Kernel 2.4.11 Released

Well, there goes my threads by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 13:36 · Score: 0

You know, revamping the threading mechanism is a great idea. How about doing it without breaking old code??

Well, off to recompile the apps against the new headers. I suggest everyone else do as well. :-(

lots of stuff to say... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 13:38 · Score: 0

imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...

and

don't forget to run lilo when you are done compiling

and

if you need help compiling, then RTFM!
www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO.html

Funny... by DragonWyatt · 2001-10-09 13:40 · Score: 1

It hasn't been announced on linux-kernel, and doesn't seem to show up on the mirrors yet.
Questionable info?

--
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.

Re:Funny... by stygian · 2001-10-09 13:41 · Score: 1

It's on freakin' kernel.org, and I'm compiling it right now. I don't see how that's terribly questionable.
Re:Funny... by DragonWyatt · 2001-10-09 13:45 · Score: 1

I stand corrected... nice scoop, btw.

--
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
Re:Funny... by stygian · 2001-10-09 13:49 · Score: 3, Informative

I would have included the changelog and mirrors link, but I had not yet ever submitted a story to slashdot, and the thought of having my first try be successfull, AND about a kernel release at that was too overwhellming. I had been having problems with 2.4.10, so, I was often refreshing kernel.org with the hopes of a 2.4.11 magically appearing...how nice. :-)
Re:Funny... by gmhowell · 2001-10-09 15:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

As you already said, it is on kernel.org. Unfortunately, it seems to be missing on the mirrors at this point. At least the patch from 2.4.10 to 2.4.11 was missing the five or six times I tried ftp.us.kernel.org (at which point I gave up and hit ftp.kernel.org)

Maybe that's why it wasn't 'announced' yet on www.kernel.org: mirrors hadn't picked it up yet.

--
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:Funny... by 10100101 · 2001-10-10 03:18 · Score: 0

I've been having problems with 2.4.10 as well; it chokes on USB, and seeing as I use a USB keyboard...
Re:Funny... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 05:48 · Score: 0

Same here.

Either the Intel or JE USB + full HID = barf on 2.4.10 and 2.4.11

Intel or JE + keybd only = works but now I can't use anything but my keyboard.

Bug report to LKML goes unanswered.

"You need to..." by GNUman · 2001-10-09 13:40 · Score: 1

as if the interested people didn't know where the mirrors and changelog were =)

OS X by joel8x · 2001-10-09 13:41 · Score: 0

I wonder if we'll ever get to try out new Mach Kernels like linux users get to try new kernels. That would be nicey nice.

--
Sound waves should be free!

Re:OS X by Ghoser777 · 2001-10-09 15:16 · Score: 2

I don't think this will happen. Atleast not for OS X. It could become kind of hairy for tech support if ur grandma starts to recompile kernels. If there are updates to the Mac Kernel, you'll probably only be able to do it through software update.

Now if you just mean Darwin, sure you could upgrade that to your liking, but I think just upgrading Darwin with OS X on top could potentially break things in OS X (we'll never know, it's closed source).

F-bacher

--
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Re:OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:49 · Score: 0

You could always grab the sources, add 10 bugs and one feature, and recompile yourself.
Re:OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 16:16 · Score: 0

i suppose you could when apple finishes making darwin and OS X completely separate of each other. I guess there are a few components that don't play nicely yet. Once that is done you could download the new darwin kernals from the darwin CVS or something like that
Re:OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 17:00 · Score: 0

Ahhh, yes. instability of the week due to hacked together code not under any form of code management like CVS.

What's next? Wanting to use Microsoft's OS offerings?
Re:OS X by NDPTAL85 · 2001-10-09 19:22 · Score: 1

Actually if you read the Darwin Team Q&A sessions you'll see that there are plans to make it so that Mac OS X users can compile and re-compile the underlying Darwin very easily.

Easy being subjective, it won't be a GUI process, it will just be POSSIBLE to use an updated kernel with an already released version of OS X.

--
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.

Question for the Uber geeks. by A_Non_Moose · 2001-10-09 13:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

Are there any issues known when upgrading older kernel versions?

Got an old Redhat box with 2.2.16 (IIRC) and would like to bring it up to the latest stable release. Any chance of that being done easily?

I've done incremental updates before but never major overhauls.

Moose.

"That is a valid question, now how about a valid answer." (I forget whom)

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Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by MaxQuordlepleen · 2001-10-09 13:46 · Score: 2, Informative

not an uber geek but I'll give it a try.

Check the README in the kernel source directory for the list of required software for the 2.4.x series.

From the kernel version you are using I'd expect to be upgrading a whole lotta stuff
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by wobblie · 2001-10-09 13:48 · Score: 1

Any chance of that being done easily?

No

You'll need new modutils, ppp among others. Probably everything will break.

For debian though, someone was kind enough to provide 2.4 friendly versions of everything, apt-gettable and all.
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by chromatic · 2001-10-09 13:48 · Score: 3, Informative

Check out Documentation/Changes. You'll probably need to upgrade binutils, modutils, e2fsprogs, and PPP (if you're running PPP). The file has pointers to applicable versions.
If you're comfortable compiling a kernel, it shouldn't be any trouble.

--
how to invest, a novice's guide
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:06 · Score: 1, Informative

Ditto, you'll probably need to change a bunch of stuff to make the transition from a 2.2 to 2.4 kernel, _unless_ your distribution came out late last year (redhat 7, for example) and it has most of the junk already in place because people knew in a general way what 2.4 would require. This link was posted on slashdot around the time 2.4 came out, and it has good instructions on compiling a new kernel, as well as what changed from 2.2 to 2.4.

cheers
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:10 · Score: 0

Oops.
s/Windows/Solaris\/x86/
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Rix · 2001-10-09 14:40 · Score: 1

Probably everything will break.

One would think that, yes. I upgraded from 2.2.whatever to 2.4.0 on a box running RedHat last january without any issues.
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:45 · Score: 0

actually, i just two days ago plunged head first into it... I went from 2.2.16 to 2.4.10 on a SUSE 7.0 box. The only trouble i found was some changes of the directory structure for the modules. Once I realized that I changed the (modprobe?) configuration file and was up and running. I haven't run into any other troubles yet. I'm not an expert on these things, though... so maybe this computer isn't really working.... it was actually very painless... I say a tribute to the actuality of easy installs on linux... dang, i replaced the kernel after skipping through the readme, how easy do you want it?
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Forbin · 2001-10-09 14:47 · Score: 1

There are a couple of packages that you will need to update to work with the newer kernel. I don't know them all off the top of my head, but IIRC it's things like modutils. Depending on which version of Redhat you're running, they may have some info specific to your question on their site. When 2.2 was released, I very easily upgraded a RH 5.2 box from a 2.0 kernel to 2.2 with a few package updates in addition to the kernel.
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Enigma2175 · 2001-10-09 14:51 · Score: 3, Informative

You could always try running the upgrade from a RedHat 7.1 disk. It has worked well for me in upgrading 6.2 boxes. It is also a hell of a lot easier than upgrading all the individual packages. IIRC RH 7.1 ships with the 2.4.2 kernel, an upgrade ro 2.4.x from that is a snap. Of the boxes I've upgraded, some have new, custom kernels and some are still running the stock RH kernel, which seems pretty solid. I did do an upgrade on one of the systems manually (not quite manually, lotta RPMs involved, some compiling) and it took at least 5 times as long as simply running the upgrade from a current CD.

--
Enigma
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by digitalhermit · 2001-10-09 15:08 · Score: 1

No major issues. Look in the usr/src/linux/Documentation folder for required versions. Also, check out my rebuild guide:

http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/kernel.html.
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by StarGryphon · 2001-10-09 15:15 · Score: 1

I actually did this same upgrade from 2.2.16 a couple of weeks ago and it wasn't all that bad. You only had to update 4 or 5 rpms (which I grabbed from the current redhat version) and there weren't any odd dependency issues. 2.4.x is a nice upgrade especially if you're on a desktop - you'll appreciate the nice increase in speed.
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by yanyan · 2001-10-09 15:18 · Score: 2, Informative

Not THAT easily.. you'd most likely need to upgrade critical system tools and utilities like binutils, util-linux, modutils, maybe even gcc. For kernel 2.4.10, these are the needed versions of those and other packages:

gcc - 2.95.3
make - 3.77
binutils - 2.9.1.0.25
util-linux - 2.10o
modutils - 2.4.2
e2fsprogs - 1.19
ppp - 2.4.0

The Changes file is more complete though.. read it to know the other changes you might need to make. Oh, and the recommended version of glibc for kernels in the 2.4 series is 2.2.x.. so you might want to upgrade that as well, though it isn't required.
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by justins · 2001-10-09 15:20 · Score: 1

Got an old Redhat box with 2.2.16 (IIRC) and would like to bring it up to the latest stable release. Any chance of that being done easily?
Sure. Just go to one of the kernel mirrors and download 2.2.19. No, I'm not joking.

--
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:23 · Score: 0

Anything that requires total deletion of all previous data must be a Top Notch OS!
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 16:57 · Score: 0

hahah. what, you value even partially working virtual memory?!? what kinda wimp are you?
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Ed+Avis · 2001-10-09 21:25 · Score: 1

You say gcc 2.95.3 is needed for kernel 2.4.10 - do you mean that exact version, or will 3.0.x work?

--
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 00:25 · Score: 0

2.2.16 had some security problems. You should definitely upgrade to 2.2.19.
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by xanadu-xtroot.com · 2001-10-10 00:41 · Score: 1

will 3.0.x work?

My understanding, and yes I could be wrong but, 3.0 and 3.0.1 are still kinda broke. The 3.0.2 release is supposed to include many fixes and should be considered usable.
Plese don't consider this 100% truth as I can't find the link I read, at the moment... :-(

--
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Re:Question for the Uber geeks. by A_Non_Moose · 2001-10-10 12:37 · Score: 2

Thanks for all the replies... definate maybe.

On my machine where I used to work I tried the manual round to update redhat... I remember breaking a lot of stuff.

Humm...a slight quandry over what to do. as I have 3 *ell poweredges, all dualies, varying amts of memory. (New job, don't want to screw anything up) One runs the webserver, one the samba and powervault and one I just re-did is soon to be a win2k box for GIS stuff and SQL server (hope it can take the strain, think it might be just a single proc...damn).

Sigh, worse part is that RedHat is standing up against the SSSCA, but *IF* I redo the webserver and samba box I was leaning tword Slackware... Ack, technical and "moral" dilemma. (Error, Error....)

Anywho, after years of using and installing both, IMO mind you, Slackware if you want the flat out speed (shared libs) and RedHat (Mandrake too...nice installer, btw) for compatibility and ease of install and a few nifty utilities. {my own observations...some or no basis in reality...you decide}

(Side note-- tooting my own horn time: Had Slack, RH, BeOS, 98se and 2000 on one box, if that isn't computer abuse, dunno what is!)

Safest thing to do is back it up or do a disk dump/re-mirror the disk and see what happens. High "pucker factor" either way because as far as I can tell everything is running perfectly.

Moose.

Two worst things you can do in a position of authority:
1) change too much
2) change too little.
(how true, how very, very true)

--
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)

ext3 by swifticus · 2001-10-09 13:42 · Score: 1

it'd be nice to see the main kernel branch adopt ext3. the ac branch has had it a while and i'm quite pleased with it.

redhat ext3 info

Re:ext3 by reaper20 · 2001-10-09 13:45 · Score: 3, Informative

dude, that page is a year old!

on a related topic, I see the 7.2 directory on ftp.redhat.com .... pretty soon we'll be enjoying ext3 goodness out of the box. w00t!
Re:ext3 by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:17 · Score: 0

Or you could use a journalling fs that isn't just a bad hack off of an existing fs. Like, say, Reiser.
Re:ext3 by SnapperHead · 2001-10-09 14:49 · Score: 0, Troll

I noticed it the day it was created (The directory), the permissions are intresting meaning there is something in there. I hope its released soon, I want to move away from Mandrake 8.1, I have moved back to Red Hat 7.1 becuase it works *MUCH* better.

Anyway, I can't wait for ext3, I thought 2.4.11 was *supposed* to have ext3 merged in the main branch. Oh well.

--
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Re:ext3 by MentlFlos · 2001-10-09 14:57 · Score: 1

The only reason I haven't tried out ext3 is because its lack of being in the kernel. I just don't feel like dicking around with patches and whatnot (they never seem to work right for me). I would love to see this make it into the kernel sometime soon so I can toy around with/use it.
-paul
Re:ext3 by ratchet69 · 2001-10-09 17:44 · Score: 1

I've been using the ext3 stuff from http://www.uow.edu.au/~andrewm/linux/ext3/ for quite some time now. Seems to work quite well, for me. Remember to upgrade the other stuff, e2fsprogs and utl-linux. It's not too hard. Mostly untar, ./configure, make install kind of stuff.
The only trouble I've had is with different behaiviour of e2fsck, it now checks if the fs is mounted before an auto-clean, but it's wrong if you crashed... So now I don't run fsck at all at bootup. :)
Re:ext3 by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 19:46 · Score: 0

use the -ac patches, its there. It will not go into
the -linus kernel until the code is cleaned, and
the developers are comfortable with it.

(That a few percent reports its stable, doesnt mean it actually is.)
Re:ext3 by fredlwm · 2001-10-09 20:07 · Score: 1

Really ?

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Re:ext3 by fredlwm · 2001-10-09 20:10 · Score: 1

BTW, with -ac you don't get the most up to date ext3, 0.9.12.

--
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
Re:ext3 by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 23:45 · Score: 0

>Or you could use a journalling fs that isn't just a bad hack off of an
existing fs. Like, say, Reiser.

If you want an untrustworthy,buggy,subject to change on the slightest whim of the author by all means use Reiser. If you want to put you data on something that's actually trustworthy go with ext3.
Re:ext3 by asincero · 2001-10-10 04:31 · Score: 1

> Or you could use a journalling fs that isn't
> just a bad hack off of an existing fs.

Reiser isn't a full journaling filesystem. It only journals metadata. ext3, on the other hand, is.

And how is it a bad hack? ext2 was designed from the ground up to be easily extendable. The near seamless addition of journaling to the filesystem shows that they've succeeded at least in this area.

- Arcadio
Re:ext3 by SnapperHead · 2001-10-10 13:50 · Score: 1

WTF ?! How on Earth did this comment get "troll" ?! The topic was the 2.4.11 kernel release and how I wish ext3 would be merged soon.

I responded to another message talking about rh 7.2 and ext3. I think they kinda go hand and hand. I can't see how this is trolling. This is quite upsetting.

