Re:Changes/Improvements
by
Eslyjah
·
· Score: 5, Informative
More readable version.
final:
- David Miller: sparc/scsi scatterlist fixes
- Martin Mares: PCI ids, email address update
- David Miller: revert TCP hash optimizations that need more checking
- Ivan Kokshaysky/Richard Henderson: alpha update (atomic_dec_and_lock etc)
- Peter Anvin: cramfs/zisofs missing pieces
pre8:
- Andrea: fix races in do_wp_page, free_swap_and_cache
- me: clena up page dirty handling
- Tim Waugh: parport IRQ probing and documentation fixes
- Greg KH: USB updates
- Michael Warfield: computone driver update
- Randy Dunlap: add knowledge about some new io-apics
- Richard Henderson: alpha updates
- Trond Myklebust: make readdir xdr verify the reply packet
- Paul Mackerras: PPC update
- Jens Axboe: make cpqarray and cciss play nice with the request layer
- Massimo Dal Zotto: SMM driver for Dell Inspiron 8000
- Richard Gooch: devfs symlink deadlock fix
- Anton Altaparmakov: make NTFS compile on sparc
pre7:
- me: reinstate "delete swap cache on low swap" code
- David Miller: ksoftirqd startup race fix
- Hugh Dickins: make tmpfs free swap cache entries proactively
pre6:
- me: remember to bump the version number;)
- Hugh Dickins: export "free_lru_page()" for modules
- Jeff Garzik: don't change nopage arguments, just make the last a dummy one
- David Miller: sparc and net updates (netfilter, VLAN etc)
- Nikita Danilov: reiserfs cleanups
- Jan Kara: quota initialization race
- Tigran Aivazian: make the x86 microcode update driver happy about
hyperthreaded P4's
- me: shrink dcache/icache more aggressively
- me: fix up oom-killer so that it actually works
pre5:
- Andrew Morton: remove stale UnlockPage
- me: swap cache page locking update
pre4:
- Mikael Pettersson: fix P4 boot with APIC enabled
- me: fix device queuing thinko, clean up VM locking
pre3:
- René Scharfe: random bugfix
- me: block device queuing low-water-marks, VM mapped tweaking.
pre2:
- Alan Cox: more merging
- Alexander Viro: block device module race fixes
- Richard Henderson: mmap for 32-bit alpha personality
- Jeff Garzik: 8139 and natsemi update
pre1:
- Michael Warfield: computone serial driver update
- Alexander Viro: cdrom module race fixes
- David Miller: Acenic driver fix
- Andrew Grover: ACPI update
- Kai Germaschewski: ISDN update
- Tim Waugh: parport update
- David Woodhouse: JFFS garbage collect sleep
That's nice, but its not really news...
by
Nailer
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
There's so many interesting userspace apps slashdot could write about. Unless the kernel has some new feature or fixes a major secutiy hole, I personally don't see how interesting each minor release is. Slashdot isn't freshmeat.
If/. is going to write about apps, why not focus on the new and clever ones - like
* MPlayer allowing us to play WMVs under out OS of choice
* Xine, finally maturing into a solid high quality DVD player
* Partimage providng a useful and open source disk imaging system
* Ximian's setup tools beta making an X config tool that doesn't suck
OI don't have anything against the kernel, but we all know there's always goiung to be a new kernel every couple of weeks. There's so many interesting userspace Open Source projects we could be hearing about.
After all, isn't the point of an OS to run *apps*?
Re:That's nice, but its not really news...
by
garcia
·
· Score: 4, Flamebait
I don't read freshmeat. I search for things there. It isn't something I really care to see everyday.
I don't subscribe to the kernel announce list. I don't care to read a bunch of garbage everday.
A new kernel may not be news for everyone but it is certainly news for nerds.
If they tell us when the release of XP is, or when the release of a new variant of Code Red or the like is out, why not the kernel.
Sorry but I feel that the latest kernel is quite acceptable to be shown on/.
If you don't, tough. It obviously is going to stay no matter how many of you comment on it (remember, we have seen these posts before).
I like it.
