is not necessarily what you want, but it's a good place to start
yes n | make oldconfig
mv Makefile Makefile.configged
# I find it's always a good idea to tag kernels with your hostname so you can tell what they're meant for
sed s/EXTRAVERSION =/EXTRAVERSION = `hostname`/ Makefile
make dep clean bzImage modules modules_install
# if you use lilo, this automatically runs it.
# if you use grub, do it manually I guess.
installkernel $0-`hostname` arch/$ARCH/boot/bzImage System.map
echo Windo^H^H^H^H^HLinux has finished installing your new software. Press any key to reboot, but ctrl-alt-delete will probably be more effective.
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
When this was posted, the bandwidth meter read 34.4 Mbps. Five minutes later it was at 40 Mbps. Five minutes after that it was at 50 Mbps. Now it is at 71.39 Mbps.
Can't you guys wait a while and download it from the mirrors?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Why exactly does using 71.39% cause a problem?
As usage tends towards 100%, speed tends towards zero and packet retransmission increases.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux- 2.4.4.tar.bz2
Or any mirror near you! Just goto:
http://www.[countrycode].kernel.org/pub/linux/kern el/v2.4/linux-2.4.4.tar.bz2
For example, Albania is abbreviated "al" so you would go to:
http://www.al.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/lin ux-2.4.4.tar.bz2
Ever need an online dictionary?
I'm quite happy at 2.4. Is there any compelling reason why I would need 2.4.4? I haven't really kept up with what's new and what's improved.
I must say 2.4 been pretty good. It was the first one I could use acceptibly on my notebook (Inspiron 5000) and I really dont want to go through that all over again if something screws up.
And one final thing.... If I want a Service pack for W2K, it's pretty dead easy to install. Is there anything being done to make upgrades seamless?
"Old Rallydrivers never die - they just fail to book in on time"
Sorry, there is no spoon.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
If anyone wants to read my childish, oversimplified overview of OS theory (since this post got so many responses, someone might be interested), it's at:
ursine.dyndns.org/~mnoelharris/brainlinux.html
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Posting early without being informed and checking up on something before you shout out "error!" is a mistake. Incorrect information is no uncommon on Slashdot, but download speeds and things of this nature are well known among those of us blessed with nice internet connections.
Losing karma is not the worst thing that can happen on Slashdot, looking foolish is (yes, I've done it myself enough).
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
insert this into /usr/src/linux/include/linux/skbuff.h below the line /* Internal */ Each quotation is a new line (remove the quotes before you paste) "static inline atomic_t *skb_datarefp(struct sk_buff *skb)" "{" " return (atomic_t *)(skb->end);", "}".
from openprojects irc 'apt'
"don't fuck up. This is why we have... James M... say fuck enough... all the algo is pure shit and should be replaced (From tcp in IPv4 - makes you feel good, eh?)." The whole IP NAT for FTP thing is "eloquent like `fuck'." The irnet_irda module is made to "Give a kick in the ass of ppp_generic so that he sends us some data".
The people who put together te setup code for the i386 arch were curious to know "What lunatic came up with this shit?" The IA64 arch includes some "weird ass code needed for error injection". MIPS/cobalt setup is referred to as "Oh shit, this is so crappy ..."
SysIRIX has "2,191 lines of complete and utter shit coming up..." There's more of that for MIPS, though - "Big shit, we now may have two dirty primary cache lines for the same..." I don't even want to hear the end of that! In fact the MIPS/Irix people seem as if they just "Don't Care, a rats ass we couldn't give". That same file includes 10 iterations of "XXX AFS shit".
HyperSPARC has is "Verified, my ass..." The developer for a SPARC checksum code wants to merely "give up. I'm serious, I am going to kick the living shit..." The SPARC kernel process claims that somebody should "fuck me plenty". I agree :) At least they think SPARC64 is "One bad ass cpu". Then again "are two fold. Firstly, they cannot pair with jack shit,".
Everyone should "Remember: "Different name, same old buggy as shit hardware." Speaking of which, one of the SCSI drivers contains to lines of "shit". "... We don't want to fuck directly..." So we'll do it second-hand!
ASM has so much "More PROM shit. Probably has to do with VME RMW cycles???" They've been having to "having to fuck around with the syscall interface themselfes." Ultimately, everyone agrees that "If you don't see why, please stay the fuck away from my code."
/.ers only have a karma of 49...
REAL
SIG: HUP
That fix works nicely, but I prefer not to modify the kernel file, and inserted the code in bridge.c in /usr/lib/vmware/modules/sources/vmnet.tar (right below the include of linux/skbuff.h).
