Linux Kernel 2.5.1 is Out

xise writes: "The next installment in the 2.5 Linux Kernel beta series, 2.5.1 is avaliable at the usual place Linux Kernel Archives. Remember to use the mirrors. You can read the changelog here."

Comments

2.4?

[ConsumedByTV]

Does this mean that no more new features will be introduced into the 2.4 series? Or is it only for bug fixes now?

Re:2.4?

[Fluffy the Cat]

New drivers and the like will continue to appear, and some things will get backported from 2.5. But further 2.4 development is likely to be concentrated on bugfixes and not fiddling too much with the core code.

Re:2.4?

[FreeMath]

Should be only bugfixes for now, but I guess it's up to Marcelo.

Re:2.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I always thought that's what the STABLE branch was for....

It irritates me that linux developers insist on adding new "features" to "stable" kernels, rather than keeping a running development kernel year round. Things like the vm change early in the 2.4 series, and some HUGE, server breaking kernel changes should not appear in a stable kernel.

Once new features are found, and coded, they should go immediately into the development kernel, and save the stable kernel for bug fixes, driver updates, and security enhancements.

Re:2.4?

[rendler]

This current kernel section of LWN has a good overview of some current weirdness of what should be happening with the stable kernel. And here's a quote:

Where do important changes get tested? One would think that, now that we finally have a development kernel again, non-trivial changes would show up there before being merged into the stable 2.4 series. Thus, there was some surprise when support for "hyperthreading" on PentiumIV processors went into 2.4.17-pre5. That support still does not exist in 2.5, and has thus not seen the wider testing that it could experience there.

The reasoning behind putting this change into 2.4, as explained by Alan Cox, is interesting. The claim that normal users will not be affected by the change is standard. But Alan also points out that, due to the ongoing block I/O work, the 2.5 series "isn't usable for that kind of thing in the near future." So, if a feature like hyperthreading is to be tried out, it must be added to the stable kernel series.

Re:2.4?

[derek_m]

Typical anon coward junk.

The core kernel will remain stable, new drivers will be added where they have no effect on the rest of the kernel - so its the users choice if they want the new drivers or not.

One of these days the ACs will get a clue ....

Re:2.4?

[tzanger]

The core kernel will remain stable, new drivers will be added where they have no effect on the rest of the kernel - so its the users choice if they want the new drivers or not.

Like the vm changes? That was just a driver change that anyone could swap in or out of the stable 2.4 kernel, eh?

Yes the anonymous cowards are a pain but sometimes they do make a good point.

Re:2.4?

[msaavedra]

Funny, I always thought that's what the STABLE branch was for....

The stable branch is only stable in theory. In practice, the stability of any particular kernel (and any piece of software, for that matter) can only be determined after it has been widely tested in many situations for an extended period of time. However, not nearly enough people run the development and prerelease kernels to really say if the kernel will work right on all hardware in every situation. If you want a stable kernel, wait for a few weeks after a kernel release, and read the linux kernel mailing list and see which versions are stable are which are less so. Most problems are reported there pretty quickly.

It irritates me that linux developers insist on adding new "features" to "stable" kernels, rather than keeping a running development kernel year round.

Every kernel has -pre and -ac versions, which are basically the same as having a development kernel year-round. New features don't go straight into a final version of the kernel. And very few new features get added into the stable branch.

Things like the vm change early in the 2.4 series, and some HUGE, server breaking kernel changes should not appear in a stable kernel.

The vm change was made because the original 2.4 vm was not performing adequately, and as far as I know the new vm has caused very few problems, but has much better performance. Would you prefer that we all wait 1-2 years before we can use the improved vm in a stable kernel? I'd personally rather sacrifice a few versions of the "stable" branch and get this important change in now. It would have been nice if this was caught before the 2.4 release, but as I said, the number of people running the unstable branch is tiny compared to the number running the stable. Linus has to make a kernel release sometime, he can't just sit and let the same few people test forever, and he sure as hell can't pay huge teams to test each kernel before release. If this is what you want, use the kernel that comes with your favorite distro. These have been tested in this fashion.

As far as the other "HUGE" changes, I'm not sure what you are referring to. Perhaps the addition of reiserfs and ext3fs? They were tested extensively in 2.3, not just added as an afterthought in 2.4.x. They simply were not ready until slightly after the rest of the kernel, and Linus didn't want to wait for them. Once again, should we have to wait years for journaling file systems when they were already very close to being ready? I see no problem with adding them, and if they scare you, just don't use them.