Re:That's nice, but its not really news...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Funny
wouldn't it have been nice if you did? or I did?:)
Re:That's nice, but its not really news...
by
cvincent
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I don't read freshmeat. I search for things there. It isn't something I really care to see everyday.
you dont have to, you can subscribe to the linux kernel entry on freshmeat and recieve an email when a new version is out.
I don't subscribe to the kernel announce list. I don't care to read a bunch of garbage everday.
so release information is not garbage when its on slashdot but it is garbage when it comes from the actual source?
If they tell us when the release of XP is, or when the release of a new variant of Code Red or the like is out, why not the kernel.
Then by this very logic, CNN should be running stories on the latest Linux kernel release? XP is a bit different from 2.4.13 to 2.4.14 and Code Red made quite an impact on the Internet.
If you don't, tough. It obviously is going to stay no matter how many of you comment on it
That may be so, but dont expect the opposite and rely on slashdot to only run the stories you want. I bet if slashdot wasnt running stories on kernel updates that stories would still be submitted every release.
incorrect mirrors link
by
fonebone
·
· Score: 4, Informative
On 31 Oct 2001, Michael Peddemors wrote:
>
> Lets' let this testing cycle go a little longer before making any
> changes.. Let developers catch up..
My not-so-cunning plan is actually to try to figure out the big problems
now, then release a reasonable 2.4.14, and then just stop for a while,
refusing to take new features.
Then, 2.4.15 would be the point where I start 2.5.x, and where Alan gets
to do whatever he wants to do with 2.4.x. Including, of course, just
reverting all my and Andrea's VM changes;)
I'm personally convinced that my tree does the right thing VM-wise, but
Alan _will_ be the maintainer, and I'm not going to butt in on his
decisions. The last thing I want to be is a micromanaging pointy-haired
boss.
(2.5.x will obviously use the new VM regardless, and I actually believe
that the new VM simply is better. I think that Alan will see the light
eventually, but at the same time I clearly admit that Alan was right on a
stability front for the last month or two;)
> My own kernel patches I had to stop because I couldn't keep up.... Can
> we go a full month with you just hitting us over the head with a bat
> yelling 'test, dammit, test', until this is tested fully before
> releasing another production release?
I think we're really close.
[ I'd actually like to thank Gary Sandine from laclinux.com who made the
"Ultimate Linux Box" for an article by Eric Raymond for Linux Journal.
They sent me one too, and the 2GB box made it easier to test some real
highmem loads. This has given me additional load environments to test,
and made me able to see some of the problems people reported.. ]
But I do want to make a real 2.4.14, not just another "final" pre-kernel,
and let that be the base for a reasonably orderly switch-over at 2.4.15
(ie I'd still release 2.4.15, everything from then on is Alan).
Linus
-- w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
Version niceness
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Funny
The 2.4 kernel will be complete only when it reaches the "Version Niceness" factor, that is version 2.4.24.
There's no (official) public CVS or nightly builds of the Linux kernel, so these releases (and the pre-xx ones) are all there is.
No one's forcing you to upgrade, and you really shouldn't upgraded as often as possible, you should only upgrade if you know that the new version has an imrovement / bugfix / new feature that you need or want.
And even then, in theory you should test it thoroughly on a test machine before putting it on a production box. (Though of course for desktop users this is usualy not much of an option).
What happened to the report (see this Slashdot story from Nov. 2) that Alan Cox
would be replaced by Marcelo Tosatti as the
stable release coordinator?
Re:call it what it is
by
mabinogi
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Actually, A Service pack is a collection of patches and updates to a wide variety of services and applications that make up the complete system, and have been tested (in theory) to work together, and can be installed in one go.
A new kernel version would be just one small part of a service pack.
So no, it's not a service pack, and even if it were.....would that be a bad thing?
Personally, I'd rather be seeing lots of updates, which indicates that development is still being done, than to see nothing, and live under the uncertaintly of not knowing whether this meant that the system I had was perfect, or if the maintainters just didnt care.
Though you're definitely right about "if it's not broke, don't fix it" part.
-- Advanced users are users too!
New rules when announcing Kernels.
by
SirStanley
·
· Score: 3, Flamebait
Since when is the Linux Kernel "The Kernel" "Kernel 2.4.14 is Out" is being highly biased towards Linux users... I thought Affirmitive Action was Illegal.. Isn't showing bias towards a Lesser Operating system in order to get it more accepted Affirmitive Action? Dammit. I run FreeBSD. My Kernel isn't at 2.4.14.... So I'm alienated.... Where's the ACLU?