--
until (succeed) try { again(); }

Link to file location by AmigaAvenger · 2001-10-09 13:45 · Score: 0

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux- 2.4.11.tar.gz

Re:Link to file location by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:54 · Score: 0

You idiot. Not only did you link to the one site that will inevitably be under heavy load right now, you didn't even link to the bz2 or, even better, the patch.

changelog by metalhed77 · 2001-10-09 13:45 · Score: 3, Informative

here to whore and to reduce stress on the servers!

final:
- Jeff Garzik: net driver updates
- me: symlink attach fix
- Greg KH: USB update
- Rui Sousa: emu10k driver update

pre6:
- various: fix some module exports uncovered by stricter error checking
- Urban Widmark: make smbfs use same error define names as samba and win32
- Greg KH: USB update
- Tom Rini: MPC8xx ppc update
- Matthew Wilcox: rd.c page cache flushing fix
- Richard Gooch: devfs race fix: rwsem for symlinks
- Björn Wesen: Cris arch update
- Nikita Danilov: reiserfs cleanup
- Tim Waugh: parport update
- Peter Rival: update alpha SMP bootup to match wait_init_idle fixes
- Trond Myklebust: lockd/grace period fix

pre5:
- Keith Owens: module exporting error checking
- Greg KH: USB update
- Paul Mackerras: clean up wait_init_idle(), ppc prefetch macros
- Jan Kara: quota fixes
- Abraham vd Merwe: agpgart support for Intel 830M
- Jakub Jelinek: ELF loader cleanups
- Al Viro: more cleanups
- David Miller: sparc64 fix, netfilter fixes
- me: tweak resurrected oom handling

pre4:
- Al Viro: separate out superblocks and FS namespaces: fs/super.c fathers
fs/namespace.c
- David Woodhouse: large MTD and JFFS[2] update
- Marcelo Tosatti: resurrect oom handling
- Hugh Dickins: add_to_swap_cache racefix cleanup
- Jean Tourrilhes: IrDA update
- Martin Bligh: support clustered logical APIC for >8 CPU x86 boxes
- Richard Henderson: alpha update

pre3:
- Al Viro: superblock cleanups, partition handling fixes and cleanups
- Ben Collins: firewire update
- Jeff Garzik: network driver updates
- Urban Widmark: smbfs updates
- Kai Mäkisara: SCSI tape driver update
- various: embarrassing lack of error checking in ELF loader
- Neil Brown: md formatting cleanup.

pre2:
- me/Al Viro: fix bdget() oops with block device modules that don't
clean up after they exit
- Alan Cox: continued merging (drivers, license tags)
- David Miller: sparc update, network fixes
- Christoph Hellwig: work around broken drivers that add a gendisk more
than once
- Jakub Jelinek: handle more ELF loading special cases
- Trond Myklebust: NFS client and lockd reclaimer cleanups/fixes
- Greg KH: USB updates
- Mikael Pettersson: sparate out local APIC / IO-APIC config options

pre1:
- Chris Mason: fix ppp race conditions
- me: buffers-in-pagecache coherency, buffer.c cleanups
- Al Viro: block device cleanups/fixes
- Anton Altaparmakov: NTFS 1.1.20 update
- Andrea Arcangeli: VM tweaks

--
Photos.

woo emu10k and usb by havardi · 2001-10-09 13:46 · Score: 1

maybe i can use the kernel drivers for my sblive 5.1 card.. and perhaps my usb mouse won't freeze about once a week, requiring me to unplug it for a second.. then again... who knows-- im too lazy at the moment to break my system

Re:woo emu10k and usb by Chang · 2001-10-10 00:39 · Score: 2

I had the same freezing problem with my USB mouse also. Once or twice a week it would just lock in place and I'd have to unplug it and plug it back in. I'm pretty sure it went away when I put 2.4.10 on my system. I had been running the Debian 2.4.9-K7 image.

Suck does Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 13:47 · Score: 0

Totally off subject, just saw suck.com, kind of funny.

Re:Uhhhhh... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 13:48 · Score: 0

you don't see them releasing fixes every other hour.

yes you do.
1
2
3

And another link on an Internet 2 capable site by AmigaAvenger · 2001-10-09 13:50 · Score: 2, Informative

http://volcano.und.edu/linux-2.4.11.tar.gz

Re:And another link on an Internet 2 capable site by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:01 · Score: 0

Errm, why would someone not just download the patch (except first timers)?
Re:And another link on an Internet 2 capable site by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:56 · Score: 0

Have you ever used Internet2? The whole kernel takes under a minute to download. Downloading and applying the patch would take longer.
Plus, I always screw up my kernel tree by applying unofficial patches, so I never have a clean tree around to patch.
Re:And another link on an Internet 2 capable site by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 00:40 · Score: 0

Being on a fast link doesn't justify bandwidth abuse. You should have a tarball of the previous kernel, or a series of incremental patches handy.

Re:Smoked Turkey & Zesty ASPARAGUS Dead Penis by DarkShitter · 2001-10-09 13:50 · Score: 0

Oh! Holy Shit! Good one man! For an AC you just don't speak well for your people as a whole. Please. Please! Give that 'ol noodle in your scull a chance.

Re:Let me get this straight... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 13:51 · Score: 0

Dont forget their pathetic fascination with anime porn.

Syncing with AC kernels by bryanbrunton · 2001-10-09 13:53 · Score: 1

What is the process for syncing the Linus branch with the AC branch? Other than the occassional note from Linus about syncing, how is anyone to know that the AC fixes have been included in the Linus branch. Given that Alan Cox is a full time kernel hacker, it seems that his branch is more active.

Perhaps the kernel needs a Linus/AC syncing squad.

Re:Syncing with AC kernels by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:04 · Score: 0

"What is this "process" thing of which you speak?" asked Linus stupidly
Re:Syncing with AC kernels by worldwideweber · 2001-10-09 14:26 · Score: 5, Informative

The two trees are very different in certain cases, and are likely to stay that way for a while.

The -ac tree has the following major additions:

- Uses the Riel VM (Linus uses AA)
- 32bit uid safe quota
- Ext3 file system
- PnPBIOS support
- Various PPro and Pentium workarounds
- Simple boot flag
- Faster x86 syscall path
- PPPoATM
- Elevator flow control
- DRM 4.0 and 4.1 support not just 4.1
- CMS file system
- Intermezzo file system
- isofs compression

--
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
Re:Syncing with AC kernels by ASM · 2001-10-09 18:11 · Score: 4, Funny

AC kernels? Now THAT's open source at its best. I mean just think Annonymous Cowards writing an OS, and they don't even know each other....

--
Fish
Re:Syncing with AC kernels by hey! · 2001-10-10 00:21 · Score: 2

Uses the Riel VM (Linus uses AA)

Hmmm. Is one of the other of these the responsible for the notorious VM problems of 2.[0-9] ?

I'd like to know because I recently installed the 2.4.10-ac10 patches to get bigendian support for reiser. So far it's been fine.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.

Re:Let me get this straight... by Bert64 · 2001-10-09 13:53 · Score: 0

I doubt the taliban government would enforce any anti-piracy laws, especially on behalf of an american company. And not like they don`t have more important stuff to worry about right now.. so if they want to use ms products, they will just pirate them.

--
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Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by cymen · 2001-10-09 13:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

The Preemptible Kernel patches can result in a desktop that reacts/feels faster... I'm running it here with 2.4.10 on an Inspiron 4000 laptop and I'd have to say I'm impressed - everything feels a bit zippier. The only problem I've had is that there seems to be some loop that it has optimized that blasts bits around the memory bus at high speeds with a rthymic pattern - in short if I'm in a really quiet room the high pitched busses are a bit noisy... Maybe my hearing is too good!

Anyway - doesn't look like much changed since pre-6 so the pre-6 patches should work but if you want to be sure you can wait until rml releases the 2.4.11 final patch. I'd recommend checking it out if you have the time...

Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by reaper20 · 2001-10-09 14:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

These sound real good. Is there a reason that these patches are not the default behavior? Is there a downside to having a premptible kernel? Everyone that runs these patches says that they are awesome.

I'm assuming that its not in 2.4 because it probably changes alot of things and needs to be done in 2.5.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:40 · Score: 1, Informative

Having a preemptible kernel makes things feel faster because what you're doing right now is getting serviced the most, but the overall system performance is actually decreased a bit.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by jmv · 2001-10-09 14:44 · Score: 5, Informative

These sound real good. Is there a reason that these patches are not the default behavior? Is there a downside to having a premptible kernel?

AFAIK, there are two reasons why these patches aren't in default kernel. First, I understand that decreases latency at the price of slightly decreasing throughput. The second is that though the patch is small, its effects can be complex and nobody's too sure it doesn't have any bad side effects (crash, oops, ...), especially on SMP systems.

--
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by apwingo · 2001-10-09 15:12 · Score: 3, Informative

The PE kernel work looks pretty good, but it's still got some kinks to work out in order to guarantee sub-5ms latencies. In a recent email to alsa-devel, Takashi Iwai posted the following tests with alsa and low-latency versus preemptible kernel patches. In summary, getting better, but not quite there yet.
I definitely agree with you though, the PE people's work is exciting, and much less of a hack than the low-latency patches. Way to go hackers!
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by linuxguy · 2001-10-09 16:15 · Score: 1

AFAIK, there are two reasons why these patches aren't in default kernel. First, I understand that decreases latency at the price of slightly decreasing throughput. The second is that though the patch is small, its effects can be complex and nobody's too sure it doesn't have any bad side effects (crash, oops, ...), especially on SMP systems.
Isn't that true for alot of other optional services/packages/modules offered by the kernel?
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Adam+J.+Richter · 2001-10-09 16:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

For things like playing buffered video and sound, where you just need to get the CPU every few milliseconds, I would think that the system call code paths are not so long that you really need a preemtable kernel. I would expect that it would be enough to just change the time quantum from 1/100th of a second to, say, 1/5000th, by replacing the "#define HZ 100" in include/asm/param.h to "#define HZ 5000". I have not tried this, but this sort of thing has been discussed on the linux-kernel mailing list. One person there reported that doing this prevented his Palm cradle to no longer be able to sync, so be warned that this seems to trip at least one bug.

As someone who has only looked through the preemtable system call patch and never tried it, my impression is that while it may be great, I expect its design to change a bit. Right now, under this patch, you build the kernel with basically a fixed number of fake CPU's that basically make your computer look like it has more CPU's than it does. The kernel being preempted basically causes the old kernel's state to become associated with one of these fake CPU's and then the preempting context takes over a real CPU. [I'm really not doing justice to code in this oversimplified and possibly misinformed description.]

In the future, I would hope that the need for a fixed number of fake CPU's would disappear and the "old fashioned" way of doing context switching would also disappear when the preemtable kernel option is selected. In other words, that would be the only way that context switching would normally occur, rather than having two ways of doing the same thing.

I have always regarded the potential for a preemtable kernel as the biggest side benefit of the move to SMP in Linux 2.0, and I'm glad to see people turning it into a reality. However, maintaining the option of making a non-preemtible kernel may be worthwhile, at least for a uniprocessor kernel, because the preemtible kernel code relies on running an multiprocessing kernel (even on a uniprocessor), which has a slight performance cost in setting and releasing all those locks that never once experience contention.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by mcelrath · 2001-10-09 17:05 · Score: 3, Informative

I would expect that it would be enough to just change the time quantum from 1/100th of a second to, say, 1/5000th, by replacing the "#define HZ 100" in include/asm/param.h to "#define HZ 5000".
What are you talking about? The reason you get skips in sound and such is because the kernel hogs the CPU for a long time, using spinlocks (kernel 2.4) or by disabling IRQ's and then doing a bunch of processing (older kernels). It's particularly bad during I/O storms, and thus the bad vm lately has caused people to complain about audio dropouts. Changing HZ is not going to do anything but make the kernel less efficent. Note that the current default is 1024 for some archs, which corresponds to 1ms. Everyone sees latencies longer than 1ms on a regular basis, even with the low-latency/preempt patches.
--Bob

--
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Webmonger · 2001-10-09 17:06 · Score: 2

Matter of degree. It's always a matter of degree.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 18:07 · Score: 0

people are afraid of that it hurts throughput but tests show that the decrease is very small as you said.

sometimes it even increases throughput.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by achurch · 2001-10-09 18:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

Having a preemptible kernel makes things feel faster because what you're doing right now is getting serviced the most, but the overall system performance is actually decreased a bit.
Which is bad why? The important thing is not (always) some arbitrary absolute measurement of "speed", but rather the apparent (to the user) speed of the system. If you're reading mail, you probably won't care, or even notice, that your compile takes 49 seconds instead of 47.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Eneff · 2001-10-09 18:28 · Score: 1

That ftp site owner will be a bit perturbed, however.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by BJH · 2001-10-09 18:29 · Score: 1

Sure, if it's a workstation, but definitely not true if it's, say, a fileserver, where you'd want to maximize throughput even at the expense of latency.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by redcliffe · 2001-10-09 19:01 · Score: 0

Why don't they add it to the kernel as an option? This way if your machine runs multiple services or is workstation, you just set the option to on, but if it only does one thing, set it to off.

David
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by achurch · 2001-10-09 19:27 · Score: 2

That ftp site owner will be a bit perturbed, however.
So he can just use a regular kernel. I assume something like this would be made a kernel configuration option, something like SMP (though I admit I haven't actually looked at the patches themselves so I don't know how feasible this is); then you'd just turn it on for a workstation and off for a server, or something ilke that.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by XO · 2001-10-09 19:54 · Score: 1

I ran with those patches in addition to 2.4.10, and was really impressed. I forgot to install them for 2.4.11, and I'm more impressed without them. Then again, I'm sort of comparing apples to oranges here, as 2.4.4-2.4.9 were steaming hunks of crap for the VM.

As soon as I see "official" PE patches for 2.4.11, i'll compile a kernel with them, and switch back and forth, and see how things seem.

--
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by kervel · 2001-10-09 19:58 · Score: 1

i have audio dropouts if i use a small buffer, when i switch desktops or maximize a window. But make -j4 doesn't trigger any dropouts. (with preempt). I wonder if the nvidia closed drivers are to blame here ...
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by XO · 2001-10-09 19:59 · Score: 1

umm.. maybe i'm reading these datas wrong, but that looks like the PE patches blow away the LL patches.. ??

--
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by DGolden · 2001-10-09 21:41 · Score: 4, Informative

One thing to note, and I find myself saying this again and again, is that one of the simplest performance tweaks you can do is to negative-renice the X server. It's even mentioned somewhere in the X manual, and makes a hell of a difference.

This means that the GUI then pre-empts background tasks, like on Windoze, and other systems intended for desktop use. Of course you don't want to do that on a server machine, but only Microsoft are stupid enough to do it by default even on their "server" OSes.

I'd like to see "workstation" installs do it automatically, but there's a few small notes:

(a) if you renice it too low, it also ends up pre-empting audio tasks too much, and audio could conceivably skip when you move windows about. Shouldn't happen on today's reasonably fast computers. Easily fixed by careful tuning, perhaps including renicing important audio tasks too if your computer's really slow.

(b) If you're using the xfs font server, it needs tuning too - if it's starved of cpu time, then you might actually make text-heavy parts of the gui slower, not faster. I really wish distros would stop using xfs, since truetype support is now built into the X server, and server-side font support is being phased out thanks to XRender and Xft anyway.

--
Choice of masters is not freedom.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 22:45 · Score: 0

I actually patched this into my 2.4.10 kernel a couple of weeks ago. I honestly did not really notice any difference (versus the regular 2.4.10), only that wolfestein ran "slower" (the movement was jumpy rather than smooth). Does anybody have an explanation for this behaviour?
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 02:14 · Score: 0

Haha. Very clever - pretending you have a set of balls. Very clever.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by jaliathus · 2001-10-10 03:44 · Score: 1

The important thing is not (always) some arbitrary absolute measurement of "speed", but rather the apparent (to the user) speed of the system. If you're reading mail, you probably won't care, or even notice, that your compile takes 49 seconds instead of 47.

On the desktop, yes. But not always on the server.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Hornsby · 2001-10-10 04:38 · Score: 1

Per your advice, I've just reniced it to -20, and it does seem to be a bit more responsive. I've always hated how sluggish X is, as it's a sad state of affairs to have a state of the art kernel with a station wagon of a windowing system sitting on top of it. My usual benchmark is to just open mozilla, activate the side-bar and drag it left and right. You just gotta love that refresh... NOT!

--
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 05:26 · Score: 0

I must note that mozilla is dog-slow not just because of the window system, but because it's a bloated monster in which the entire ui is coded in javascript - so 9/10 of the slowness you see on the side bar is running javascript code.

Mozilla is, these days, effectively an ecmascript VM, without all the performance and maturity of a java vm, and without even the possiblity of such performance, since ecmascript is weakly typed and therefore much harder to optimize.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 05:31 · Score: 0

why does one not increase the waveform buffer? this would relax latecy requirements easily in the case of audio output.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by be-fan · 2001-10-10 08:54 · Score: 2

I think you've got some of the details wrong. First, changing the hertz timer wouldn't help anything. When people say that Linux is not preemptible, it means that when a process is running in kernel mode (as the result of a system call), the scheduler will not preempt it. It runs until it voluntarily blocks. Even if the scheduler is called more often, all that would happen is that it would allow the process to continue running more often. The result of this is that the maximum scheduling latency is dependant on the length of the system call paths. Long paths (such as disk access calls) cause spikes in latency. What the preempt patches do is they change SMP spinlocks into preemption locks. Each time a spinlock is taken, a preemption count is incremented. When it is released, the preemption count is decremented. Whenever the preemption count is zero, a context switch is allowed to happen. There is a good article here.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by be-fan · 2001-10-10 08:57 · Score: 2

In practice, though, the only real disadvantage seems to be the "newness" of it. Performance, for the tests that have been conducted, seems to be the same or even better.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by be-fan · 2001-10-10 08:59 · Score: 2

Not really. The tests that have been done so far show no perceptible performance decrease. In theory, it should be slower, but I think any performance decreases from the patch are getting lost in the noise.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by be-fan · 2001-10-10 09:02 · Score: 2

Except that if you're trying to do realtime manipulation of audio, you CAN'T increase the size of the buffer without introducing artifacts.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Adam+J.+Richter · 2001-10-10 09:57 · Score: 2

If you're talking about spinlocks and you're running on a single CPU machine (even with an SMP kernel), the kernel never blocks on a spinlock, because there is never spinlock contention (except for a kernel locking bug, where the kernel will lock up hard at that point). The overhead of the checking the spinlocks is also very small (nanoseconds on that single CPU system, especially since there is no cache snooping). So, the delays that are long enough to deplete sound buffers are going to occur because the granularity of time slices between processes is too long, not because of lock contention.