Sure, there have been "server breaking kernel changes", most particularly the umount bug in 2.4.15, but this was due to a relatively small change. These thing happen and no changes to Linus's kernel release practices will prevent them. No one is perfect, and whining about it will not change that fact.

Re:2.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. You proven your point:

anubis.dweebsoft.com (OpenBSD) uptime :

8:51PM up 8:53

and your site is sooooo popular:

Active: 0 - Connected: 0/20

I know you're just trying to get traffic to your lame-ass site but please, take it elswhere. Just because you are an OBSD wannabe doesn't mean that you have to inflict your crap on the rest of the world.

Re:2.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not my site.

It is kinda funny, and sure got you bothered.

Re:2.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

These thing happen and no changes to Linus's kernel release practices will prevent them.

I think you mean "and changes to ... will not prevent them." Unless of course, you insist that making NO changes effectively prevents history from repeating itself, which is is too naive of a statement to assume from a /. reader/poster.

Re:2.4?

[derek_m]

Like the vm changes? That was just a driver change that anyone could swap in or out of the stable 2.4 kernel, eh?

There is (as Im sure your well aware) a huge difference in how a (supposedly) stable kernel is maintained in its early life (when its really still in development) and after the new development tree is opened.

The VM work had to be done, either by tweaking what was there before or the virtual rewrite. If your using 'Linus' kernels rather than what your distribution chooses to provide (& test) then you are expected to be able to choose what works for you.

2.4 is now into maintenance mode, where it should be bug fixes and new drivers etc only. That does not mean they should be assumed to work for everyone - if you dont have the time (and the patience) to test them to ensure that they work for you then you should be using whatever Debian/Redhat/whoever chooses to test and ship.

Re:2.4?

[Subjective]

no one is to be let in.

Who is this no one guy anyway, and why let him in?
Learn english for RAW's sake.

Re:2.4?

[psamuels]

One of these days the ACs will get a clue ....

Really? What makes you think so? (:

Re:2.4?

[tzanger]

2.4 is now into maintenance mode, where it should be bug fixes and new drivers etc only. That does not mean they should be assumed to work for everyone - if you dont have the time (and the patience) to test them to ensure that they work for you then you should be using whatever Debian/Redhat/whoever chooses to test and ship.

Don't get me wrong; I totally agree with you. I was taking exception to what you had said in your previous post that they only added things to the kernel that you could opt-in to on the even-middle-number kernels.

Re:2.4?

[oldwarrior]

YaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwN! Sniff!

Changelog for when it get /.ed....

[NecroPuppy]

Don't mod me up for this... Public service only...

final:
- Al Viro: floppy_eject cleanup, mount cleanups
- Jens Axboe: bio updates
- Ingo Molnar: mempool fixes
- GOTO Masanori: Fix O_DIRECT error handling

pre11:
- Jeff Garzik: no longer support old cards in tulip driver
(see separate driver for old tulip chips)
- Pat Mochel: driverfs/device model documentation
- Ballabio Dario: update eata driver to new IO locking
- Ingo Molnar: raid resync with new bio structures (much more efficient)
and mempool_resize()
- Jens Axboe: bio queue locking

pre10:
- Jens Axboe: more bio stuff
- Ingo Molnar: mempool for bio
- Niibe Yutaka: Super-H update

pre9:
- Jeff Garzik: separate out handling of older tulip chips
- Jens Axboe: more bio stuff
- Anton Altaparmakov: NTFS 1.1.21 update

pre8:
- Greg KH: USB updates
- Jens Axboe: more bio updates
- Christoph Rohland: fix up proper shmat semantics

pre7:
- Jens Axboe: more bio fixes/cleanups/breakage ;)
- Al Viro: superblock cleanups, boot/root mounting.

pre6:
- Jens Axboe: more bio stuff
- Coda compile fixes
- Nathan Laredo: stradis driver update

pre5:
- Patrick Mochel: driver model infrastructure, part 1
- Jens Axboe: more bio fixes, cleanups
- Andrew Morton: release locking fixes
- Al Viro: superblock/mount handling
- Kai Germaschewski: AVM Fritz!Card ISDN driver
- Christoph Hellwig: make cramfs SMP-safe.

pre4:
- Jens Axboe: fix up bio highmem breakage, more cleanups
- Greg KH: USB update

pre3:
- Al Viro: more superblock cleanups
- Jens Axboe: more patches for new block IO layer
- Christoph Hellwig: get rid of the old, long- deprecated SCSI error
handling

pre2:
- Greg KH: USB update
- Richard Gooch: refcounting for devfs
- Jens Axboe: start of new block IO layer

pre1:
- me: README references to 2.4.x -> 2.5.x
- Alexander Viro: fix unmount inode breakage, show_vfsmnt cleanup
- Jeff Garzik: fix 8139too initialization

Re:Changelog for when it get /.ed....