-- --------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
Well, there was the "sorry excuse for a kernel" 2.4.11 which was withdrawn due to the symlink bug. So you could argue that we are at number 14...:)
Re:Useless point...
by
shanek
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
And how do you know the "14-and-counting Dept." didn't start counting at 0 as well?:^)
Re:why is this news?
by
jfmiller
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Normally I just lurk but I feel the need to disagree with Mr. Grimes.
I like many who read Slashdot am a linux enthusiast. I appriciate having a place where my OS of choice is reported on with the zeal and timeliness that Microsoft gets in the main stream press. Slashdot is one of the few sights I read on a daily basis, and I for one appriciate hearing about the new kernels. along with the rest of the pertinante Tech news.
My local paper still lists The High School football team's results on the front page every Saturday during the fall, even though most of it's readers dont have kids on the HS football team. It builds a sence of community pride wich is greater than the information that is contained or it's relevance to peoples lives.
Kernel anouncements on slashdot are appriciated by me and I hope a great many other readers. And even if there are only a few of us Linux is one of the things that form Slashdot's Community, and therefore in the interest of Community pride I encourage CT to continue to post all the kernel updates.
JFMILLER
-- Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Preemptible kernel patch
by
tarka69
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Once again it's worth mentioning the preemptible kernel patch. I've been running this for the last couple of releases, and for a developer's desktop system it give noticable results.
Case in point from yesterday: Running gnome desktop, with a kernel build going in the background, while ripping a CD, running mozilla and netscape 4.x, and running and testing a mod_perl/mysql system, all on the same machine, xmms didn't miss a beat.
No, I'm not exaggerating. This was all on a 700MHz Athlon, 256M, IDE.
-- The comfort you demanded is now mandatory - Jello Biafra
Re:Changes/Improvements
by
brer_rabbit
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The ChangeLog definitely needs some verbosity. The word to the wise is "only update if you need to", yet viewing the changelog leaves one wondering if they need the newer software.
What exactly do entries like "shrink dcache/icache more aggressively" or "random bugfix" mean? The former I'd guess has to do with data and instruction caches, but what aggressively shrinking does to them I have no clue without a more context. And the latter, "random bugfix", I hit my coworkers over the head when I see that in our CVS logs.
So is my current kernel effected? Am I missing out by not having my dcache/icache shrunk more aggressively? Or maybe those random bufixes effect me? A little more verbosity in the ChangeLog would go a long way. Having to follow the hacker's mailing list is not an option, this should be included in the release notes.
Re:call it what it is
by
Arandir
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Linus really, really, REALLY needs to start the 2.5.x branch.
Stable branches need to be stable. Do all of the new feature experimentation in unstable. It's gotten to the point now that "stable" has become a meaningless word in linuxland.
Next time around, let's fork off 2.7.0 at the same time 2.6.2 is released. Or maybe Linux needs to split into three branches: "flimsy" for experimentation and VM wars, "unstable" for up-to-date hardware support but no new features, and "stable" which only gets bug and security fixes.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
2.4.14 not ready yet either
by
(startx)
·
· Score: 5, Informative
looks like this one isn't ready yet either. loop.c needs some sergery, or else the whole thing won't even compile, dying at
drivers/block/block.o: In function `lo_send':
drivers/block/block.o(.text+0x894f): undefined reference to `deactivate_page'
drivers/block/block.o(.text+0x8999): undefined reference to `deactivate_page'
make: *** [vmlinux] Error 1
it's allready been posted to the lkml, look for a 2.4.15-pre1 or at least a loop.c patch to come around soon.
Re:Life on the edge is too stressful
by
EvlG
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Yes they should release.....open source methodology is release early and often.
Re:Changes/Improvements
by
BJH
·
· Score: 4, Informative
It's not easy to bring the summaries down to the level of your average user; certainly, there's plenty of stuff that I don't undertand fully. But anyway, here's some additional explanations for the last two updates:
final:
- David Miller: sparc/scsi scatterlist fixes SCSI on Sparc machines is now more stable.