With HZ=100, the timer tick is 1/100th of a second (ten milliseconds), and any process running at a CPU priority of nice 0 (the standard), nice -1, nice -2 or nice -3 will get five ticks (see the definition of TICK_SCALE in kernel/sched.c), so each time slice will be 50ms, which begins to approach the buffer size of sound cards when you have a few runnable processes, and is already much longer than video frame rates.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by BJH · 2001-10-10 14:45 · Score: 1

I think the required changes are a bit too extensive for it to be a on/off switch (although who knows?). Also, it's not been proved to be fully stable on SMP systems.
Re:Check out the Preemptible Kernel patches... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 23:21 · Score: 0

Preemptible? wow, finally Linux gets to be
like AmigaOS was back in 1985 ;-)

Damnit! Already? by JahToasted · 2001-10-09 13:56 · Score: 1

I still haven't gotten pcmcia-cs to work with 2.4.10 yet (although that's mostly due to my slackness). Anyone else have a problem with this? I think it has something to do with the preempting kernel patch I installed... Oh well see if it works with this one.

Re:Damnit! Already? by prog-guru · 2001-10-09 14:12 · Score: 1

pcmcia-cs-3.1.29 compiled fine for me on 2.4.10. I am using the wvlan_cs driver.

--
chris@xanadu:~$ whatis /.
/.: nothing appropriate.
Re:Damnit! Already? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 20:37 · Score: 0

Fails for me with -preempt. Works without it. Something to do with spinlocks I thing.

waiting for kernel.org mirrors by DragonWyatt · 2001-10-09 13:56 · Score: 1

No reason to wait:
patch-2.4.11.bz2(about 780kB) and the whole kernel (about 23MB).

--
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.

Where do I find more detailed changelogs? by Dixie_Flatline · 2001-10-09 13:58 · Score: 3

This one is pretty sparse. WHAT changes were made with the emu10k driver? Did they change the bug that kills init on boot when you try to detect the game port? Did they update the way it reports, so that xmixer can control more things again? (What's with that, anyway? 2.4.2, I could control all sorts of stuff with xmixer. 2.4.10, I pretty much only have control over the volume.)

Re:Where do I find more detailed changelogs? by worldwideweber · 2001-10-09 14:09 · Score: 4, Informative

There are a few changes to the emu10k1 driver that may affect you:
- Mixer improvements (should add support for treble, bass, volume, and others).
- Fixed a dead lock in emu10k1_volxxx_irqhandler.
- Small code cleanup.

--
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
Re:Where do I find more detailed changelogs? by grink · 2001-10-09 14:46 · Score: 1

get the cvs from http://opensource.creative.com
Re:Where do I find more detailed changelogs? by Jeffrey+Baker · 2001-10-09 14:50 · Score: 2

If you want the emu10k1 to work properly you'd better just go try ALSA. In my ideal world ALSA will merge with the 2.5 kernel, but I wouldn't put money on it.
Re:Where do I find more detailed changelogs? by BJH · 2001-10-09 18:41 · Score: 1

Don't - that code is old and broken. The stuff in -ac kernels (and maybe 2.4.1[01]) is much better.

Perhaps 2.5? by LenE · 2001-10-09 13:58 · Score: 1

I don't know about anybody else, but it seems to me that this mostly a code cosmetic update. No security fixes or major problems addressed. Might this mean that 2.5 is coming very soon?

The only things that caught my eye were the emu10k1 (aka SB Live) update the USB updates and FireWire work. All three of these have been improved in recent kernels.

The emu10k1 driver update specifically interested me as I've had no luck with the version included in the kernel, and the Creative Labs CVS version has been a gamble as well.

-- Len

Re:Perhaps 2.5? by gmhowell · 2001-10-09 15:31 · Score: 2

IANAKH (I am not a kernel hacker) but I think 2.4.10 was a pretty big change (big VM changes. VM has been bad/odd since at least 2.4.0 according to kt.zork.net) That leads me to believe there will be at least a couple of more patches before 2.5 gets really going. I imagine it will take a little while for Alan Cox to really get with it and accept the new VM. (But I don't presume to speak for the man, so take that with a grain of salt).

In any event, I doubt that the 2.4 series will go down in Linux history as anything great.

--
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:Perhaps 2.5? by NumberSyx · 2001-10-09 20:01 · Score: 2

In any event, I doubt that the 2.4 series will go down in Linux history as anything great.

This is true, as the kernel has moved along each new version has been more evolutionary the revolutionary. This is the way it is suppose to be, at some point many parts become stable and need little or no attention, such as serial and LPT ports. Things just work and at that point each release is more or less adding support for current hardware, routine bug fixes and the occassional rewrite of one or more subsystems.

--
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Re:Perhaps 2.5? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 22:09 · Score: 0

2.4.10 sucked ass. I have a 800 MHz box with 256 megs of RAM, and this POS actually started swapping so badly the other day, I made my first CDR coaster in 3 years. This was with a piddly 4X burn rate!

As cdrdao approached the halfway mark of the burn, the disk started chugging like nuts (UW SCSI disk, regular SCSI burner, thanks), the buffer drained, and *boom* instant coaster.

I went back to 2.4.9 (yay /vmlinuz.old) and it didn't bat an eye. What kind of crack has Linus gotten into? Start 2.5 already and leave this kind of heavy-handed breakage in the developmental tree!

AA vm changes? by moron0 · 2001-10-09 13:59 · Score: 1

In the past few Kernel Traffics, there has been a lot of discussion about Andrea Arcangeli's VM patches. Alan Cox, for one, was reluctant to introduce such drastically new VM code mid-2.4.

In the Changelog they are listed as "tweaks".

What changes made it into 2.4.11? How reliable are they?

Re:AA vm changes? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 18:12 · Score: 0

Those got into 2.4.10 (changelog: "big vm merge from AA"). The changes in 2.4.11 are just tweaks to Andrea's new VM.

VM Changes by Goonie · 2001-10-09 14:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

Back in 2.4.10, Linus made a fairly radical change in the virtual memory system - a rather unusual one for a stable kernel. While a lot of people are rather unhappy about it (notably Alan Cox, Rik Van Riel (the maintainer of the existing VM system), from all public accounts so far it seems that the new VM system works considerably better than the old one.

So - - - Is that the case? Has there been any stability problems? Is the performance better (not that it really matters as a workstation user, but . .. )

--

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)

Re:VM Changes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:13 · Score: 0

Oops.
s/Windows/FreeBSD/
Re:VM Changes by Ian+Schmidt · 2001-10-09 14:17 · Score: 5, Informative

Performance under my normal working set (KDE 2.2 w/default theme + Mozilla nightly version + the CRiSP text editor + KMail + XMMS + GAIM + several xterms, with occasional compiles and runs of very large apps like Wine and XMame) is substantially better (faster, smoother, way less swapping) on 2.4.10 vs. 2.4.9. I should note I'm running 512 MB RAM and 640 MB of swap on 2 partitions, and the system barely ever goes to swap now (with the previous VM, just starting up that environment got me into swap and it quickly maxxed out the swap from there).
So while I do appreciate Alan Cox's caution, the new VM works substantially better for me and I say "Go Andrea and Al!"
Re:VM Changes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:46 · Score: 0

It works, if you don't mind the following in your log files:

Oct 9 17:52:47 ws kernel: __alloc_pages: 3-order allocation failed (gfp=0x20/0) from c012ab30
Oct 9 17:52:47 ws kernel: __alloc_pages: 3-order allocation failed (gfp=0x20/0) from c012ab30
Oct 9 17:52:47 ws kernel: __alloc_pages: 2-order allocation failed (gfp=0x20/0) from c012ab30

...many, many times...
Re:VM Changes by Tuross · 2001-10-09 14:50 · Score: 0, Troll

I don't know the exact details, but assuming since Andrea Arcangeli worked on it it's his VM alternative, yes it definately is more stable and to me has noticeably more response under a) interactive feel and b) load than Rik's VM. It's also neater code and there's nowhere near as much special-casing, plus its excellent for applications that stream data.

Ruling aside the obvious objections (changing major subsystems in a so-called "stable" kernel, NIH syndrome) I can only assume Alan's objection is that it was yet another really neat thing developed (or sponsored) by rival Linux company SuSE (like reiserfs, which he also objected to)

The sooner Redhat stop leveraging its collection of kernel hackers to drive Linux kernel development the better for the rest of us that don't care for their crappy distribution.
--
Matt
1. Read Slashdot
2. ???
3. Profit
Re:VM Changes by TheGratefulNet · 2001-10-09 15:00 · Score: 4, Informative

I'm not sure I agree it works better.

I ran all the 2.4.x's, both at home and at work. I am a software developer (not kernel, though) and so I beat on my systems pretty heavily. both systems run dualhead X and my work system additionally runs hardware (dac960) raid. cpu is a k7 tbird, in the ghz range.

anyway, 2.4.9 was ok for me. I tried 2.4.10 and both my systems (home and work) locked up within days. hard tight lockup.

I brought both back to 2.4.9, and so far, so good (less than a week running, though; it was only a week ago I went to .10 and had those problems).

I, too, worry about 3k line commits to so-called 'stable' trees to radically change an algorithm or model. can't say for sure if .10 was really a dog for me, but my systems usually run for months and months before being rebooted (usually due to my swapping of pci cards and such, necessitating a shutdown to do the board swap). so it does seem unusual for me to have a modern linux kernel freeze on _both_ of my hard-working linux boxes. hmm..

--

--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Re:VM Changes by TheGratefulNet · 2001-10-09 15:04 · Score: 2

damn! I just saw those today! I was getting very very frequent netscape crashes (and I wasn't even running java or script..) and tar's wouldn't verify, and on and on. and I looked at /var/log/messages and saw lots of those 'allocation failed' msgs.

but I'm running 2.4.9, so I'm not sure .10 is the cause of those.

--

--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Re:VM Changes by Trepalium · 2001-10-09 15:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ruling aside the obvious objections (changing major subsystems in a so-called "stable" kernel, NIH syndrome) I can only assume Alan's objection is that it was yet another really neat thing developed (or sponsored) by rival Linux company SuSE (like reiserfs, which he also objected to)
The sooner Redhat stop leveraging its collection of kernel hackers to drive Linux kernel development the better for the rest of us that don't care for their crappy distribution.

I don't think RedHat had ANYTHING to do with Alan's objections. For one, numerous people have reported severe stability problems with Andreas' VM, which are things that simply should not occur in a so-called "stable" kernel. This kind of experimentation should be occurring in 2.5, not 2.4. The problem is that the VM got almost no testing before being rolled into 2.4.10. The same was true of ReiserFS when it was introduced into 2.4 -- it, too, had a number of problems, including stability and data integrity problems. Rik's VM is not very good, granted, but 2.5 is the proving grounds for new features, not 2.4.

--
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Re:VM Changes by Jeffrey+Baker · 2001-10-09 15:30 · Score: 2

Rik's VM is not any more stable nor faster than AA's. Incumbency is no reason to keep it.
Re:VM Changes by RelliK · 2001-10-09 15:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Ruling aside the obvious objections (changing major subsystems in a so-called "stable" kernel, NIH syndrome) I can only assume Alan's objection is that it was yet another really neat thing developed (or sponsored) by rival Linux company SuSE (like reiserfs, which he also objected to)
That's a very strong allegation, and you'd better have some solid facts to back it up. I don't care for RedHat but I have great respect for Alan Cox. His objections seem valid to me. I'd also be very reluctant to do a major change in the stable release of any software, especially if I was the primary maintainer (like Alan Cox is for Linux). You'd better come up with some concrete evidence to justify your claim, or I'll assume you are just trolling.

--
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Re:VM Changes by CraigParticle · 2001-10-09 15:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

It shouldn't surprise anyone that 2.4.10 VM performs better than 2.4.9. Even in terms of the "traditional" 2.4 VM from Rik, the Linus and Alan trees deviated starting around kernel 2.4.7. There were numerous complaints about the Linus tree missing important patches, and having contradicting patches applied. It ended up quite a mess, and VM performance reflects this. Alan's tree was much more conservative in this regard.
If you compare 2.4.11 to anything, please compare it to the latest -ac kernels from Alan, where the traditional 2.4 VM is actually working very well. There's NO sense in comparing 2.4.11 to 2.4.9; the VM in 2.4.9 and its kin -- it was just plain broken.
Side note: In Rik's VM, please remember to not just look at swap used as a gauge of whether you're swapping or not. All anonymous pages are mapped to swap, so the space is simply allocated. You can create a huge image in GIMP and lots of swap will be allocated, but without a drop of disk I/O! Use vmstat and look at the 'si' and 'so' columns to see if you're actually writing pages to swap. Or look in /proc/meminfo and subtract "SwapCached" from the amount of swap you think you're using. That's the amount of *written* swap you're using (a better comparison to 2.4.10). This needs to be made sensible in 2.5, if this VM is to be resurrected.
Andrea's work has cleaned up the handling of inactive pages (which could have been done under the old system), and the new "classzone" approach and VM balancing isn't documented anywhere outside the code itself. In addition, there are very normal loads where it performs badly compared to the -ac tree. Here is a test suite that tests different aspects of aging and swapping, and the results as provided to linux-kernel. 2.4.10 (patched with Andrea's VM tweaks) swapped more pages, took longer, and had to swap more pages back in when the tests completed (i.e. it could have chosen better pages to swap out). It also caused XMMS to skip mp3 playback throughout the tests, whereas -ac didn't.
Nothing's perfect of course; a process that randomly walks through pages performs better in 2.4.10 since it's more streamlined and not trying to be as "intelligent" about page handling. Rik's code could no doubt be improved here.
That's the great thing about open source: let the best idea win! No doubt in 2.5 we'll see these two VM schemes hash it out in much more complete form (i.e. lose the remaining kernel 2.2-isms, maybe add physical page mapping, almost certainly swapfs -- mostly for Rik's scheme; I'm not sure what the next steps for Andrea's VM should be).
Re:VM Changes by jooniqzb1tch · 2001-10-09 16:21 · Score: 2, Informative

offtopic, but might help with memory issues ..

you can check your RAM chips using memtest86 ( http://www.teresaudio.com/memtest86/ ). Using this program I could detect a very tiny problem in one chip that had caused one box to panic after over 20 days of uptime (also had an allocation problem message running 2.4.9 but linux wasn't the culprit). This is a good tool to have, specially now that we have these huge and cheap RAM chips .. a tiny bit that's fscked up in there can be a real mess. The only thing is this testing can take ages on older CPUs, altho major problems show up almost immediately.

thaught it could help some of you.
Re:VM Changes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 16:45 · Score: 0

The sooner Redhat stop leveraging its collection of kernel hackers to drive Linux kernel development the better for the rest of us that don't care for their crappy distribution.

As a person who works with Redhat's private betas, it honestly seems more the other way -- Alan and company drive the technical direction of Redhat, not the other way around.