[Anonymous Coward]

Feel free to call me lame, but what is
this "Bio" stuff in the kernal. Basic Input/Output?

Re:Changelog for when it get /.ed....

[SuzanneA]

Look a little further down the list for the other submissions by the 'bio' contributor, and you'd see 'block I/O'.

Hey, there's one of the reasons why the names are useful, you can attribute the area of code that is probably being changed, if the changelog messasge is a little terse

I'm Bored

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's skip this discussion and wait for the next kernel to come out next week...

Re:I'm Bored

[Anonymous Coward]

When the digits change it means that it's Tux birthday. Let's have a party.

Re:I'm Bored

[Transient0]

I can't help but agree a little. Slashdot is a great arena for hashing out issues related to tech, but what new insights are going to be raised with each new minor version of the Kernel going into Beta. I can see that maybe it is useful to know that the new kernel exists, but those who need that info check the changelogs daily anyways. I don't see how we are supposed to communicate intelligently about 2.5.1 given a changelog and a mirror, is there no real news?

Let's start a revolution: i for one am in favor of not hearing about uneventful kernel updates anymore... i know i can filter out the entire category if i want, but you never know, there might one day be important news about the kernel(grin).

Re:I'm Bored

[TheDarkRogue]

Maybe just a new catigory for Kernel updates, that can be turned off in Preferences like Games or BeOS (Just 2 examples off the top of my head, Nothing more). That way all who don't care can simply turn them off and those who do care can keep them on.

Re:I'm Bored

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the point is that this is the start of the next development kernel path, ie it is the first concrete step towards 2.6.

The release of say 2.5.2 would certainly not be worth this sort of treatment.

Re:I'm Bored

[Luti]

What about this, you use /. like I do, I leave everything on in the main section, I read the headline, and if it interests me I'll read the article, if not, I can do this amazing thing, SCROLL DOWN!!!

Re:I'm Bored

[ttyRazor]

I actually like seeing new kernel announcements on here. Same goes for other big pojects like Xfree and Mozilla. I've got better stuff to do than lurk on kernel mailing lists and check mirrors every 5 minutes to see if a new kernel's out. /. is usually the first place I hear about a new kernel release, and usually its posted even before its propagated to the mirrors I'd be checking.
Perhaps there should be a new "version" category for the more pointless new version announcements (although I wouldn't call this one exactly pointless. nothing major is new, but at least we know the new stuffs going here from now on) so people can filter articles like this instead of bitching about it every time

Re:I'm Bored

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice to be able to filter stuff I don't want. The web allows it unlike any media. Slashdot have embraced it, they only need to extend it a little, that's all.

Re:I'm Bored

[G27 Radio]

I'm with you on that 100%. What amazes me is that the people who take time to bitch about new kernel announcements actually expect to be taken seriously...after they spend the time to write a comment about what a waste of time it is to read a simple headline announcing a new kernel.

Yeah whatever. Maybe Slashdot should just start a fund to send all the crybabies some tissue paper to blow their nose when they're done bawling about all the extra bandwidth a kernel summary takes up. :)

Re:I'm Bored

[Borogove]

For Pete's sake! Don't read the articles if you aren't interested in them. It's not that difficult. Am I missing something here? All you need to do is NOT click on the 'Read More...' link. You just go 'Oh look, an article about 2.5.1. I won't bother reading that.' Then you move on.

Perhaps /. is a bad place for this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not because "slashdot isn't freshmeat," but becaused judging from the outcry from unsophisticated users who updated to the latest STABLE kernel when they probably should have been sticking with vendor supplied kernels, most slashdotters either already know about the releases, or probably shouldn't.

Any newbie who trys to install 2.5.1 is in for a learning experience (especially if they use SCSI).