- Martin Mares: PCI ids, email address update The kernel now identifies some PCI hardware more precisely.
- David Miller: revert TCP hash optimizations that need more checking Remove some changes to the TCP stack, as they're not quite ready for primetime
- Ivan Kokshaysky/Richard Henderson: alpha update (atomic_dec_and_lock etc) Changes to Alpha-specific, er, stuff
- Peter Anvin: cramfs/zisofs missing pieces Properly merge the cramfs/zisofs changes
pre8:
- Andrea: fix races in do_wp_page, free_swap_and_cache Virtual memory handling is now more stable
- me: clena up page dirty handling This also improves VM
- Tim Waugh: parport IRQ probing and documentation fixes Automatic IRQ assignment for parallel ports works better
- Greg KH: USB updates USB subsystem improved
- Michael Warfield: computone driver update Erm... dunno. What's a computone?
- Randy Dunlap: add knowledge about some new io-apics Improve the kernel's handling of particular chipsets' IRQ assignment
- Richard Henderson: alpha updates Who knows?
- Trond Myklebust: make readdir xdr verify the reply packet Since it's Trond, it's probably a RAID or VFS update...
- Paul Mackerras: PPC update Bring Linus's kernel more up-to-date with respect to the PPC tree
- Jens Axboe: make cpqarray and cciss play nice with the request layer Probably RAID stuff...
- Massimo Dal Zotto: SMM driver for Dell Inspiron 8000 Make the kernel work better on a particular type of laptop
- Richard Gooch: devfs symlink deadlock fix Fix a bug in devfs's handling of symlinks
- Anton Altaparmakov: make NTFS compile on sparc Allow people to read NTFS filesystems on Sun Sparc hardware
I'm subscribed to l-k, so if I actually bothered to read the 200-odd messages coming in each day, I could probably give a better summary... anybody know how to stretch a day to 30 hours?
New ./ feature idea
by
Atilla
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Ok, how about this -
maybe major kernel release posts should go in their own category, so whiners could set their user prefs to not display them.
Who's chrisd? Is that short or Christine? Finally, a female editor. But I still think this is discriminatory because a Kernel release is trivial. Let's see what Christie can really do! Let her post something real goddamnit!
The latest Kernel Traffic suggests that Alan is considering using the AA VM anyway. Looks like Rik's stuff is getting dumped entirely. That is unless they can figure out how to parameterize VM's and make it a compile time option as they've been talking about.
Re:call it what it is
by
psamuels
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Linus really, really, REALLY needs to start the 2.5.x branch.
Everyone is saying this, but there are issues involved. They were saying the same thing before 2.2 was even released - "give us a 2.3 so we can play". Linus doesn't work that way, because he believes (unlike, say, the Debian folks) that the resulting "brain drain" due to people hacking on the next unstable release unacceptibly hinders the bug-fixing effort in the current stable.
Sure, it's at least 80% psychological, but it does work, for all that. If you read his posts, you'll see that Linus has never been one to shy away from using psychology!
The unfortunate fact is, until recently, 2.4 did not have a usable VM. We can argue all day about whether Linus was too hasty in integrating Andrea's VM (I think he was, which is why I've switched to -ac kernels for now) but it is hard to argue that 2.5 should have forked before the 2.4 VM shaped up... at least given Linus's brain drain philosophy.
So, while the 2.4-only series has almost certainly gone on too long, there are valid reasons for it. Perhaps if you had contributed all your VM fixes six months ago, we could have had a 2.5 by now. (:
-- "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
Re:From the changelog
by
WNight
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It's not a problem with his English skills, it's a problem with his typing.
Even if it wasn't, not everyone speaks or writes English fluently. Even those who grew up with it. And you know, nobody really cares, other than you, and nobody (I mean that, not even your mother) cares what you think. If they did, you'd have better things to do than flame Linus over a typo.
Ack, I wouldn't try running the latest Linux distros on older hardware, as the latest distros are obviously "optimized" for newer hardware. Red Hat 6 should run fine, although there are a number of different paths you could take. I've been using Debian, and it installs on everything from a 386 to an Itanium, and runs smoothly. It's a bit harder to install, but then installing and upgrading software on it is a piece of cake later on, using apt-get.