A good example is that the Roswell public beta uses ext3 as the default file system. I can make no statement about final product or private betas, but you can probably guess the result. A lot of people are complaining about the lack of support for ReiserFS, but during the time frame that 7.1 was developed, reiser broke under NFS. It's included as an unsupported option. An assumption could be made that the next release of Redhat Linux will support ext3, based on it's use in the public beta. It's only natural that RH would be more likely to support something where they have sign the paycheck for the person that's responsible for it [IIRC -- Tweedie is a RH employee, right?]
Re:VM Changes by Ambassador+Kosh · 2001-10-09 17:04 · Score: 1

My experience is very different. With 2.4.10 my systems would hit swap pretty hard after a few days and would slow down a good bit. If I did something that would really load them down ie a load average above about 20 the systems would essentially freeze for 20 minutes or so and sometimes just never come back. With 2.4.10 all that behavior seems to be gone. I am also a software developer. Mainly I write python code for zope. This is a on a k6-2 500 with 768M of ram.

I have had no problems so far with the new VM and way too many with the old one.

--
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)
Re:VM Changes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 17:10 · Score: 0

Agree completely. I run on a very long in tooth p133 with 48megs(for only another week) I compiled 2.4.3 I think, and noticed a much smoother desktop than with 2.2.17. Then each kernel got worse, swapping badly. One I had to reboot once a day to keep it running reasonably. I stayed at 2.4.8 due to the uncertainty. I think the x.12 will be stable and maybe tuned a little better. Now I will try the -ac series. Are the two vm trees different in thier appropriate applications? ie. server loads vs desktop loads? Maybe we will see a configuration option?

Derek
Re:VM Changes by garcia · 2001-10-09 17:27 · Score: 3, Informative

I noticed exactly the opposite. w/2.4.9 I was experiencing almost daily lockups (hard ones, fsck became my friend). Today was my first lockup w/2.4.10 since I installed it. I was running a bunch of crap in X, compiling a kernel and upgrading to the latest and greatest Debian.

Machine went down hard as hell when I tried to logout of X.

I am currently compiling 2.4.11 so we shall see how that goes.

YMMV. Best of luck to you all. :)
Re:VM Changes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 17:51 · Score: 0

except that it is more stable and tested...

and in some cases faster...

incumbency is a fine reason to stick with the vm you have been using, at least till the 2.5 kernel fork.

(with a couple months of testing the AA vm will be just as tested as the rik vm.)

i don't know which algorithms are better technically.

switching to the aa vm did seem to make the bugs in the rik vm get fixed in a hurry. :)
Re:VM Changes by TheGratefulNet · 2001-10-09 18:00 · Score: 3, Informative

yes, memtest86 is very cool.

did you know you could make it a lilo target? makes things very convenient ;-)

put memtest86 (the binary) in /boot and just add this to /etc/lilo.conf:

image=/boot/memtest86

label=memtest

its that simple. and its a great util. I've just not had the downtime to be able to run a real long memtest..

--

--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Re:VM Changes by GlowStars · 2001-10-09 18:11 · Score: 1

I'd also be very reluctant to do a major change in the stable release of any software, especially if I was the primary maintainer (like Alan Cox is for Linux).

Since when ist Alan the primary maintainer for Linux 2.4?
Re:VM Changes by psavo · 2001-10-09 22:13 · Score: 1

I noticed that in 2.4.10 (+preempt -patch), in xterm sometimes when one C-Z's a process, it just stalls.. ps aux doesn't show anything, nor does xterm responce.. Weirdest thing is that it doesn't happen all the time, only sometimes.

(oh yes, xterm is certainly alive, it scrolls on demand and when I press keys they show up, it's just that bash never comes up.)

--
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
Re:VM Changes by Mike+McTernan · 2001-10-09 22:20 · Score: 1

> I should note I'm running 512 MB RAM and 640 MB of swap on 2 partitions, and the system barely ever goes to swap now

So how can you tell if the new VM is much better if you hardly go into it?

It's only really when the system is loaded and starts to swap that you notice how good/bad it is. At the moment my system is reduced to rubble as soon as it goes into swap, but I have an early 2.2 kernel :(

--
-- Mike
Re:VM Changes by muecksteiner · 2001-10-09 23:25 · Score: 1

I can only assume Alan's objection is that it was yet another really neat thing developed (or sponsored) by rival Linux company SuSE (like reiserfs, which he also objected to)

I personally would rather believe that Alan Cox is a very capable engineer who saw that ReiserFS could have sucked marbles through bent straws, no matter where it came from.

That crud just made it into the kernel because Mr. Reiser kept pestering everyone, and finally succeeded with SuSE, who should have known better than to promote an immature filesystem which was still prone to data corruption when they first touted it as an alternative to ext2.

Just my $0.2E-32

Alexander Wilkie
Re:VM Changes by Phosphan · 2001-10-10 02:14 · Score: 1

2.4.10 did not work on an old SMP box (P133), my best result was a series of ooops! near the end of the boot sequence - especially ide-scsi seemed to make a lot of trouble. Maybe that's just my problem since I ignore the recommendations and use gcc 3.0.1... but 2.4.10-ac4 works fine. Didn't dare to try 2.4.11 yet :-)
Re:VM Changes by hoefkens · 2001-10-10 02:27 · Score: 1

> So how can you tell if the new VM is much better if you hardly go into it?

Because the earlier 2.4 kernels would swap (forever) even on that kind of machine...

--
I am German but my email isn't...
Re:VM Changes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 04:53 · Score: 0

So earlier kernels were all ungodly garbage then? And now they actually work right? Wow. Maybe it's finally time to give Linux a try! It takes so much effort to see through the FUD of the Linux apologists on this site. But eventually the truth that Linux is just not even close to being there should hit even the most thick-headed person.
Re:VM Changes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 05:55 · Score: 0

Oops.
s/FreeBSD/VAX
Re:VM Changes by greenrd · 2001-10-10 06:42 · Score: 2

If I did something that would really load them down ie a load average above about 20 the systems would essentially freeze for 20 minutes or so and sometimes just never come back.
Same problems here. Maybe I am just superstitious, but I found banging on the keyoboard and waving the mouse around a bit gradually brought it back to life. Perhaps the keyboard/serial interrupts got the kernel out of an infinite loop. :-)

--
Female Prison Rape in NY
Re:VM Changes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:49 · Score: 0

I am very fond of the idea of a "bake off" for this. Two serious contenders could co-exist in the kernel for a while, preferably during the unstable series, and tons of people could find the problems and benefits of each. Eventually a vote or merger would reduce it to one.
Unfortunately, the term "bake off" is trademarked by someone (betty crocker?), so this is impossible.
Re:VM Changes by RelliK · 2001-10-10 14:35 · Score: 2

Since when ist Alan the primary maintainer for Linux 2.4?
Traditionally, Linus has been in charge of the development tree while Alan has been in charge of the stable tree. Since the 2.5 tree hasn't been forked yet, Linus is running the 2.4 tree right now.

--
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.

Re:Task List by smooc · 2001-10-09 14:03 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Ha! As a geek your not supposed to have a girlfriend.

And on a side note neither should you bomb Afghanistan

--
- In Memoriam: Jeroen de Bruin (1972-2004), bye bro

Re:first post? by DarkShitter · 2001-10-09 14:03 · Score: 0

well, I accidentally upgraded a company server today when SGI upgraded their cvs server with that new one. I sure hope for the best :). Dude! Even nerdy-ass Trolls 'round here have scored a piece. Get with the program.

Re:Task List by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:05 · Score: 0

Hey Clinton you're not President anymore! Let GW bomb Afganistan!

Re:first post? by DarkShitter · 2001-10-09 14:07 · Score: 0

oh well. Fuck it. If I cared I would look into it. Free software ROCKS!!!!!

Re:Tards!! by peteMG · 2001-10-09 14:09 · Score: 0, Offtopic

holy interesting tidbit in a troll post...

Just recently, IE 5.5 has decided to scroll up from where it should be whenever I hit back. Wacky. Too bad nobody will ever see this to say they've got this problem too - yet another MS conspiracy down the drain.

Well, this sucks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:12 · Score: 0

Apparently I am getting 326 errors compiling against glibc 2.2.4. Is anyone else getting these errors?

Re:Well, this sucks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 17:02 · Score: 0

I got compile problems when I patched over 2.4.10. With a fresh install of the 2.4.11 source, compilation succeeded.

No idea why.
Re:Well, this sucks. by fredlwm · 2001-10-09 20:13 · Score: 1

Errors like ? The kernel doesn't use glibc...

--
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
Re:Well, this sucks. by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 00:27 · Score: 0

Compiling against glibc ? What on earth do
glibc have to do with compiling the kernel.
(other than gcc is probably linked to it, but that
have nothing to do with compiling a kernel)

ext3 by hyperstation · 2001-10-09 14:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

PLEASE for god's sake, merge ext3 into the kernel. it's nice and stable, and i'm sick of patching.

Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Shane · 2001-10-09 14:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

My personal feelings on the new VM is that it was the right decision. The VM problems have been going on for months. When people would report a problem, Rik would pretty much say: I don't have time to work on so and so.. feel free to pay me or convince my employeer to fund the work. Which is fine, that is his choice... But if I was Linus this would make me more open to looking at alternitive approches even if the short term risks were moderate.

It is also interesting to note that Rik's vm core has had say 15 kernel releases (unstable + stable) to become stable and meet up to the expectations that Rik sold the kernel hackers on in the first place and judging from the reports on LK it is just now becoming stable enough for most work loads.

The new 2.2.10+ VM had a couple minor to moderate problems for _SOME_ work loads but over all has received very good reports as far as I can tell for being so new. 2.4.11 is bound to be even better.

Some people are complaining about the inclusion of major VM modifcations in the stable tree. I believe the truth is that most people that use Linux in production do not roll their own kernels. They use the vendor supplied kernels. Redhat for example will be releasing a 2.2.7-11-AC kernel which uses Rik's VM, it is what they have been testing for months and thus is what they will end up shipping. So the fact that Linus made this change in the "Stable" tree makes very little difference to me from a stability stand point, and I think it will prove to be a very good call in the short/medium/long run.

Thats my 2 cents anyways.

--
-- You can be a geeklord too :)

Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Defiler · 2001-10-09 15:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

VM in 2.4.10 is absolutely broken. The LKML is rife with reports of hangs, strange behavior, evil performance, etc, under heavy loads..

Pretty much fixed in 2.4.10-ac10-eatcache. Almost as fixed in 2.4.11, but more work definitely needs to be done before a company like RedHat will be willing to ship one of these kernels with the new VM code.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Shane · 2001-10-09 15:38 · Score: 1

2.4.10-AC10 does not include the -aa VM code. I will agree that 2.4.10 is unuseable on a heavly loaded system but this has been the case for most of the 2.4.xx mainline kernels redhat's 7.1+errata kernel being the exception as far as I can tell (and some of the beta kernels from 7.2).
So all in all yes, 2.4.7-9 was more stable for server workloads then 2.4.10, but I would bet comparing 2.4.11 to 2.4.7-9 would be a different story. Yes the latest -AC+patches most likely has a few less bugs then the 2.4.11-mainline. But thats not saying much given the huge number of patches that has gone into it over the last 6 months :).

--
-- You can be a geeklord too :)
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by KidSock · 2001-10-09 15:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

The problem with Rik's VM was Rik. He has been an arrogant piss ant for as long as I've been watching the list. He obviously ain't no dummy and I have no problem with working with people like that but I think Linus was itchn' to get that monkey off his back. They were applying all sorts of desperate patches ("tuning") and falling all over each other in the process. They just don't know why his VM goes off into la la land under high loads. What do you do about that? Stable or not Andrea totally rewrote the VM in like 5 weeks. Sometimes rewriting something from scratch like that is just the Right Thing to do. Linus saw that on the surface it worked better than Rik's and took it as a blessing. Sure 2.4.10 was bleeding before it left the gate and immediately needed triage (anyone running 2.4.10 should get this release patch folks) but so far it's not been a disaster like some people have been warning about. In fact most people claim it's quite a bit better than Rik's. If you've been using 2.4 without luck, try this one folks.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Woko · 2001-10-09 16:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

I believe the truth is that most people that use Linux in production do not roll their own kernels

I don't think your right there at all. Companies are more likely to tweak the default installation, recompile the kernel for a known set of hardware, and then roll out a "company standard", using for instance RedHat's kickstart scripts.

Using the stock kernel is made very difficult at least for RedHat users. RedHat's ongoing refusal to support reiserfs while installing, only recently while upgrading, and shipping (at least with 7.1 from memory) a reiserfs module that was significantly slower due to debugging being left on makes kernel recompilation necessary.

I can understand their reservations, but faster fsck times isn't the only reason to move away from ext2

--
---
Silence is consent.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Shane · 2001-10-09 16:13 · Score: 1

I did not mean to say that people don't recompile kernels to suit their needs. I do not think it is the norm for comapnies (at least not large companies like I work for) but I agree that it is pretty common for people to recompile their kernels. But they recompile the kernels that are shipped and supported with their distro i.e. the redhat kernels. The only reaosn why I would compile a mainline kernel is if Redhat was failing to provide me support. Using a kernel that is not offically supported by redhat would harm my ability to get support through redhat.

--
-- You can be a geeklord too :)
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by oconnorcjo · 2001-10-09 16:20 · Score: 2

When people would report a problem, Rik would pretty much say: I don't have time to work on so and so.. feel free to pay me or convince my employeer to fund the work.

From what I understood, Rik was making changes/fixes but Linus was not applying them. Alan Cox was saying he was tired of resubmitting the same VM changes to Linus. I only lightly read the kernel mailing list, but if this is accurate, then it is really Linus's fault for the behavior of the old VM. From what I understand, the VM in ac kernels is not bad either and it is based on Rik's VM work.

--
I miss the Karma Whores.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Shane · 2001-10-09 16:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

Being someone who reads all the posts from the core kernel hackers (at least those that are public) I feel pretty confident in saying for the longest time Rik was to busy to fix bugs. Again he has this right.. Once other people started writting VM code (I think it started once pushonce was being tested by Daniel phillops) Rik has been churning out code at the rate he was in the pre 2.4 release days (back when he is bidding to get his code included). So I would not be suprised in the least that once pushonce was included that Rik patches have been ignored... the reason for which should be obvious Linus decided to take another direction with the VM and Rik's patches were incompatible with that direction.

--
-- You can be a geeklord too :)
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 16:33 · Score: 0

I got the that at least part of the problem was Linus too. Specifically, he wasn't adopting certain patches or was doing in a haphazard manner that introduced bugs.

By most accounts "Rick's VM" is stable in the AC series, and Cox sounds like he's going to stick it until 2.5. That's right kids -- Linux just forked.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Shane · 2001-10-09 16:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

Linux has always been forked in certain areas. Just enver the VM before. Not to mention ALan has stated on LK that he is going to stick with Rik's VM until the other one proves out. He did NOT say that he will keep it until 2.5.

--
-- You can be a geeklord too :)
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Ian+Schmidt · 2001-10-09 16:59 · Score: 2

The new Andrea VM is *much* smoother and more reliable for me in my standard desktop "working set". My machine has 512 MB RAM and 640 MB swap. I run KDE 2.2 and normally have Mozilla, KMail, the CRiSP editor, XMMS, GAIM, and a sprinkling of xterms open and doing stuff. I update and compile several large projects frequently including Wine and XMame.

Prior to 2.4.10, this resulted in the machine gradually filling all swap and then becoming very slow. With the 2.4.10+ VM my system rarely if ever touches swap, and when it does it often eventally comes back out of swap when necessary. It's overall much faster and smoother, and my HD runs less. I haven't tried any of the late model AC kernels where Rik actually started fixing his problems (spurred on no doubt by Linus giving up on him) - they may also run well too, I don't know.

What I do know is 2.4.10 and .11 are among the smoothest kernels I've run since back in 2.2 (as Alan points out, Andrea was ultimately responsible for smoothing out 2.2's VM as well).

One caveat with 2.4.11: starting with 2.4.11pre5 it plays very poorly with USB MS Intellimice. I have to unplug mine while booting 2.4.11 or else I get a continuous scroll of errors and no further boot progress (plugging it back in later resulted in normal operation including in X, but I'm still wary of the updated USB drivers).
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Ambassador+Kosh · 2001-10-09 17:00 · Score: 1

I have been running 2.4.10 as a server and it has been working far better for me under high loads then any other 2.4.x kernel has so far. This is mostly a zope server but it runs a few other things also. Often I will get the load average at 5-10 for a few hours however I have enough memory in the system such that it only goes into swap maybe 100M or so on a 384M of ram box with about 1G of swap available.

