Linux 2.4.16 Released

tekniklr writes: "They just released Kernel 2.4.16. Download it here, and you can read the changelog here. This hopefully fixes the error that 2.4.15 had of corrupting filesystems on unmount." Update: 11/26 14:14 GMT by T : p.s. Don't forget to look in the mirrors.

Comments

What's the best kernel?

[Griim]

I've been following all the kernel releses, and their bugs. I was just curious, what is the best way to tell which kernel is currently the most stable, without jumping immediately to the latest release? Obviously there is no way of knowing if it is, without it being out there for at least a couple of weeks.

I was hoping that kernel.org or somewhere would list what is currently the most stable. I know that from roughly 2.4.5 through to 2.4.11 or so suffer from some sort of swapping/memory leak, I can't remember. This is just from loosely following what has been posted to slashdot in the past few weeks.

Is there any resource tracking for this? What is the most stable of the latest kernels?

So what's broken this time?

[Dimensio]

Seems that there's always a bug in every new kernel release lately and it either is so major that it warrants switching to a previous kernel lest I suffer catastrophic effects or its minor but it's still something that affects me (such as ntfs or emu10k support).

I somehow missed the 2.4.15 announcement so fortunately I wasn't hit by any problems (I also missed the 2.4.13 release, dunno how), but even though I normally pop in the newest kernel upon release I'm pondering waiting this one out.

how to implement ext3

[flok]

Now ext3 is in the 'stable'-release, could someone please point me at a document describing

1) how to migrate the filesystems to ext3

2) what flags to set in lilo.conf so that I will be able to have the root-partition in ext3

3) tell what slackware boot-scripts I should change (and how)

4) what packages I should upgrade

I could find it out myself, but I'm convinced someone did all of that already

Re:Linking

[Draoi]

..... considering that the patch is less than 6KB. This has to be a record for the smallest kernel release increment yet! (How many people out there are opting to d/l the whole 26MB package 8-b )

Pete C

User mode linux?

[whovian]

Having just joined the x86 camp, I wondered whether running 2.4.15 within User Mode Linux would have been helpful in this case. For that matter, how large is the actual user-base for UML?

So, what's the best way to upgrade?

[BlueUnderwear]

Ok, say you are running 2.4.15 now. You are compiling 2.4.16. And now you want to reboot with the new kernel. But reboot implies unmount, which might trigger the bug! So what would be the safest way to jump off that 2.4.15 timebomb? Is this a situation where just pushing the reset button would be safer than a clean shutdown?

Would remounting the filesystems read-only help? Or would that also trigger the bug?

And, if your filesystems are reiserfs, do you need to worry too, or does this only affect the traditional filesystems.

Re:Open Letter to Linus

[(startx)]

actually I think the new maintainer did the right thing this time. He had -pre1 sitting there for about a week letting people hammer at it, and people didn't have any major problems with it, so he released it (with a slight tweak to the 8139too driver to make it compile with gcc 3.0.2).

Re:I'm glad that linux has a stable & dev kern

[duffbeer703]

The 2.4 series of kernels have been out for almost a year, which hardly makes them bleeding edge. There are plenty of things that make moving 2.4 compelling.

The last 8 or so kernel releases have been released largely in response to major bugs in crucial kernel areas like virtual memory management. Upgrading to fix these problems seems like a reasonable thing to do if you are crazy enough to run linux on production boxes that do anything besides run DNS, SMTP gateways or some similar purpose.

You can call me a troll if you wish, but the writing is on the wall. Linux is in serious trouble due to feature bloat and releasing too early. I for one am glad that the idea of Linux has motivated the Unix vendors to open up a bit, and has exposed some fresh blood to the advantages of Unix.

Unfortunately, the implementation of Linux is falling apart by trying to do too much.

After typing this I realized that I'm not talking to a troll, but a know-it-all 15 year old. So I'll post under my actual moniker.

Re:RedHat

[psamuels]

I've had 2.4.14 running for about month. Stable as hell, and that new VM code works an absolute treat keeping my baby zipping along. Give it a whirl. It doesn't work with VMWare yet

You mean VMWare doesn't work with 2.4.14 yet. Not the other way around. Since VMWare is closed-source (yes there is an open-source shim layer but it is just a shim layer) it is their responsibility to make it work with Linux.

If a regular application breaks with a new kernel release, it is the responsibility of the kernel maintainers. (Oh, except that Java thing from 2.2.18 or so - the JRE was relying on undocumented behavior so too bad.) But VMWare is not a regular application, it is more of a kernel mod.