Re:Perhaps /. is a bad place for this.

[FreeMath]

didn't you read the from line:

from the only-the-brave dept

It's obvious that only experienced kernel developers need apply.

Re:Perhaps /. is a bad place for this.

[tulare]

Lol, yeah. I'm just waiting to handle the pleas for help from those who went and did just that. But since I'm no kernel guru, I'll just have to tell them they're on their own. Shoot, I barely understand SCSI on the 2.4 series. What changed?

Re:Perhaps /. is a bad place for this.

[psamuels]

Shoot, I barely understand SCSI on the 2.4 series. What changed?

If you read the changelog (see link in /. blurb) you'll see lots of entries from Jens Axboe related to "bio". That's the new block I/O layer which is being born. That in turn means a rewrite of certain portions of all the block drivers, including IDE, SCSI, RAID, floppy, etc.

Depending on your particular SCSI card, it may or may not work correctly, yet. I haven't been tracking the 2.5.1 prepatches - don't really have a system I can afford to trash - but I understand IDE and a few of the more popular SCSI cards were converted early on and probably work ok by now. But I don't trust that assumption enough to load 2.5.1 on my machine, which doesn't have quite a recent enough backup for my liking..

Re:Perhaps /. is a bad place for this.

[Jburkholder]

>Any newbie who trys to install 2.5.1 is in for a learning experience

Right. And we certainly don't want any of those "newbies" to try anything that might make them actually learn something, right? :-)

Sad day for linux

[Genghis Troll]

Lorenzo Fratello claims that he was told by Linus himself that Torvalds has lost interest in the linux kernel. "While I expect to continue developing for the near future, I do not expect to be involved with linux a year or two from now".

Re:Sad day for linux

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a troll, it's a warning.

This is development! DO NOT DEPLOY

[x-empt]

Please remember that the 2.5.x series is a development series and is NOT meant to be deployed in a stable environment. You are to expect bugs and problems with the 2.5.x series and generally it is not recommended that you install it UNLESS you can program and debug kernel stuff.

You may want to just continue upgrading on the 2.4.x series and wait until 2.6.x is stable.

-

Re:This is development! DO NOT DEPLOY

[Xzzy]

> You are to expect bugs and problems with the
> 2.5.x series and generally it is not
> recommended that you install it UNLESS you can
> program and debug kernel stuff

They shoulda stuck this warning to the 2.4.x kernels too. ;)

Sure it's gotten better in 2.4.16, but man it was a rocky road up to that point. Way it seems to me, if there's so little effective difference between a "beta" kernel and a "stable" one, warning about status is kind of irrelevant.

Re:This is development! DO NOT DEPLOY

[Cro Magnon]

I bet 2.5.1 is better than 2.4.15-dead-duck!

Re:This is development! DO NOT DEPLOY

[iceburn]

Actually, I'd have to disagree with the parent post. You should NOT depend on 2.5.x for everyday usage, especially on a production server. You should build it on your home machine or test box and run it for a while to help iron out the bugs. This new-fangled Open Source thing only works if the end users hold up our end of the bargain. They release early and often, and we build and test it. If it doesn't work, try to submit a bug report and help out as best you can, then you can move back to your 2.4.x kernel with a clean concience.

Re:This is development! DO NOT DEPLOY

[FrostyWheaton]

Mod parent down

That is exactly what the original post stated. He even said it in the subject line. "DO NOT DEPLOY". And somehow the child has been modded up past the parent for re-hashing the same idea.

Re:This is development! DO NOT DEPLOY

[hatchet]

Maybe my greased-turkey is better than your dead-duck. Did turkey killed the duck?

Re:This is development! DO NOT DEPLOY

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I have to disagree with you. DO NOT DEPEND ON 2.5.x FOR EVERYDAY USAGE!!! DO NOT DEPEND ON - what? oh, that's already been said? TWICE? Oh well, according to the trend I should be at 5, Insightful any time now for this post.

Re:This is development! DO NOT DEPLOY

[oconnorcjo]

You should build it on your home machine or test box and run it for a while to help iron out the bugs

I agree with you ONLY IF you have a test box. I would not want to risk the data on my everyday use home box. If I had a test box, that is where this kernel would go.

This new-fangled Open Source thing only works if the end users hold up our end of the bargain. They release early and often, and we build and test it.