I have also been using 2.4.10 with preemption and reiserfs on my desktop box and I have had the load average up over 20 for a few hours while working on stuff and was into swap about 500M with 768M of ram and also have had no problems. I am getting no lockups at all on the new vm and it seems to be using memory a lot better then before. It is releasing swap when it is no longer neeeded and it is working much better under high loads.

--
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 17:09 · Score: 1, Informative

Here's what he said exactly: The VM changes are gigantic and simply not IMHO appropriate for a stable kernel tree. http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Shane · 2001-10-09 17:14 · Score: 2

My reference is his post on LK when someone asked him directly what his plan was for 2.4 once linus hands it off to go work on 2.5. Alan stated he does not know, but he does not expect the new VM to be in a predictable state for a while.

This post was in the last few days so it shouldn't be hard to track down and verify. I would do so but I am off to bed :)

--
-- You can be a geeklord too :)
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by jshare · 2001-10-09 17:52 · Score: 1

My machine has 512 MB RAM and 640 MB swap.
Do you ever use any swap? Honestly, I guess I've never built a machine with X, but I'm only touching around 10megs of swap on a 64meg RAM system.
I mean, it seems like it's good to have it around, if you ever need to work on really huge things, but if you fill up 512megs of RAM, and start swapping, you'd be better off redefining your task anyway.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by XO · 2001-10-09 17:55 · Score: 1

I'm wondering what the hell you people are talking about here - as usual. lol.

2.4.10 is the only kernel in the series since 2.4.2 that I have been ABLE to even RUN on a daily basis, because of the piece of CRAP VM changes made in that area. With 2.4.4-2.4.9, if I did my normal stuff (which is mostly web browsing, email, and chat, along with a web-server that gets about 1k requests/hour), my 96MB ram, 348MB swap system would completely die, and LOCK UP after 4-5 hours, swap and RAM totally exhausted.
Didn't happen once under 2.4.10, with load averages occasionally pushing over 40, and not even a slowdown apparent to me or to my website users (that they told me of anyway). Now, I've got 2.4.11. So far, so good. I forgot to apply the PE patches, though. Hmm.

--
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Isle · 2001-10-09 18:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

But it interresting to see that Rik's VM did NOT start to perform well until Linux adopted Andreas VM. Rik started posted a bunch of fixes to Alan Cox just around 2.4.10pre7 or whenever the Linus made the change.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 19:10 · Score: 0

Have any of you ever thought of moving to FFS - a file system that actually works?
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 19:27 · Score: 0

Didn't eariler 2.4 kernels recommend having swap >= memory for performance reasons? (NT'S got a similar thing where it runs slower without swap, even if you don't need it) If so, it's understandable that people following 2.4 have lots of swap.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 22:24 · Score: 1, Insightful

2.4.10 is the only kernel in the series since 2.4.2 that I have been ABLE to even RUN on a daily basis
Which is nice, yet as soon as even one user reports a problem this is a condition to look into. No problems here means nothing more than your usage profile is just one that does not trigger lurking bugs. One cannot argue away flaws.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Bishop · 2001-10-10 00:31 · Score: 3, Informative

Don't confuse NT's need for swap with linux. NT aggressively swaps everything to disk to insure that there is always lots of free ram. I believe win95/98 is worst. Linux (and BSD) on the other had only swaps when more ram is needed.

My main machine with 512MB ram rarely swaps. So rare infact that I can't remember the last time I checked and saw swap in use.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Bishop · 2001-10-10 00:36 · Score: 2

X chews up ram quickly. Add Mozilla or Netscape and it is worst. I switched from 64 to 128 MB ram a while back and noticed a world of difference. Mainly my machine stopped swapping often.

That said I have no idea what you need 512 RAM and 640 swap for, but I am assumming it is a database or webserver with lots of dynamic content. With X and related stuff I rarely (never) use swap with 512MB ram.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 05:39 · Score: 0

I had exactly the same problem you described with the usb stack and my intellimouse. I was using the alternate UHCI Alternate Driver (JE); I recompiled using the standard UHCI driver instead and everything works great now. The alternate driver used to be a better choice--it was the only way to get my zip drive to work for awhile, but it seems that there has been a lot of work done on the standard driver lately. It's starting to look really smooth and polished!
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:04 · Score: 0

Jeesuz McFucking Christ! Not only did you completely the information I was trying to imply in my post, you fucking karma whored successfully.

Up until 2.4.6 or whatever, Linux ran slower without the backing swap, just like NT does. Even if it didn't need the space and wasn't swapping out. Let's quote Linus:

Not having any swap is going to be a performance issue for both 2.2.x and 2.4.x - Linux likes to push inactive dirty pages out to swap where they can lie around without bothering anybody, even if there is no _major_ memory crunch going on.

If you do have swap, but it's smaller than your available physical RAM, I suspect that the Linux-2.4 swap pre-allocate may cause that kind of performance degradation earlier than 2.2.x would have. Another way of putting this: in 2.2.x you could use a fairly small swap partition to pick up some of the slack, and in 2.4.x a really small swap-partition doesn't really buy you much anything. http://kt.zork.net/kernel-traffic/kt20010126_104.h tml#2

Now, stop trying to be a know-it-all fuck and go and learn something before you open your karma trap.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by greenrd · 2001-10-10 06:37 · Score: 1

That said I have no idea what you need 512 RAM and 640 swap for.
VMWare. VMWare and Windows 2000 is a monster.

--
Female Prison Rape in NY
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by be-fan · 2001-10-10 09:09 · Score: 2

Hmm, I don't know if that's you're problem, but your swap/RAM distribution has problems. Rik has pretty much flat out said that your swap needs to be at least twice as large as your RAM or the VM stops working right. Either way, though, 2.4.10 does run much nicer on my end too.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 18:46 · Score: 0

hahahha, good joke.

performance matters in many cases.

reiserfs and xfs both slaughter FFS+softupdates in every case.
Re:Thoughts on the 2.4.10+ VM by XO · 2001-10-11 16:06 · Score: 1

True, true, very true. Just relating my experience. To point out that for some it was a disaster, to me, it was a godsend.

--
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/

Re: MACH by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 14:42 · Score: 0

Well if OS X were to actually use mach I would
say try using oskit-mach from GNU/Hurd since it
is seems to be comming along nicely.

Ahh well, you could just switch to GNU/Hurd and
have lots of fun ;)

How often do you see a Windows Kernel Update? by AnimeFreak · 2001-10-09 14:54 · Score: 1, Insightful

Whenever Microsoft wants more money from it's OS.

Oh wait, according to them Internet Explorer is their kernel.

Re:How often do you see a Windows Kernel Update? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:19 · Score: 0

amoeba, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22418&cid=2409 151
amoeba, mod me up :D

...

+1, Insightful it is AnimeFreak :P
amoeba, yay! :D
Re:How often do you see a Windows Kernel Update? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 02:07 · Score: 0

It is about half of it, isn't it?
Re:How often do you see a Windows Kernel Update? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 04:50 · Score: 0

First of all that statement is false. Second the Windows kernel is extremely stable unlike the nightmarish hell that trying to keep up with the Linux kernel is. Did you even read any of the other comments in this article?

Schweeeet! -- Is there a friendly .rpm of it? by green+pizza · 2001-10-09 14:57 · Score: 2

Gotta love SDSL. I hope to have 2.4.11 running on my workstation tonight and on the servers at work tomorrow.

Anyone happen to know if there's a RH 7.X-friendly .rpm available for those that are too timid to compile and install their own kernel? Several folks at my office will only install .rpm kernels. Would be nice to get 2.4.11 going at work as soon as possible. I only know a small about of rpm voodoo, so I suppose I'll give it a shot if one isn't already available.

Thanks in advance!

Re: MACH by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:00 · Score: 0

Fiddling with your OS because there are many cool things to do with it == fun.

Fiddling with your OS because it doesn't work at all != fun.

Perhaps you meant to say

Ahh well, you could just switch to GNU/Hurd and induce blinding migraines.

Re:Yet Another Release, expect .12 tomorrow by spinkham · 2001-10-09 15:02 · Score: 1

Everyone knows linux kernels are rather unstable until the mid teens of each major release...
Would you rather them hold off on all the bugfixes?
The kernel releases will taper off when the series really becomes stable, like around .18 or so typically...

--
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.

IEEE1394 works? by Chazmati · 2001-10-09 15:13 · Score: 1

Have you tried the FireWire stuff? I see "Firewire updates" in the ChangeLog, but then again I've seen ieee1394 updates since 2.4.6 that didn't work. Of course I'll find out for myself soon enough.

Not to flame (maybe I'm just cranky today) but I thought 2.4 was the stable version tree. I've been stuck back on 2.4.6 because every later version has locked up (can't even telnet in) when I try to use the ieee1394 system.

I know what I'll hear, 'fix it yourself, it's open source' etc. But seriously, how does non-working code get released as a 2.4.x series kernel?

Re:IEEE1394 works? by AJWM · 2001-10-09 16:09 · Score: 2

The 1394 has been working - more or less - for quite a while, including backports to 2.2.x. The thing is, it is also a work-in-progress: developments in the 1394 subsystems (video/isochronos packets, storage systems, ip-over-1394, etc) can have subtle effects on what works with a given card and peripherals.

Personally I still tend to rely more on the patches directly from the 1394 project (linux1394 on SourceForge) still, although the Mandrake 8.0 1394 stuff worked for me out of the box (mostly, except for a patch to the video driver for an NTSC camcorder). Haven't tried 8.1 yet, nor the stock kernels.

--
-- Alastair

Care to offer an expert opinion? by Luminair · 2001-10-09 15:15 · Score: 1

http://users.eastlink.ca/~willm/moneyshoes/

I think I need someone to explain the phenomenon of the MONEY SHOES to me.

The status of the PowerPC updates? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:15 · Score: 0

With the PowerPC based systems gaining a lot of attention nowadays, how is the status of the PowerPC merges with the Linux kernel? Do I still need to track BenH's tree or can I safely use 2.4.11 for a production kernel?

What about the status of the other non-x86 platforms?

Re:The status of the PowerPC updates? by Jeffrey+Baker · 2001-10-09 15:53 · Score: 2

For powermacs and especially powerbooks, you'd better go with benh. For other powerpc you might want to use paulus. I don't think the stock kernel is the best choice for any ppc.

Yes, I meant mach, not mac kernel by Ghoser777 · 2001-10-09 15:19 · Score: 2

n/t

--
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."

OT: Which distro has a good installer? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:22 · Score: 0

Hi, I've recently been toying around with some old (about 1 yr) Linux distros (specifically Debian, TurboLinux, and Storm Linux) and was wondering what /.ers would recommend. TurboLinux absolutely refused to install (got to where I'm to initialize my HD), Debian didn't install X right (sorry, if I wanted to use a text based OS, I'd go back to DOS), but Storm installed all right. I would have settle with Storm, but they've basically fallen off the map and thought some packages were missing (fyi, the installer never gave me options on what packages I wanted). Another question I would like to ask is if I could switch from, say, Red Hat to SuSE without installing the whole distro?

Re:OT: Which distro has a good installer? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 18:06 · Score: 2, Informative

If you want to stick with a debian-based distribution, I recommend trying a straight debian install again.

After Mandrake pissed me off for the last time, I decided to give a bunch of distributions a try. This was earlier this spring, when a bunch of new distribution versions were coming out. I tried progeny, libranet, debian, redhat, mandrake again, and maybe a couple others that I can't remember.

The first time I installed Debian, I downloaded the stable iso's. I definitely didn't want to stick with stable, but I couldn't find an unstable iso, so I installed stable. I had problems with the dist-upgrade so decided to do a network install. Even though the Debian installer doesn't do much in the way of hardware detection, and it took a couple of tweaks to get everything right, I'm very satisfied now. All my boxes at home and work run Debian now.

Overall, if you want something that is going to auto-detect your hardware, and basically do the install for you, go with RedHat. If you want something that is going to be very easy to maintain, go with Debian.

Anyway, good luck with whatever distribution you choose
Re:OT: Which distro has a good installer? by ll5 · 2001-10-09 18:38 · Score: 2, Informative

It is nice that you are still working on getting Linux set up! You might want to give progeny a go, it is based on debian but the install is much easier to get through. SuSE is not a bad bet, they have some realy nice tools for X configuration. As for mixing and matching distros, I would recommend that you stick with one setup. Some of the differences between distros have to do with the type of package management they use, whether they use custom kernels, the type of init scripts, how the packages were compiled, even the file system.That is probably not something that you want to mess with. Then again, maybe it is and you are just that brave...have fun.Take it for what it is worth, many people here will have valid arguements against any recommendation that someone else is willing to make.

--
Wanna get high?
Re:OT: Which distro has a good installer? by fredlwm · 2001-10-09 19:58 · Score: 1

Slackware. I love dialog scripts.

--
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
Re:OT: Which distro has a good installer? by betis70 · 2001-10-10 06:54 · Score: 1

I just installed Debian last night on a crap, throw-away laptop -P120 that my company was literally sending to the scrap heap. The CD-ROM is not bootable so I had to use some floppies to get it going, then attached it to a hardware modem. I ran pppconfig to set-up my provider, but there was some problem, so I just edited the config files by hand. The Install Procedures on the Debian site are VERY VERY helpful in this regard. They will also walk you step-by-step through the install process with detailed info.
Once I got ppp configured, I dialed into my ISP, ran dselect and installed the rest of my packages. dselect is a bit intimidating at first, but after a few moments you get the hang of it (don't go whipping by the Help menu it has lots of information. More than the pathetic "dselect HOW-TO" on the Debian site). As far as going back to DOS for a command-line ... no way!
I avoided X11 just to be safe with my low memory system, but now have a portable development machine that runs damn fast (for old hw)! My other old laptop (P75!) also runs Debian (w/o X11)and my main workstation runs Red Hat 7.1. Red Hat install was pretty painless - it runs X11 with Ximian Gnome and KDE. Most of the /. people seem to hate Red Hat, but migrating from the MicroSlug world, it makes the installation pretty easy. After you get used to Linux, then you can go play around with other distros that may be more difficult to install. Right now I am looking to roll my own distro using info on linuxfromscratch

--
I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?

Re:first post? by DarkShitter · 2001-10-09 15:28 · Score: 0

do what? Lay a pile of diarrhea on a rooster's nest in the blackness of a dark night? Please help me understrand.

Followup by Chazmati · 2001-10-09 15:29 · Score: 1

Ok, I'll back down a notch and admit it's listed as "(EXPERIMENTAL)" in the kernel configuration dialogs. But I still don't think that's reason enough to break something that once worked.

Sigh, all in the name of progress...

2.4.11? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:30 · Score: 0

Everytime there is a new Kernel, Windows gets buggier. Ever notice that?

Re:2.4.11? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:33 · Score: 0

What I did notice is that MacOS X and Windows both get an update whenever FreeBSD makes a breakthrough performance enhancement or bugfix.

Re:Schweeeet! -- Is there a friendly .rpm of it? by diamondc · 2001-10-09 15:30 · Score: 1

i've read that alan cox has made a 'make rpm' target in the Makefile's. it might just be for only his -ac kernel's though.. not the official ones.

--
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "

Can you compile the kernel under windows? by pmowry911 · 2001-10-09 15:33 · Score: 1

To start off, My work win98 machine is faster than my other boxes running linux. Since IS will not allow me to dual boot, I'm just wondering if the GNU utils under windows would allow for a kernel compile.

Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 16:09 · Score: 0

Sure, it's doable if you have a cross-compilation GCC tool chain. You probably will have to roll your own. Not too hard for someone who is motivated.
Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by pmowry911 · 2001-10-09 16:15 · Score: 1

Just noticed I have the LCC compiler installed and no GCC. I'll go ahead DL everything and give it a try. It may take me a week to build a static (term for no Module support?) kernel, but the worst that can happen is I might learn something.
Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by jamesc · 2001-10-09 16:18 · Score: 1

To start off, My work win98 machine is faster than my other boxes running linux. Since IS will not allow me to dual boot, I'm just wondering if the GNU utils under windows would allow for a kernel compile.

The Linux kernel is strongly tied to recent gcc compilers (use only either 3.0 or 2.96? 2.97?). If you can get gcc to run under Windows then you have a chance.