Another route you could take would be to try FreeBSD, as even the newest versions still run very nicely on old hardware. I recently installed FreeBSD 4.4 on a P75 with 16 MB of RAM, and it has been chugging along, happily playing MP3s via NFS in our living room. I can even be compiling software while playing MP3s, and it plays flawlessly.
The issue you mentioned about Tuxracer going so slow is because the S3 Trio64+ doesn't have OpenGL hardware acceleration (to my knowledge, at least), which means that Tuxracer is going to do all of the OpenGL via software. This equates to incredibly low frame rates, until a better video card is used. Your best bet, if you're really looking into running OpenGL applications, would be 1) buy a better video card, 2) install XFree86 4.1.0 (see xfree86.org), and 3) enjoy.
I'm not sure about the SoundIII drivers you are asking about -- search google for "SoundIII and Linux" and see what comes up.
I'll throw in my own plug, then!
by
jd
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
For those wanting to try the pre-emptible kernel patch, the HP scheduler-plugin, compressed memory hardware, STP, XFS, JFS, Linux on an old VMS box, any one of a number of VME crates, serial-based network controllers, or the various latency clean-ups, then you could always try the FOLK kernel seris. FOLK 2.3.0 is stable (gasp!) and provides more today than the first fifty 2.5.x kernels are likely to.
(And by the time those come out, FOLK will be comparable to Linux 2.7.0 in terms of features & performance.)
-- It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Slashdot Mirror
More readable version.
;)
final:
- David Miller: sparc/scsi scatterlist fixes
- Martin Mares: PCI ids, email address update
- David Miller: revert TCP hash optimizations that need more checking
- Ivan Kokshaysky/Richard Henderson: alpha update (atomic_dec_and_lock etc)
- Peter Anvin: cramfs/zisofs missing pieces
pre8:
- Andrea: fix races in do_wp_page, free_swap_and_cache
- me: clena up page dirty handling
- Tim Waugh: parport IRQ probing and documentation fixes
- Greg KH: USB updates
- Michael Warfield: computone driver update
- Randy Dunlap: add knowledge about some new io-apics
- Richard Henderson: alpha updates
- Trond Myklebust: make readdir xdr verify the reply packet
- Paul Mackerras: PPC update
- Jens Axboe: make cpqarray and cciss play nice with the request layer
- Massimo Dal Zotto: SMM driver for Dell Inspiron 8000
- Richard Gooch: devfs symlink deadlock fix
- Anton Altaparmakov: make NTFS compile on sparc
pre7:
- me: reinstate "delete swap cache on low swap" code
- David Miller: ksoftirqd startup race fix
- Hugh Dickins: make tmpfs free swap cache entries proactively
pre6:
- me: remember to bump the version number
- Hugh Dickins: export "free_lru_page()" for modules
- Jeff Garzik: don't change nopage arguments, just make the last a dummy one
- David Miller: sparc and net updates (netfilter, VLAN etc)
- Nikita Danilov: reiserfs cleanups
- Jan Kara: quota initialization race
- Tigran Aivazian: make the x86 microcode update driver happy about
hyperthreaded P4's
- me: shrink dcache/icache more aggressively
- me: fix up oom-killer so that it actually works
pre5:
- Andrew Morton: remove stale UnlockPage
- me: swap cache page locking update
pre4:
- Mikael Pettersson: fix P4 boot with APIC enabled
- me: fix device queuing thinko, clean up VM locking
pre3:
- René Scharfe: random bugfix
- me: block device queuing low-water-marks, VM mapped tweaking.
pre2:
- Alan Cox: more merging
- Alexander Viro: block device module race fixes
- Richard Henderson: mmap for 32-bit alpha personality
- Jeff Garzik: 8139 and natsemi update
pre1:
- Michael Warfield: computone serial driver update
- Alexander Viro: cdrom module race fixes
- David Miller: Acenic driver fix
- Andrew Grover: ACPI update
- Kai Germaschewski: ISDN update
- Tim Waugh: parport update
- David Woodhouse: JFFS garbage collect sleep
There's so many interesting userspace apps slashdot could write about. Unless the kernel has some new feature or fixes a major secutiy hole, I personally don't see how interesting each minor release is. Slashdot isn't freshmeat.