Beware: vmware 2.03 doesn't compile under Linux 2.4.4.
no, he is not an idiot, he is right. I screwed up, and now I'm paying for it. I was talking about how much bandwidth I get.
I've tried it before, but I've just found out the following.
a) the 2.4.x kernel barfs if there's no initrd to go with it and the ramdisk image
b) if the kernel DOES work, it is extremely unstable, booting me back to the login prompt or just locking up altogether with a kernel panic. What's the advantage of modularlizing vs. putting it in the kernel? Which is faster?
c) If I get rid of all of the ridiculous shit that Mandrake decides to include (1000Mbit Ethernet card suppor built-in? Why?) and compile it, it still barfs.
d) ReiserFS support is non-existent in make menuconfig, unless I do some magic ritual of checking certain checkboxes
e) I keep getting write_intr errors at around sector 3500 of my hard drive. Is it a bad hard drive, or is it just Linux?
No wonder. They have to mirror it first, /.ed, the
;-)
and if the master mirror is
mirrors can't mirror
--
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
However, my experience is that my Athlon running Kernel 2.4 handles them faster...
Actually, I noticed a major performance boost going to 2.4 with the Athlon. I will have to try this new version.
Has anyone else had printing problems migrating 2.2.x to 2.4.x?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Ok, the way I understood it is this:
Now zero copy networking basically skips step 2. This doesn't sound spectacular, but if you're doing something bandwidth intensive, say downloading a kernel, this repeated memory copy operation starts cutting into your efficiency.
Any actual kernel hackers feel free to flame me into oblivion for getting it wrong :)
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
- Alan Cox: more resyncs (ARM down, but more to go) - Alan Cox: more merging (S/390 down, ARM to go).
Oh my GOD!!! Alan Cox is being merged into the Kernel!!! They have his ARM merged in now, what next, WHAT NEXT?????
--Volrath50
Question is - did AMD drop their NDA silliness for sharing the bug workaround or did the kernel developers just hack it (by reading NDP twice)
I expect the latter but I'm psyched anyway!
As always - thank you kernel developers!
--
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
This is simply not possible. DOCSIS cable modems, as well as most propietary modems on the market, have a maximum speed of somewhere between 27 and 33 Megabits/sec. Of course, these speeds are never reached. most cable connections seem to get 20kbytes/sec to 500kbytes/sec. 34Megabits/sec would be like 3,500kbytes/sec, which is like 3.5MB a second. A significant load.
To run pptpd, you have to patch the kernel. A howto at here describes how to patch and recompile the 2.4 kernel. If you aren't interested in pptpd for linux, just ignore the patches but follow the rest of the directions.
It works on Mandrake. There is even a sample configuration file for the kernel with Reiserfs support. Be sure and check the CPU type though.
I was wondering if the Samba/Extended ACL stuff was merged into to the Linux source tree yet? I was frustrated today to have to go and get Samba 2.2.0 and have to go messing around with patching the kernels. It's nice to see USB getting some more attention/fixes even though it was given a late start.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
I found some surprising egrep results from the linux source code. Here you go: Linus Torvalds used...
/* Remember: "Different name, same old buggy as shit hardware." */" /* James M doesn't say fuck enough. */" /* fuck me plenty */" (this one's my favorite, hah.)
;)
fuck 11 times, or 9% of the time
shit 31 times, or 26% of the time
bitch 12 times, or 10% of the time
ass 10 times, or about 8.5% of the time
bastard two times, or about 1.7% of the time
dick one time, or about 0.8% of the time
hell 50 times, or 42.7% of the time
Total swear words used: 117
A few examples:
"/usr/src/linux/drivers/net/sunhme.c:
"/usr/src/linux/net/core/netfilter.c:
"/usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/kernel/process.c:
Pretty neat results
--
that is true for an x.0 kernel or an x.y.0 kernel
but, it is kernel series 2 verion 4 pactch level 4 i.e. 2.4.4 this is much more secure and stable than 2.4-2.4.3 so there is no reason not to update your kernel.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Maybe now my productivity will be restored.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
There is no contradiction.
yet another mirror here.
Kernel 2.4.4 what is it now extra-extra-crispy?
-----------
Rootnode.org
-----------
Rootnode.org
Rock Journalism: Open source style.
Too bad someone removed KMALLOC_MAXSIZE from include/linux/slab.h. Now drivers/media/video/buz.c is broken and won't compile. Doesn't someone at least try compiling *all* the modules before releasing a new kernel?