--
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 17:05 · Score: 0

Sure. Just use the Codewarrior Makefile converter or import the C:\linux-2.4.11\src\kernel.dsp project into MSVC++. Compile and copy it over on a floppy.

Good Luck!
Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by fredlwm · 2001-10-09 19:55 · Score: 1

You can use egcs 1.1.2, although the recommended compiler in Documentation/Changes for 2.4.10 changed to GCC 2.95.3 or .4.

--
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by Adnans · 2001-10-09 20:25 · Score: 2

But won't that make the problem even worse? Unless you have a veeery slow Linux box (486, 16MB RAM) you can probably do a dozen compiles or more in one week :) And I can pretty much say for 100% that the kernel will not compile with LCC. Plus you must have an as86 compatible assembler to build the more interesting parts. Nevertheless, good luck, and if you do succeed, let us know! :-)

Also, check out CygWin

-adnans

--
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by TheAwfulTruth · 2001-10-10 04:47 · Score: 1

Why in the world would this be? Are you saying that those compilers are being changed to accomodate kernel hacks? Or is the kernel code taking advantage of compiler hacks? I know that gcc has some terrible and dangerous hacks like allowing runtime variable length arrays on the stack. Is the kernel using them? This would seem like a very detrimental situation if so.

--
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:36 · Score: 0

Try VMWare, no need to dual boot.
Re:Can you compile the kernel under windows? by jamesc · 2001-10-11 14:59 · Score: 1

Why in the world would this be? Are you saying that those compilers are being changed to accomodate kernel hacks? Or is the kernel code taking advantage of compiler hacks? I know that gcc has some terrible and dangerous hacks like allowing runtime variable length arrays on the stack. Is the kernel using them? This would seem like a very detrimental situation if so.

The kernel is making use of compiler hacks that aren't strictly standard. You named one. Others include the way that inline asm code is done, some new pragmas, etc.
And yes, many times ANSI just doesn't cover the kind of enhancements compiler and/or kernel developers want, so they have to roll their own. It's not really wrong, but it does limit portability to another compiler.

--
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."

new kernel by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:33 · Score: 0

does anyone know when this will be included in redhat or mandrake? i dont know how to make a kernel myself. the howto was of no use either

Re:new kernel by KidSock · 2001-10-09 16:53 · Score: 2

does anyone know when this will be included in redhat or mandrake? i dont know how to make a kernel myself. the howto was of no use either

Never. They will likely use there own tweeked versions. In particular Red Hat will use an Alan Cox variant. When they release 7.2 for example it will have one of the more stable versions tweeked and hamstrung in various ways to their taste. The kernels that you would get from Kernel.org are kinda raw. You have to know your config and make adjustments on the fly. Stick with the post-proccessed distro kernels.

IrDA by SilentChris · 2001-10-09 15:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

Oh boy, IrDA has been updated. *groan*

NTFS, NTFS, NTFS boys. In a year or two most systems out there will have it in XP, and Linux will be catching up to support it. We can make a run for a majority of the NTFS 5.0 changes now, so at least people will be able to access their drives.

Re:IrDA by RelliK · 2001-10-09 15:56 · Score: 2

NTFS has been supported since at least 2.2.x.

--
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Re:IrDA by _vapor · 2001-10-09 16:01 · Score: 1

Can you write to an NTFS partition yet?

--
www.poak.net
Re:IrDA by Coolfish · 2001-10-09 16:03 · Score: 2

that so ? i have 4-5 NTFS partitions and my fresh install didn't understand any of it (couldn't mount it at all). I'm a linux newbie, but i have some friends who live the os, practically, and their understanding is NTFS support is "not good". "there, but not good".
Re:IrDA by RelliK · 2001-10-09 16:06 · Score: 3, Informative

there's been read-write driver since 2.2.x (at least) but it was marked experimental and could easily cause file system corruption. A lot of work is being done on write support right now. Of course since NTFS is undocumented and Microsoft keeps making subtle changes to it, it's very hard to get a stable read-write support. Read-only works perfectly though. I've used it myself way back when I had NT 4 on my machine.

--
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Re:IrDA by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 16:42 · Score: 0

You should do some more digging before you try to write to NTFS. As of a few months ago, you needed to avoid certain operations and run a repair kit before booting back into Windows.
Re:IrDA by Webmonger · 2001-10-09 17:17 · Score: 2, Informative

Many distro kernels don't have NTFS support compiled-in. If you haven't done so already, you may wish to compile 2.4.11 with NTFS support.
Re:IrDA by BurritoWarrior · 2001-10-09 18:12 · Score: 1

I thought the issue was that you could read NTFS 4 (NT) partitions, but not NTFS 5 (Win 2K) partitions.

Am I wrong?
Re:IrDA by Junta · 2001-10-09 19:35 · Score: 3, Informative

You can read Win2k fine, but writing to 2k ntfs can be extremely dangerous and corrup the journalling..

--
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Re:IrDA by joshki · 2001-10-09 20:47 · Score: 1

NTFS read has been supported for as long as I can remember -- write is definitely NOT supported though. I screwed up a whole partition trying it once (fortunately had good backups)...

--
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
Re:IrDA by Jon+Evans · 2001-10-10 00:06 · Score: 1

Kernel development doesn't work like that. It's not like the "team" decides which bit to work on. In this case, someone stepped forward with IrDA patches. You can't assume from this that they would have otherwise been working on NTFS.
Re:IrDA by pi_rules · 2001-10-10 03:33 · Score: 4, Funny

Soo... what you're saying is that the Linux version acts exactly like the MS one? Most exellent.
Re:IrDA by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:38 · Score: 0

XP Home Edition will not be using NTFS.

Re:Schweeeet! -- Is there a friendly .rpm of it? by SnapperHead · 2001-10-09 15:40 · Score: 1

Use the source! Take a look at the Makefile in the root of the source tree. Theres a make spec and make rpm target. I am going to try it for shits and giggles, I didn't know there was such an option :)

--
until (succeed) try { again(); }

first winmodem driver in the kernel by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:54 · Score: 1, Informative

Although the changelog does not list it, with the merge Linus did with Alan during -pre2, the driver for the IBM MWAVE chip found in certain models ThinkPad's of the 600 and 770 series was merged into the mainstream tree.

However up until -pre6 the config option is missing from the menu's (I doubt it was fixed in -final).
In Alan's 2.4.10-ac2 and later the config option is available.

Re:first winmodem driver in the kernel by AnimeFreak · 2001-10-09 15:59 · Score: 1

This is nice to hear because I do have a winmodem on a machine that runs Linux. It doesn't use the MWAVE chip, it uses the Connexant chip, but if one Winmodem chip driver allready exists, then I look forward to future kernels supporting it.

It will also give me a reason to upgrade to kernel 2.4 as I am still using 2.2.19 :)
Re:first winmodem driver in the kernel by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 16:09 · Score: 0

Not much chance of that unless Connexant releases an opensource driver like IBM did, or releases the complete specs and someone is willing to write the driver for it.

Writing a driver for a software modem is anything but easy.
Re:first winmodem driver in the kernel by AnimeFreak · 2001-10-09 16:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Isn't Connexant a subsiderary of Hewlett Packard? If so, then why wouldn't they release their source since HP is a big supporter of Unix?
Re:first winmodem driver in the kernel by foonf · 2001-10-09 17:40 · Score: 1

The mwave driver isn't necessarily a sign of things to come (although the open-source lucent driver may be finished eventually). IBM has been very good about opening the specs to their hardware (especially as no modern IBM systems use the mwave), and furthermore, this driver was literally under development for years.

Because of the amount of the functionality of these things, especially newer PCI ones, that is done in software, and especially how much of it is patented by the various soft-modem developers (conexant, lucent, pctel), its a better bet just to grit your teeth and use the binary drivers.

--

"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Re:first winmodem driver in the kernel by betis70 · 2001-10-10 07:04 · Score: 1

Have you checked out the linmodem site? There is some info there on a possible Connexant driver for some of their modems - HSF type. I was thinking of using this, but decided my WinModem was running like crap anyway so I got a regular modem. Plus it was an HCF type so the drivers on linmodem.org probably would not work.
Still, that doesn't help much with a laptop does it? I wish I could use my 3COM X-jack modem with my linux laptops, but sadly I have found no info on drivers for it. Doubtful they are in the works either.

--
I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?

Stupid troll by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 15:54 · Score: 0, Troll

Andrea is a friggin female, you have to say her VM alternative.

Re:Stupid troll by hpa · 2001-10-09 16:18 · Score: 4, Informative

Unfortunately that picture is not at all of Andrea Archangeli, who is most definitely male. Sorry.

pre6 patch works by tarka69 · 2001-10-09 16:02 · Score: 1

The .11-pre6 patch applies and builds. I'm running on it now.

--
The comfort you demanded is now mandatory - Jello Biafra

Why hasnt www.kerneli.org responded lately? by DEATH+AND+HATRED · 2001-10-09 16:08 · Score: 0, Troll

Well?

Re:Schweeeet! -- Is there a friendly .rpm of it? by Xylothan · 2001-10-09 16:10 · Score: 1

Just as a side note, the AC tree has "make rpm" that works well. I don't know if that is in the Linus tree yet...

My problem with 2.4.10 and 2.4.11 by killme · 2001-10-09 16:10 · Score: 1

. apm broken (both):
whenever X exits, the system crash or reboot
without going throught "init 6".

. if CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ set, 2.4.11 compile
fails

I cannot believe they are releases of stable branch, Sigh.

Re:My problem with 2.4.10 and 2.4.11 by NerveGas · 2001-10-09 18:21 · Score: 1

> I cannot believe they are releases of stable branch, Sigh.

According to Alan Cox, in a message to the XFS list, he mentions that 2.4.10 is kindof 2.5 in disguise. It looks like Linus is making some fairly large changes that aren't as proven as those which he normally includes in production releases.

Does that bother me? Not really. I still have 2.4.0 running on my servers, and that only because it was reputed to do better on multiprocessor machines. Maybe the next time I do hardware upgrades I'll think about a newer kernel.

steve

--
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Re:My problem with 2.4.10 and 2.4.11 by XO · 2001-10-09 20:10 · Score: 1

Having no problems with CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ on this end, complete clean 2.4.11 source tree.

Had LOTS of compile problems with a source tree that i just overwrote with 2.4.11, which normally works for me.

X exiting and hard locking the system has been a problem for me ever since v0.99.15, and has never stopped.

--
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Re:My problem with 2.4.10 and 2.4.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 03:57 · Score: 0

I've had a few problems with that too. Why not try compiling apm as a module and inserting it in the init 0 script. Lets face it, the only thing anyone uses it for is automatic shutdown.

ICQ module by jeffstar · 2001-10-09 16:25 · Score: 1

What I really want is to get my hands on that ICQ module that let you do file transfers through an IP Masq. It existed for 2.2 but i can't even find a copy of the source for that anymore, the webpage seems to have disappeared. With all the changes to the ip masquerading code the old module doesn't work for 2.4.

I know it may not seem like a big deal but every student house around me complains that their ICQ file transfers don't work, no matter if they are using a router, windows internet connection sharing or linux.

You can do it by forwarding ports and configuring the ICQ clients but the module would have been nice because then I wouldn't be responsible for all my housemates icq installs too.

Re:ICQ module by nimm · 2001-10-09 18:58 · Score: 1

have a look at the netfilter site (netfiler.samba.org I *think*). It talks about these nat helpers, like IRC and FTP etc... Aparently even if one for ICQ is written it wouldn't be included in the kernel because they only want stuff in there that has both free servers and clients (there are no free ICQ servers, just ICQ - many free clients yes though).

--
Jason Nicholls [Mind Socket - www.mindsocket.com.au]
Re:ICQ module by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 19:49 · Score: 0

There is a BSD licenced ICQ server at
http://iserverd.khstu.ru/
(and it works)

Site with the patch by berzerke · 2001-10-09 16:37 · Score: 1

Here's a site with the patch www.angelfire.com/linux/berzerke.

oom_kill()? Not in my kernel! by cbwsdot · 2001-10-09 16:42 · Score: 2, Informative

I think that was one of the things causing some MM problems under heavy loads. Have they gotten rid of this yet? I think it was gone just after 2.4.10. But, I don't like the sound of "resurrect oom handling" in the 2.4.11 changelog.

-Chris

Re:oom_kill()? Not in my kernel! by CaptnMArk · 2001-10-09 23:27 · Score: 1

I agree about oom_kill being a terrible klugde.
It's about time Linux supported non-overcommit memory allocation properly instead of the current "efficient" hack.
What we need is:
/proc/sys/vm/overcommit-pages
This would specify he amount of allowed overcommit. If set to 0 (the default) there should not be any overcommit at all!
I think this would help the VM development tremendously because I believe that currently the margin between systems in OOM state and heavily loaded systems is not clearly defined, the system just gets slower until oom_kill happens.
It would be also be useful to disable discarding of executable pages (programs, shlibs). I have noticed this causing slowdowns on my system without swap. I'd prefer to be notified to add more swap instead.

OpenAFS broken by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 16:42 · Score: 0

I'm using the latest OpenAFS 1.2.1, with the module compiled against the 2.4.11 sources. Any attempt to access AFS space hangs.

OpenAFS worked fine on 2.4.9 (modulo an apparently harmless oops on rmmod'ing the openafs module, which I believe is due to the changes to the 2.4 struct inode in 2.4.6...)

Confirmation would be appreciated.

Re:I Hate Anime by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 17:02 · Score: 0

Don't be sorry for being a bigot. There's nothing you can do about it.

XFS by ink · 2001-10-09 17:43 · Score: 2

XFS is officially in the kernel now. You need to download a newer version of ext2 file utilities to use it:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=2406

Major kudos to all the kernel folks!

--
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.

Re:XFS by NerveGas · 2001-10-09 18:26 · Score: 1

> Why not XFS inaddition to ext3 ?

Alan Cox said on the XFS list that it's because the XFS for Linux project has a lot of functions brought over from the SGI port which are duplications of Linux kernel functions. Before it will be put into regular kernels, those (as well as a few other issues) will have to be taken care of. I'd like it to happen, but I don't think that it will be any time soon.

steve

--
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.

Ooops! EXT3 is in the kernel by ink · 2001-10-09 17:55 · Score: 1

Sorry, I meant that EXT3 is in the kernel.

--
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.

XFS by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 17:55 · Score: 0

Why not XFS inaddition to ext3 ?

errors by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 18:25 · Score: 0

I'm getting these repeated usb raced timout errors when I try to boot 2.4.11. Help?

SPARC support by wysoft · 2001-10-09 18:28 · Score: 0

I know that I should really read the documentation, but I figure there are a few Slashdotters that would just as easily answer my question with examples of their own personal experience..

I've heard from a few people that SPARC support (specifically, sun4m) in 2.4.x isn't as solid/fast as it was in 2.2.x kernels. Currently, I'm running 2.2.19 on a few SPARC systems that require it, and I'd like to hear some 2.4 experiences before I consider giving it a go on any of the systems.

Thanks.

--
-- I'll cut you up so bad, you'll wish I'd never cut you up so bad!

Re:SPARC support by spauldo · 2001-10-09 23:04 · Score: 1

I don't do anything seriously intense with it, but I'm running 2.4.10 on my ultra-1 and haven't had any problems with the kernel at all. When I first dist-upgraded to testing, the 2.2 kernel would panic when I tried to access my NFSv3 server, but 2.4.10 (kernel.org version) seems to do allright.

Offtopic, but anyone ever get solaris 8 to install with networking on an ultra-1 with the buggy firmware problem that causes the ethernet chips to not initialize? Tried setting the option to probe the network on boot, but it didn't help. I'm wanting to run solaris, but can't get it to go.

--
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.

Thank you Alan Cox by serps · 2001-10-09 18:42 · Score: 1

Alan Cox: continued merging (drivers, license tags)

I'm not a very technical person, so I'm glad that after Mr Cox completes his merging, I can just open up my box and ask him directly when I have problems compiling.

At least in this release I have an excuse for speeding. "Officer, I wasn't the driver, so ask my linux box for its license tags."

--
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks

Re:Thank you Alan Cox by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 19:20 · Score: 0

That joke is older than Methuselah.