/. is going to write about apps, why not focus on the new and clever ones - like
If
* MPlayer allowing us to play WMVs under out OS of choice
* Xine, finally maturing into a solid high quality DVD player
* Partimage providng a useful and open source disk imaging system
* Ximian's setup tools beta making an X config tool that doesn't suck
OI don't have anything against the kernel, but we all know there's always goiung to be a new kernel every couple of weeks. There's so many interesting userspace Open Source projects we could be hearing about.
After all, isn't the point of an OS to run *apps*?
I think they meant to link to this url.
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
From: Linus Torvalds
;)
;)
.... Can
CC: Kernel Mailing List
On 31 Oct 2001, Michael Peddemors wrote:
>
> Lets' let this testing cycle go a little longer before making any
> changes.. Let developers catch up..
My not-so-cunning plan is actually to try to figure out the big problems
now, then release a reasonable 2.4.14, and then just stop for a while,
refusing to take new features.
Then, 2.4.15 would be the point where I start 2.5.x, and where Alan gets
to do whatever he wants to do with 2.4.x. Including, of course, just
reverting all my and Andrea's VM changes
I'm personally convinced that my tree does the right thing VM-wise, but
Alan _will_ be the maintainer, and I'm not going to butt in on his
decisions. The last thing I want to be is a micromanaging pointy-haired
boss.
(2.5.x will obviously use the new VM regardless, and I actually believe
that the new VM simply is better. I think that Alan will see the light
eventually, but at the same time I clearly admit that Alan was right on a
stability front for the last month or two
> My own kernel patches I had to stop because I couldn't keep up
> we go a full month with you just hitting us over the head with a bat
> yelling 'test, dammit, test', until this is tested fully before
> releasing another production release?
I think we're really close.
[ I'd actually like to thank Gary Sandine from laclinux.com who made the
"Ultimate Linux Box" for an article by Eric Raymond for Linux Journal.
They sent me one too, and the 2GB box made it easier to test some real
highmem loads. This has given me additional load environments to test,
and made me able to see some of the problems people reported.. ]
But I do want to make a real 2.4.14, not just another "final" pre-kernel,
and let that be the base for a reasonably orderly switch-over at 2.4.15
(ie I'd still release 2.4.15, everything from then on is Alan).
Linus
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
The 2.4 kernel will be complete only when it reaches the "Version Niceness" factor, that is version 2.4.24.
nightlies?....
aren't you confusing this with Mozilla...
There's no (official) public CVS or nightly builds of the Linux kernel, so these releases (and the pre-xx ones) are all there is.
No one's forcing you to upgrade, and you really shouldn't upgraded as often as possible, you should only upgrade if you know that the new version has an imrovement / bugfix / new feature that you need or want.
And even then, in theory you should test it thoroughly on a test machine before putting it on a production box. (Though of course for desktop users this is usualy not much of an option).
Advanced users are users too!
you know, at the rate these updates are comming, they're going to run out of numbers, and they'll have to start calling them 'service packs'...
What happened to the report (see this Slashdot story from Nov. 2) that Alan Cox would be replaced by Marcelo Tosatti as the stable release coordinator?
Actually, A Service pack is a collection of patches and updates to a wide variety of services and applications that make up the complete system, and have been tested (in theory) to work together, and can be installed in one go.
A new kernel version would be just one small part of a service pack.
So no, it's not a service pack, and even if it were.....would that be a bad thing?
Personally, I'd rather be seeing lots of updates, which indicates that development is still being done, than to see nothing, and live under the uncertaintly of not knowing whether this meant that the system I had was perfect, or if the maintainters just didnt care.
Though you're definitely right about "if it's not broke, don't fix it" part.
Advanced users are users too!
Since when is the Linux Kernel "The Kernel" "Kernel 2.4.14 is Out" is being highly biased towards Linux users... I thought Affirmitive Action was Illegal.. Isn't showing bias towards a Lesser Operating system in order to get it more accepted Affirmitive Action? Dammit. I run FreeBSD. My Kernel isn't at 2.4.14.... So I'm alienated.... Where's the ACLU?
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
Linus posted this note to the linux kernel mailing list before the story of Nov. 2, so this should not be seen as a reversal of that story.
:).