Wow, dude by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 18:49 · Score: 0

Smoke a joint or something. You need to relax.

Re:Tards!! by lsdino · 2001-10-09 18:55 · Score: 1

Just recently, IE 5.5 has decided to scroll up from where it should be whenever I hit back.

It's quite possible that IE is simply reloading the page and going back to the same height as it was previously. I see this on here a lot because so many people post in such a short amount of time...

Another conspiracy dispelled, and someone even saw your post...

Re:Ooops! EXT3 is in the kernel by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 19:50 · Score: 0

No it isn't.

"Stable" Versioning by labradore · 2001-10-09 20:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't think that anyone takes the kernel versioning as seriously as they used to. I thought that stable kernels were not supposed to include any really new core features but mostly just bug fixes and perhaps new drivers, etc.

Rik's VM should have either showed up in the 2.3 tree and been stabilized there before entering 2.4 or the 2.5 tree should have been opened with it. I guess since 2.4 had to be pushed out the door (and I'm glad it was) there was no time for his VM to mature inside 2.3. But would it be worthwhile to let those ideas stagnate? So much really new activity has been going on since 2.4 that perhaps it would be too hard to manage 2.4 and 2.5 kernels with lots of active development going on both simultaneously.

It seems to me to be a hard management decision to make. The 2.4 series needed a lot of fixes and at the same time there has been a lot of new stuff floating around. Would introducing the 2.5 a few versions ago have slowed development on 2.4 and increased overall patch-management headaches? I suppose the answer is yes but I don't have an idea about how badly it would slow things down.

I do think, however, that it is wonderful to have both Linus and Alan Cox around and maintaining diverging credible trees. They can both gain perspective watching the other's code grow and break. When the two trees do finally merge again we (hopefully) will have the best characteristics of both.

Re:"Stable" Versioning by johnnyb · 2001-10-10 02:49 · Score: 2

I lost faith in Linux versioning and tree management a looooong time ago. I pretty much stick with distribution kernels these days. There are several things wrong with the current process, which could be fixed.

There needs to be OVERLAP of development kernels. For example, when 2.3 turned into 2.4-test, the 2.5 branch should have IMMEDIATELY shown up. That way, there is always a place for those who are good at doing new stuff and a place for those fixing what's there. This also greatly increases turnaround time. Also, Linus sucks at maintenance. He's good at development, but not at stabilizing and maintaining. Alan Cox is wonderful in that area. The _instant_ 2.3 became 2.4-test the reigns should have been handed to Alan Cox, to be released as 2.4.0 whenever Alan said it was ready. That way, Linus can spend his time dreaming up wonderful things and Alan can make it all work.

Anyway, I'd post this to LKLM, but I don't have time to be a kernel hacker myself.

--
Engineering and the Ultimate

2.5? by redcliffe · 2001-10-09 20:20 · Score: 0

When is the 2.5 tree going to be started? I can't wait for 2.6!!!! :-)

Is kernel development model broken?? by bockman · 2001-10-09 20:21 · Score: 2

No trolling intended. Just a plain question.

To an outsider, it would look like the answer is Yes:

AC e LT source trees are diverging on issues sometime techical sometime 'political'. There will ever be a full merge?
The 2.5 tree is not coming out, and the 2.4 is merging huge and 'revolutionary' patches.

It seems to me that the model which worked so well for 2.2/2.3 series is not working anymore. In a true bazar fashion, a new model is already trying to define itself, and the AC and LT tree may be part of it. Maybe it is just time to admit it and try to define the new model a bit more clearly, if possible.

--
Ciao

----

FB

Re:Is kernel development model broken?? by tao · 2001-10-09 23:48 · Score: 1

Alan doesn't have a complete merge between the ac-tree and Linus' own tree as a goal. Even for the kernel-tree Alan himself maintains (v2.2.xx) he sometimes releases ac-patches when he deems something not stable enough to go into the main kernel.

The v2.5 tree will open when v2.4 is on a quality-level such that Linus won't have to bother with it again. Having to focus on several trees at once is bothersome business.

YES, the change from Riel's VM to Arcangeli's VM was revolutionary (and not necessarily evolutionary) and shouldn't have been made, but it seems that most problems have been solved now non-the-less.

Thoughts on kernel development model by Erik+Hensema · 2001-10-09 20:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

During the stable life of 2.4.x it became more or less clear to me that the current model of development for the Linux kernel doesn't work very well.

Changes that were too experimental for a stable kernel but too important to be deferred to an experimental kernel were included in 2.4.x all the time (the VM changes in 2.4.10 being the best example).

This makes me wonder: isn't it possible to improve the scheme of x.even.y = stable and x.odd.y = unstable? Even as we speak the -ac series provides an experimental kernel within the stable series. Maybe we could enhance this model into something more official.

I'm not sure about the actual form yet. I was thinking about something in the line of three kernels:

Stable: users should be able to rely on this blindly. This kernel works. Each and every release.
Testing: this kernel should evolve into the next stable kernel. More ambitious than the current -pre kernels; longer running development and more testing. Yet, nothing really radically new.
Experimental: playground for hackers. New features are introduced here.

The 'Testing' branch is new. I imagine these kernels to be released every month or so, at about the rate the stable kernel is released now. As soon as the Testing kernel proves something works and it stable, it's up for inclusion in the stable kernel.

Stable kernels should IMHO be lower-paced. Maybe a major release every four to six months or so. The VM is allowed to change radically, but only after having been tested extensively in the Testing series. Offcourse simple bugfixes should be allowed in. This would give us a stable kernel every month. It just wouldn't be a terrible interesting one, as it should be.

The Experimental kernels are as experimental as the current x.odd.y series.

--

This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.

Re:Thoughts on kernel development model by sprouty76 · 2001-10-09 20:46 · Score: 1

Isn't that similar to what the FreeBSD folks do? It makes sense to me, but then I'm not a kernel hacker, so what do I know?

--
No, I don't want a free iPod
Re:Thoughts on kernel development model by sydb · 2001-10-09 22:30 · Score: 2

What you describe is like the current Debian branch model, which seems to work very well.

If stability is your highest priority, you stick to the stable release, which is pretty much guaranteed uptime. So it's good for important servers. Can get out-of-date quickly, though, depending on your needs.

For desktops and less mission-critical servers, the testing release suits. Get the (almost) latest software, and retain a good level of stability.

Developers and masochists get to play with the unstable release.

Could be a good idea.

--
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Re:Thoughts on kernel development model by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 04:41 · Score: 0

I think something like this would be a good idea:
x.[even #].[even #] = fully stable production kernel.
x.[even #].[odd #] = some semi-experimental changes to the stable kernel. Things that work would be included in the next fully stable kernel
x.[odd #].[even # | odd #] = unstable kernel branch
Re:Thoughts on kernel development model by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:44 · Score: 0

The experimental branches already exist on the individual boxes of various kernel hackers. -aa and -ac happen to be publicly available. The problem with your proposal is who will run the 'testing' kernel. It's the same thing that happens before a
x.even.0 release-- it should be stable, but before you release it not enough people run it. The solution, I think, requires a bit more organization than is currently practical for Linux development. Namely a series of regression tests, and a database of testers and what hardware they have. Then Joeschmoe who happens to own the Wazoo SCSI3000 controller could get a polite email asking him to download and run a certain kernel and a certain test suite and email the results back.
Re:Thoughts on kernel development model by John+Allsup · 2001-10-11 01:15 · Score: 1

If you're after stability, then why would you be upgrading(aka going through the download-compile-reboot-rinse-lather-repeat cycle) with every release of a new kernel. Don't go to a new product immediately (the common sense attitude that the industry analysts always adivise for a new Windoze release also applies here), firstly you should see whats changed, and only upgrade once an important change has come about and been run in, secondly you definately should wait for a newer release of the kernel to be run in before downloading and installing it.

someone may like to take this up as a suggestion, but woudln't it be an idea to have a website somewhere comparing newer and older releases of the kernel (i.e. notes about how they work in practice, where someone upgraded from, which version to, and what improvements there were...)

--
John_Chalisque

On your servers? by Bake · 2001-10-09 20:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

Stable branch or not.
You really should NOT run production servers (the ones at work anyway) on the latest and greatest kernels.

Who knows what data corrupting bugs are in a new kernel? I recall a few years back when a kernel was released in the that corrupted data over time. (Albeit that was in the testing branch, 2.1.44, but it's a matter of principle).

At least set it up on test servers first before launching on production servers.

Do yourself (and us) a favour, try before you buy.

I won't run 2.4.11 by Stonehead · 2001-10-09 20:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

Just like the majority of you readers, I am not a kernel developer. But I like to know what I'm running. My conclusion is that if you want a stable kernel, ignore Linus' tree and use the Alan Cox tree. To say it blunt, 2.4.10+ really is 2.5, and you should only run it if you are prepared for some weird behaviour.
Now am I a troll? Hope not. I did get my info out of Kernel Traffic, which I've been reading for months. It is a very good, understandable and clear compression of all important things that happen on the linux kernel mailinglist. If you use Slashdot as your only information portal about the kernel, you are *braindead*.
Ok, now my point - it is the VM subsystem. By now you should know that 2.4.x, until recently 2.4.10, used the VM code by Rik van Riel. That code has taken some time to develop, but you definitely can't blame Rik as the cause for all 2.4 stability problems, as well as the eternal delay of 2.5. But according to the l-k list, Linus himself made several errors in including Rik's patches, which indeed caused 2.4.7 and up to be unstable! Ok, now stop and think about this. Linus has an enormous responsibility. He didn't realize where the fault was, but he did perceive that the stable kernels were NOT stable. He knew that Andrea Arcangeli was still working on his own VM (that work improved Rik's VM too in 2.3. Not having a monopoly really does improve invention!) Then Linus made the big step: even in a *stable* series, he took over Andrea's VM and threw out Rik's one. This is really an important decision, and I applaud it!
The only thing Linus should not have done, is labeling this thing 2.4.10. It really is 2.5. For the big public, that kernel was definitely everything but a stable kernel. Luckily a lot of problems have been solved since (2.4.11 is a hell of a lot better than 2.4.10), and I consider Andrea Arcangeli really a good coder, but actually I trust Alan Cox most. He commented that Linus' recent kernels trashed several boxes of his overnight. Alan really sees the -ac tree as the stable one currently. I run 2.4.9-ac18 too, with the kernel preemption patch as mentioned earlier, on a p2-233 with quite some load, and it doesn't show any strange behaviour. (The kernel preemption patch doesn't do really much here: I still get skips when I record an mp3 from my soundcard and switch desktops in the meantime. But I should not expect wonders :))
One last thing: Rik van Riel's VM has improved *too*. Alan Cox catches up with his patches very speedily. No more big bugs; Rik even added some optimizations in 2.4.9-ac16. I can't see that of course, but overall the system is a lot more responsive than 2.4.3-pre6, my last kernel before this one.
So my advice: use the ac-series of the kernel. Linus has made some wise decisions. I think he should start 2.5 and leave 2.4 to Alan, before people go sulking about 2.4.10 versus the always-stable reputation of the Linux kernel.

Re:I won't run 2.4.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 04:40 · Score: 0

Huh, funny how the "monopoly" doesn't have this kind of problem and doesn't subject it's users to this kind of torture.
Re:I won't run 2.4.11 by festers · 2001-10-10 05:29 · Score: 1

Nobody makes Linux users play with new kernels like this. You can live happily with the kernel that came with your distro (barring the seldom security update) and never give a thought to the kernel devel process. Besides, the "Monopoly" forces you to wait a couple years for a kernel update, then makes you pay for it.

Whoops, IHBT.

--

-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Re:I won't run 2.4.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:42 · Score: 0

I got Windows XP RTM 2600 off MSDN and installed it.

Blue screen STOP error in win32k.sys when I select the Properties dialog for the network adapter.

Meanwhile my Linux fileserver is running fine since the day 2.4.9 came out.
Re:I won't run 2.4.11 by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-13 04:29 · Score: 0

Actually no, I can't. :> I bought Redhat 7.1 when it came out, and there seems to be some sort of a bug in the included kernel (well actually, in every version of the 2.4 kernel that I've tried) that freezes the machine solid when it a) swaps heavily or b) too many things are being done at once. As a few examples; KDE 2.1.1 freezes immediately upon starting up, before it ever reaches the desktop..Gnome loads fine, but any attempt to say, run more than two CPU intensive programs at once (ie. XMMS and something else) results in a freeze. Worse still, there's no way to go back and check what the problem was, as every time it's frozen I've had to reboot; and upon rebooting found that the partition Linux was installed to was damaged so badly that it will no longer boot.

Production boxes using vendor kernels? by A+Masquerade · 2001-10-09 20:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

I believe the truth is that most people that use Linux in production do not roll their own kernels. They use the vendor supplied kernels. Redhat for example will be releasing a 2.2.7-11-AC kernel which uses Rik's VM, it is what they have been testing for months and thus is what they will end up shipping.

Anyone running a production set worth their salt will be running their own kernel base, tuned for their own environment. The vendor kernels are a compromise, trying to please everyone, with every service you could ever imagine compiled in (and hence every bug/exploit included). Production boxes doing serious work are more likely to have a kernel set built for the purpose.

Vendor kernels are far more likely to be used by people who are not that bothered about kernels and stability

FWIW my production boxes run a 2.2.19 heavily patched.

Network driver updates? by L_Luthman · 2001-10-09 21:00 · Score: 1

Does anyone know where to find more details about the network driver updates? I'm running 2.4.7 with the via-rhine driver for a D-Link DFE 530TX, and it dies when I try to download something big. It would be very nice if this has been fixed in the new version.

Re:Network driver updates? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 04:44 · Score: 0

I've never had that problem with that card.
Re:Network driver updates? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 10:20 · Score: 0

I've never had that problem with that card.

I have. Lots of "eth1 error - resetting card" and other such error messages (it doesn't actually reset the card, I have to down the interface, then rmmod and insmod the module manually.) Replacing the card with another of the same type didn't help. In the end I took it off my 100Mbps switch, and plugged it into my cablemodem (10Mbps). It still gives me problems every couple of months or so, but not nearly as much as it used to.

Re:I won't run *Linus'* 2.4.11 by Stonehead · 2001-10-09 21:09 · Score: 1

Damn, overseen one more thing in previewing: Alan Cox' 2.4.10-pre series still includes Rik's VM. So you can choose: if you want Riks VM, use Linus' tree. For Andrea's VM, use Alan's tree. I only run 2.4.9-ac18 because that one was out when I needed it. I could have been running 2.4.10-ac10 now too, but there have been little important fixes since. Bugtraq reported a bug in the netfilter code, so if I've got to recompile anyway, I'm waiting for that one to be fixed properly :)

Re:I won't run *Linus'* 2.4.11 by Stonehead · 2001-10-09 21:12 · Score: 1

AAARGH. Swap that! Linus tree has Andrea's VM, Alan's tree has Riks VM. And now go read Kernel Traffic yourself!

I'm perplexed by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 21:30 · Score: 0

If someone submits an article announcing a point release (i.e. FreeBSD 4.4) for a BSD operating system the flames start aflying saying that its not newsworhty... but a point point release of the Linux kernel gets released everyone cracks a boner!

Redhat 7.2 by augustz · 2001-10-09 21:34 · Score: 2

Looking at the impact on 7.2... the big changes in VM say something about the older VM that will no doubt be packaged with redhat. Hope they can get any issue with it nailed down, because their .2 series has always been rock solid stable. Ahh well, there is always .3

Re:Redhat 7.2 by tao · 2001-10-09 23:37 · Score: 1

The "old" VM (or rather, the -Riel VM) will probably be packaged with RH 7.2, yes, because that's what Alan has in his v2.4.xx-ac kernels which mostly are the base for RedHat's kernels. Rik van Riel's VM is better documented (little instead of no) and seems to work predictably nowadays.

I hope that v2.5.xx will be opened soon, so that any forth-coming VM-tuning will be done there instead of in the supposedly stable kernel.
Re:Redhat 7.2 by efgbr · 2001-10-10 10:47 · Score: 1

Actually, there will be no 7.3 release (there will be a 8.0 though).

Red Hat 7.2 is ready and is going to be available next Monday. It will ship with Linux 2.4.8/2.4.9, ac tree.

Re:Ooops! EXT3 is in the kernel by phaze3000 · 2001-10-09 21:46 · Score: 2

Care to enlighten me on where you got this information? It's not mentioned in the changelogs or as a config option..

--
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.

nvidia? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-09 22:41 · Score: 0

My box acts bizzare and sometimes lock up while logging out of X if I use nvidia drivers by nvidia. Might be related.

Re:nvidia? by garcia · 2001-10-10 02:28 · Score: 1

I have a voodoo3. Unless there is something w/that as well.
Re:nvidia? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:03 · Score: 0

That is 100% NVidia's fault for not telling anyone how thier binary only closed source drivers work.

Bitch to them.

reasons to upgrade.. by Lumpy · 2001-10-09 23:02 · Score: 2

I'm still happily running 2.4.3 on everything, it still works as well as it did when I installed it.

As always, what compelling reasons is ther to upgrade? It's not like other O.S.'s where you have to unless you want major security or stability issues. and I have yet to find one app that has a kernel requirement.

Add to that the fact that RedHat 7.1 is a major pain in the arse to upgrade without the blessed redhat rpm packages (Hey, at least I got work to run linux, and it had to be redhat for the support and the fact that the CEO holds some RHAT stock.

If someone could come up with a decent way to install a current kernel in RH7.1 without breaking everything that runs on startup (kudzu and all the other fodder) without waiting for Redhat to put one together and bless it.

other than that one issue, there is no reason for a corperate user or the regular user to upgrade the kernel.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Re:reasons to upgrade.. by tao · 2001-10-09 23:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

XFree 4.1 requires a v2.4.10 or v2.4.11 kernel to use DRI/DRM. On the other hand, Xfree 4.0 doesn't work with v2.4.10/v2.4.11.

Other than that, the need for upgrading is mostly if you experience problems or have new hardware.

AFAIK you can use make rpm to build an RPM of your kernel nowadays (new in v2.4.(some number > 3). For Debian, the counterpart is ake-kpkg which has existed for ages.
Re:reasons to upgrade.. by Eil · 2001-10-10 14:32 · Score: 3, Informative

XFree 4.1 requires a v2.4.10 or v2.4.11 kernel to use DRI/DRM.

There's always the possibility that I could be missing something here, but... either I'm highly insane in you are very wrong. According to my XFree86 log, I'm running version 4.1.0 (Released on June 2, 2001).

Would not this mean that XFree 4.1 was released before there even was a 2.4.10 kernel? My X setup is the same one that came on Slackware 8.0, which ships with Linux kernel version 2.4.5. I've been playing Quake3 and Unreal Tournament on this setup for months now, DRI and all.
Re:reasons to upgrade.. by tao · 2001-10-11 02:12 · Score: 1

Well, I wouldn't want to accuse you of being highly insane, but... Changelog-2.4.8 says thusly:
- Jeff Hartmann: upgrade DRM to XF86 4.1.x, drop support for 4.0.x

So either you're using a kernel >= v2.4.8 or a vendor-kernel that has been patched to provide DRM for v4.1, or you aren't using DRI/DRM despite believing so.
Re:reasons to upgrade.. by Eil · 2001-10-11 15:29 · Score: 2

Ah. Hmm. Well I am using the NVidia binary drivers, which claim support for DRI since the very first 2.4 kernel. I don't know what DRM is. A quick web search didn't help much.

I'm running Slackware 8.0, so neither the kernel nor X has been patched, yet I'm getting an average of 60fps in UT... about the same as Windows got.
I guess am insane.

Where do you report bugs? by jessh · 2001-10-10 00:33 · Score: 1

I tried upgrading to 2.4.10 the other day and noticed that the new kernel even with all of the same configuration could no longer suspend my system. This is on my laptop and not being able to
suspend is a major problem. I have not tried 2.4.11 but I didnt see anything about apm in the changelog.

Can anyone point me to where the best place to go to inform people of bugs and get information on how to help fix them is?

Also where is the best place to submit patches to if I manage to fix the bugs myself?

Re:Where do you report bugs? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 04:13 · Score: 0

It may be the fact that your new kernel can't find the module for apm, try this:

1. locate apm.o
2. insmod /path/to/apm.o
3. shutdown -h now

if this works you can add the line to insert the module to /etc/rc.d/... some file with a zero in its name, this script is run on shutdown
Re:Where do you report bugs? by jessh · 2001-10-11 11:01 · Score: 1

Thats not the problem, It has apm, it can shutdown just fine and everything, and give me battery status, it just fails when trying to suspend, I dont remember what the error message was.

Big Endian Reiser? by hey! · 2001-10-10 00:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Does anyone know the "Reiserfs cleanup" noted in the changelog include big-endian support?

The base reiser code ONLY supports little endian architectures (shame!). I recently put one of my PPC based servers on the AC tree to get big-endian reiser support, but I've heard the AC tree patches have file fragmentation problems. I'm a little nervous about going live with this thing because of the reported VM problems and a potentially flaky reiserfs.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.

Re:Big Endian Reiser? by cbwsdot · 2001-10-10 07:40 · Score: 1

Have you tried here?
http://www.suse.com/~jeffm/
Re:Big Endian Reiser? by hey! · 2001-10-10 09:05 · Score: 2

I hadn't checked there today so I missed to patch for 2.4.11 pre 6. Kudos to jeff and thanks for the update. I guess the answer is that they still haven't mainstreamed the bigendian patches.

Well, there's always ext3.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.

Re:Ooops! EXT3 is in the kernel by ink · 2001-10-10 02:43 · Score: 1

Well its in 2.4.10-ac9, so I assumed Linus would have merged it into 2.4.11. It seems I was wrong.

--
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.

Re:Changing timer int. is not a good idea by RadioheadKid · 2001-10-10 02:54 · Score: 1

Granted, if you like to hack around, changing HZ is an interesting exercise, but for most applications, not a good solution for better responsiveness. Just think, right now, most x86 computers are dealing with 100 timer interrupts a second, not much overhead. Now lets change it to 50 times more interrupts! Granted today's processors are much more faster, but that's a lot of cpu bandwidth you are wasting, for a gain in responsives. Everytime an interrupt is handled, the CPU has to change context, just like process switching, but 5000 times a second, with most of these switches not needed, because there won't be much to do. 100 is a good number. It's perfect for human interfacing, like mouse/keyboard sampling, and fits most needed timer applications, and it's a happy mid-ground for system stability. I think if there was a great benefit to changing HZ, the very knowledgable kernel developers would have already done it.

KidA

--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson

Re:Ooops! EXT3 is in the kernel by phaze3000 · 2001-10-10 02:56 · Score: 1

It doesn't really work like that - the -ac tree is seperate, similar to the 'testing' branch of Debian - pretty stable, everything is tested but not guaranteed to be stable. Alan acts as a buffer, feeding through relevant bits to Linus.

--
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.

Problemo with IBM 1.2/1.3 JDKs by Nick+Mitchell · 2001-10-10 02:57 · Score: 1

I applied the preempt patch to 2.4.10. Reboot. Now the IBM 1.2.2 and 1.3 JDKs hang (every time). They work fine on a vanilla 2.4.9, and on 2.4.10-ac4 and 2.4.10-ac10.

Notice that I haven't yet determined whether the bug was in the AA VMs or in the preempt patch :), but thought I'd point this out.

nick

Re:Problemo with IBM 1.2/1.3 JDKs by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 18:38 · Score: 0

could be a latent bug in the JVM.

preemption flushes out race conditions like nothing else...

Submission by Syberghost · 2001-10-10 03:10 · Score: 1

Hey, Taco;

How many Perl bots do you estimate auto-submit this to you the instant files appear in the FTP site?

I must be stupid... by Second_Derivative · 2001-10-10 03:35 · Score: 0

but, what the hell is VM? Virtual Memory? Virtual Machine? I hear a lot of stuff about VM performance wrt krnl2.4, can someone enlighten me? *waves down some karma whores*

Re:I must be stupid... by augustz · 2001-10-10 13:37 · Score: 2

Virtual Machine

Microsoft aren't THAT stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 05:06 · Score: 0

Microsoft's server OSes favor services in their default configuration.

Re:Perhaps 2.5? What is the different? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 05:21 · Score: 0

As I can remember 2.4.x is the first production serie that it can not been use IN PRODUCTION without taking a big risk that your production system will stop working.

How the hell can people be thinking about 2.5 when 2.4 has such big problems f.ex: with VM and even the developers of the kernel say that you should not upgrade to 2.4.x if what you need is a system you can trust.

I miss those days where a production kernel was a production kernel and you could be sure it will work and it was STABLE.

Re:Ooops! EXT3 is in the kernel by hammock · 2001-10-10 05:53 · Score: 1

Yes it is.

Re:??? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:00 · Score: 0

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

A Buffy overflow is when you are fucking Buffy in her tight ass and blow your load, and when you pull out all the jizz overflows and runs down the inner thigh. Bonus points for Willow lapping it up like the rug muncher she is.

raced timeout by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:20 · Score: 0

I just upgraded from 2.4.10 and I'm seeing a lot of 'raced timeout' messages at bootup. I still have to do some investigation into what the cause is -- but I never saw these before upgrading to 2.4.11. Anyone else seeing these?

Linux 2.4.11 boxes by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 06:34 · Score: 0

Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!

Dang - does anyone test these before release? by Skuld-Chan · 2001-10-10 08:26 · Score: 1

I tried to install it on my Sparcstation 10 - which I'd like to use as a firewall. 2.2.19 had some wacky bugs with the ethernet card (an ancient bigmac), 2.4.10 wouldn't compile at all (only let me know this after working on it for 4 hours), 2.4.11 compiled (still took 4 hours) but it hangs on startup when trying to free boot memory.

Then again I guess there's not a whole lot one can ask for a 10 year old machine.

Re:Dang - does anyone test these before release? by AnimeFreak · 2001-10-10 09:22 · Score: 1

SPARC support in the 2.4.x kernel series hasn't been up to snuff, but eventually the hardware will be supported.

I had a similar issue with a Macintosh LC II (Motorola 68030 processor). It would not run a 2.2.13 kernel even though it was said it could, I just upgraded the kernel to 2.2.19 and it worked just fine.

Re:Changing timer int. is not a good idea by be-fan · 2001-10-10 08:34 · Score: 2

Actually, 1024 is about 10 times larger than 100. On BeOS, the timer interrupt is signficantly faster (either 333Hz, or 4096HZ, I forget) and it doesn't impact performance. Processors are so fast these days that the timer interrupt isn't really an issue anymore. The 1024 HZ was put in for the Alpha processor, and current x86 chips are a lot faster than the old Alphas. In fact, changing the HZ really doesn't effect anything in a normal kernel. Also, 10ms is a really long latency for audio purposes. If you want to do real time audio, you'd better be down in the few milliseconds range.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...

2.4.11 broke my nvidia card by mrklaw · 2001-10-10 09:17 · Score: 2, Informative

Anyone else out there find that after compiling 2.4.11 and then recompiling the nvidia kernel module X wouldn't work. I did.. I tried older versions of the nvidia drivers as well.

Oh well.. its back to 2.4.10 for me..

Re:2.4.11 broke my nvidia card by Eil · 2001-10-10 14:36 · Score: 2

NVidia has been fairly good about keeping their Linux drives up to speed. I would expect an update on their web site eventually, definitely within a few months. Now if only they'd open that source code.

On another note, can anyone enlighten me as to what the hell happened to the crypto patches? kerneli.org doesn't resolve anymore and the /crypto tree on kernel.org only has patches up to 2.4.3. What's going on here? Has development on the crypto patches stopped? I loved my crypto-enabled kernels!

Linus' response was VERY naive by Dwonis · 2001-10-10 14:15 · Score: 2

Let's hope what Linus said about other operating systems is not true:

5. What do you think of the FreeBSD 5 kernel and WindowsXP's new features from a clearly technical point of view?
Linus Torvalds: I don't actually follow other operating systems much. I don't compete - I just worry about making Linux better than itself, not others. And quite frankly, I don't see anythign very interesting on a technical level in either.

I think if this is true, Linux is being extremely stupid in this regard. Many operating systems have had serious design flaws that permanently staggered their development. Paying attention to other similar systems is a very important part of system development -- it keeps you from making the same mistakes others have made.

Re:Changing timer int. is not a good idea by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-10 18:33 · Score: 0

10ms timeslices are good for throughput for apps that use lots of CPU with few blocking calls (something BeOS was never good at). If a higher (dynamic) priority process becomes runnable during a timeslice, it should preempt as quickly as possible. This is what is really meant by latency.

Changing HZ has no effect at all on latency (which is almost what you were arguing).

HZ only affects context switches per second for purely (or mostly) CPU bound app loads.

worked for me by Sits · 2001-10-10 21:11 · Score: 1

This is unhelpful I know but I recompiled my kernel (after updating the linux symlink).

2.4.12 by eXENCE · 2001-10-10 23:07 · Score: 1

2.4.12 is out! But the parport is broken in it.

2.4.11 had a fix for a symlink DoS attack, but sadly that fix broke the
creation of files through a dangling symlink rather badly (it caused the
inode to be created in the very same inode as the symlink, with unhappy
end results).

Happily nobody uses that particular horror - or _almost_ nobody does. It
looks like at least the SuSE installer (yast2) does, which causes a nasty
unkillable inode as /dev/mouse if you use yast2 on 2.4.11.

("debugfs -w rootdev" + "rm /dev/mouse" will remove it, although I suspect
there are other less drastic methods too if your fsck doesn't seem to
notice anything wrong with it. Only one report of this actually happening
so far).

So I made a 2.4.12, and renamed away the sorry excuse for a kernel that
2.4.11 was.

Linus

-----
final:
- Greg KH: USB update (fix UHCI timeouts, serial unplug)
- Christoph Rohland: shmem locking fixes
- Al Viro: more mount cleanup
- me: fix bad interaction with link_count handling
- David Miller: Sparc updates, net cleanup
- Tim Waugh: parport update
- Jeff Garzik: net driver updates

Kernel 2.4.11.6.32.4.2 by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-11 01:28 · Score: 0

Every other week, another kernel. No wonder Linux doesn't have any decent uptimes on NetCraft. Do people actually run this in production ?

Re:Yet Another Release, expect .12 tomorrow by Cro+Magnon · 2001-10-11 02:55 · Score: 1

You must be psyhic!

--
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.

Lack of ICQ module prevents 2.4.x installation by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-11 05:56 · Score: 0

Without an ICQ module in the "stable" 2.4.x kernels, Linux is not an option for firewall admins that might have *wanted* to run Linux on the firewall.

Many companies *do* use ICQ and *do* listen to the demands of their users behind the firewall.

Please let me put Linux 2.4.x on my firewall! (My boss "needs" to be able to talk with his wife/kids he says.)

Re:Changing timer int. is not a good idea by be-fan · 2001-10-11 09:08 · Score: 2

I think you've misunderstood the way Linux schedules. The HZ timer tells how often the OS should call the timer interrupt (not how long a time slice is). In the timer interrupt, the OS calls the scheduler to see if any processes with higher "goodness" have become available. If none have, the scheduler continues to run the current program, until the program's quantum (time slice) runs out. This has two ramifications:

1) HZ sets an upper limit on how quickly a process can be preempted. Since the OS only checks every 10ms for a better process, a higher priority process could become available for up to 10ms before it could get to run. This is only really an issue when you're doing high-end audio work. Check either the low-latency patch pages or the preempt patch pages for some benchmarks with the 1000HZ patch for x86.

2) If all processes are of equal priority, the current process will run for up to 50ms (the 2.4 timeslice) before something preempts it. 50ms is sluggish enough that the user could notice, and could certainly kill audio latency unless the audio thread was reniced down. This is more of a problem in Linux than in other OSs because the priority of a process is not changed by the OS. In BeOS, for example, all GUI threads automatically recieve a higher priority. In fact, there is a standard set of calls for setting the priority of a thread to a value based on the type of work the thread will be performing. In Linux, the user usually has to change priorities manually, so most processes tend to be bunched up at the default priority.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...

Last post by clarkie.mg · 2001-10-24 06:09 · Score: 1

I am bored therefore I am.

--
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel

386 comments