Alan is free to do what he wants with the kernel including pass on its maintenance to someone else
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
"from the 14-and-counting dept."
:)
We're actually at 15 (not 14) and counting - kernel version numbers are 0-based, and sequential.
Sorry moderators - I just had to
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
Normally I just lurk but I feel the need to disagree with Mr. Grimes.
I like many who read Slashdot am a linux enthusiast. I appriciate having a place where my OS of choice is reported on with the zeal and timeliness that Microsoft gets in the main stream press. Slashdot is one of the few sights I read on a daily basis, and I for one appriciate hearing about the new kernels. along with the rest of the pertinante Tech news.
My local paper still lists The High School football team's results on the front page every Saturday during the fall, even though most of it's readers dont have kids on the HS football team. It builds a sence of community pride wich is greater than the information that is contained or it's relevance to peoples lives.
Kernel anouncements on slashdot are appriciated by me and I hope a great many other readers. And even if there are only a few of us Linux is one of the things that form Slashdot's Community, and therefore in the interest of Community pride I encourage CT to continue to post all the kernel updates.
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Case in point from yesterday: Running gnome desktop, with a kernel build going in the background, while ripping a CD, running mozilla and netscape 4.x, and running and testing a mod_perl/mysql system, all on the same machine, xmms didn't miss a beat.
No, I'm not exaggerating. This was all on a 700MHz Athlon, 256M, IDE.
The comfort you demanded is now mandatory - Jello Biafra
The ChangeLog definitely needs some verbosity. The word to the wise is "only update if you need to", yet viewing the changelog leaves one wondering if they need the newer software.
What exactly do entries like "shrink dcache/icache more aggressively" or "random bugfix" mean? The former I'd guess has to do with data and instruction caches, but what aggressively shrinking does to them I have no clue without a more context. And the latter, "random bugfix", I hit my coworkers over the head when I see that in our CVS logs.
So is my current kernel effected? Am I missing out by not having my dcache/icache shrunk more aggressively? Or maybe those random bufixes effect me? A little more verbosity in the ChangeLog would go a long way. Having to follow the hacker's mailing list is not an option, this should be included in the release notes.
Linus really, really, REALLY needs to start the 2.5.x branch.
Stable branches need to be stable. Do all of the new feature experimentation in unstable. It's gotten to the point now that "stable" has become a meaningless word in linuxland.
Next time around, let's fork off 2.7.0 at the same time 2.6.2 is released. Or maybe Linux needs to split into three branches: "flimsy" for experimentation and VM wars, "unstable" for up-to-date hardware support but no new features, and "stable" which only gets bug and security fixes.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
looks like this one isn't ready yet either. loop.c needs some sergery, or else the whole thing won't even compile, dying at
drivers/block/block.o: In function `lo_send':
drivers/block/block.o(.text+0x894f): undefined reference to `deactivate_page'
drivers/block/block.o(.text+0x8999): undefined reference to `deactivate_page'
make: *** [vmlinux] Error 1
it's allready been posted to the lkml, look for a 2.4.15-pre1 or at least a loop.c patch to come around soon.
Yes they should release.....open source methodology is release early and often.
It's not easy to bring the summaries down to the level of your average user; certainly, there's plenty of stuff that I don't undertand fully. But anyway, here's some additional explanations for the last two updates:
final:
- David Miller: sparc/scsi scatterlist fixes
SCSI on Sparc machines is now more stable.
- Martin Mares: PCI ids, email address update
The kernel now identifies some PCI hardware more precisely.
- David Miller: revert TCP hash optimizations that need more checking
Remove some changes to the TCP stack, as they're not quite ready for primetime
- Ivan Kokshaysky/Richard Henderson: alpha update (atomic_dec_and_lock etc)
Changes to Alpha-specific, er, stuff
- Peter Anvin: cramfs/zisofs missing pieces
Properly merge the cramfs/zisofs changes
pre8:
- Andrea: fix races in do_wp_page, free_swap_and_cache
Virtual memory handling is now more stable
- me: clena up page dirty handling
This also improves VM
- Tim Waugh: parport IRQ probing and documentation fixes
Automatic IRQ assignment for parallel ports works better
- Greg KH: USB updates
USB subsystem improved
- Michael Warfield: computone driver update
Erm... dunno. What's a computone?
- Randy Dunlap: add knowledge about some new io-apics
Improve the kernel's handling of particular chipsets' IRQ assignment
- Richard Henderson: alpha updates
Who knows?
- Trond Myklebust: make readdir xdr verify the reply packet
Since it's Trond, it's probably a RAID or VFS update...
- Paul Mackerras: PPC update
Bring Linus's kernel more up-to-date with respect to the PPC tree
- Jens Axboe: make cpqarray and cciss play nice with the request layer
Probably RAID stuff...
- Massimo Dal Zotto: SMM driver for Dell Inspiron 8000
Make the kernel work better on a particular type of laptop
- Richard Gooch: devfs symlink deadlock fix
Fix a bug in devfs's handling of symlinks
- Anton Altaparmakov: make NTFS compile on sparc
Allow people to read NTFS filesystems on Sun Sparc hardware
I'm subscribed to l-k, so if I actually bothered to read the 200-odd messages coming in each day, I could probably give a better summary... anybody know how to stretch a day to 30 hours?
Ok, how about this -
maybe major kernel release posts should go in their own category, so whiners could set their user prefs to not display them.
--- sig moved for great justice.
Who's chrisd? Is that short or Christine? Finally, a female editor. But I still think this is discriminatory because a Kernel release is trivial. Let's see what Christie can really do! Let her post something real goddamnit!
The latest Kernel Traffic suggests that Alan is considering using the AA VM anyway. Looks like Rik's stuff is getting dumped entirely. That is unless they can figure out how to parameterize VM's and make it a compile time option as they've been talking about.
Everyone is saying this, but there are issues involved. They were saying the same thing before 2.2 was even released - "give us a 2.3 so we can play". Linus doesn't work that way, because he believes (unlike, say, the Debian folks) that the resulting "brain drain" due to people hacking on the next unstable release unacceptibly hinders the bug-fixing effort in the current stable.
Sure, it's at least 80% psychological, but it does work, for all that. If you read his posts, you'll see that Linus has never been one to shy away from using psychology!
The unfortunate fact is, until recently, 2.4 did not have a usable VM. We can argue all day about whether Linus was too hasty in integrating Andrea's VM (I think he was, which is why I've switched to -ac kernels for now) but it is hard to argue that 2.5 should have forked before the 2.4 VM shaped up ... at least given Linus's brain drain philosophy.
So, while the 2.4-only series has almost certainly gone on too long, there are valid reasons for it. Perhaps if you had contributed all your VM fixes six months ago, we could have had a 2.5 by now. (:
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
It's not a problem with his English skills, it's a problem with his typing.
Even if it wasn't, not everyone speaks or writes English fluently. Even those who grew up with it. And you know, nobody really cares, other than you, and nobody (I mean that, not even your mother) cares what you think. If they did, you'd have better things to do than flame Linus over a typo.
Ack, I wouldn't try running the latest Linux distros on older hardware, as the latest distros are obviously "optimized" for newer hardware. Red Hat 6 should run fine, although there are a number of different paths you could take. I've been using Debian, and it installs on everything from a 386 to an Itanium, and runs smoothly. It's a bit harder to install, but then installing and upgrading software on it is a piece of cake later on, using apt-get.
Another route you could take would be to try FreeBSD, as even the newest versions still run very nicely on old hardware. I recently installed FreeBSD 4.4 on a P75 with 16 MB of RAM, and it has been chugging along, happily playing MP3s via NFS in our living room. I can even be compiling software while playing MP3s, and it plays flawlessly.
The issue you mentioned about Tuxracer going so slow is because the S3 Trio64+ doesn't have OpenGL hardware acceleration (to my knowledge, at least), which means that Tuxracer is going to do all of the OpenGL via software. This equates to incredibly low frame rates, until a better video card is used. Your best bet, if you're really looking into running OpenGL applications, would be 1) buy a better video card, 2) install XFree86 4.1.0 (see xfree86.org), and 3) enjoy.
I'm not sure about the SoundIII drivers you are asking about -- search google for "SoundIII and Linux" and see what comes up.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
(And by the time those come out, FOLK will be comparable to Linux 2.7.0 in terms of features & performance.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)