Even of open source users, we don't want them ALL to test stuff. Only those who are 1. Willing to take the risks of using dev. software and 2. Those that have the ability and DESIRE to return bug reports (and believe me when I say this is a more "elite" group than you might think). The trick of open source is that it ALLOWS people who are INTERESTED in the developement of a project to help. It does NOT mean that most people SHOULD. I would not want my girlfriend trying to recompile a kernel and then expect her to try to give a helpfull bug report to lkml. Even the testers of a new developement kernel should be very sophisticated users.

didledididee...two kernels

[Descartes]

Ok this is probably a stupid question that will be labeled Troll and a thousand people will respond with RTFM, but is there a way to have more than one kernel (e.g. a stable one and a development one) on the same machine and boot to one or the other. I feel like I've read this somewere but I can't for the life of me remember.

If anyone feels like telling me to RTFM could you tell me where to find the FM?

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[Anonymous Coward]

man lilo

just have more than one image listed in lilo.conf

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[r2q2]

Yea all you have to do is havve a boot disk with induvidual kernels k?

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[waterwingz]

AFAIK ,, you can specify the kernal to use in your lilo.conf file.

Try man lilo.conf

(rtfm .. there)

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[Anonymous Coward]

look at lilo
cat /etc/lilo.conf

man lilo.conf

or grub if you have a newer redhat system i think its default.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[__aanonl8035]

I actually found this redhat documentation useful.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[FuegoFuerte]

Just compile and install the new kernel, and keep your old one around. Put entries in LILO for both. For example I, running slack, might have an entry for "slack" being the default 2.4.16 which I most frequently use. I might then make and entry for "slacktest," being the most current 2.5.x kernel of the week. I simply direct one entry to vmlinuz (vmlinuz being my 2.4.16 kernel) and one to vmlinuz-2.5.1 (this being my newly compiled test binary).

If you wanna know where to find the FMs, www.linuxdoc.org is a good place to start.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[Anonymous Coward]

compile the new kernel you want to use. move it to /test.vmlinuz or whatever you want it to be called.

are you using LILO to boot? if so edit /etc/lilo.conf and add a new entry and name for the test kernel. i dont know the format offhand but i think it can be gleamed from whats already there.

then run /sbin/lilo ..very important..to get it to recognize the new kernel. then when you reboot and LILO comes up, select the name of the new kernel you added.

im sorry if these instructions dont work -its been over a year since i used Linux, having gone to using OpenBSD, but i think its right,

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[GRH]

is there a way to have more than one kernel (e.g. a stable one and a development one) on the same machine and boot to one or the other

Sure is. The kernel sources will untar to different directories based on version (how 'bout that?), so no problem with overwriting your stable ".config".

Anyhoo, after building your new kernel, copy it to the same location as your current kernel, but with a different name. (on Redhat this is /boot, slackware is /). Then edit your lilo.conf file in /etc.

Add a new section that looks like:
image = /root/bzImage25 (whatever your new kernel is called)
root = /dev/hda1 (or whatever you are using)
label = Linux251 (or whatever)
read-only

Save lilo.conf and run lilo. This will re-install lilo with the new settings. Of course, if you're not using lilo, then cheerfully disregard the above. :)

On reboot, you should be able to pick from both the old kernel and the new kernel.

As for where the FM is, check out the LILO mini-HOWTO (in /usr/doc/Linux-mini-HOWTOs on my system).

Have fun.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure is. The kernel sources will untar to different directories based on version (how 'bout that?), so no problem with overwriting your stable ".config".

That's a straight-up lie. Kernel trees all untar to "linux/", so make sure to move your old one out of the way (or delete the symlink, if you're like most people) before untarring a new one.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[DarkProphet]

I'm sure your post about how to use lilo to boot an alternate kernel is well intentioned, but please, don't feed the newbies.

I remember doing this exact same thing about 4 years ago with RedHat. The manual was pretty clear on how to do it. The fun thing about Linux was that there was so much you could do, and you could do some really neat stuff (like getting your ISA PNP devices to work! Yay, Soundblaster AWE 64 lives in Linux! Muahahahaa.. Er, sorry. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that Linux was worthwhile if you bothered to do your homework. The people that are always waiting for a quick fix don't want to learn anything.

I mean, really, okay I guess this means that there are more people just *trying* Linux, which is cool. Its what most of us have been trying to tell our friends and family for years. Some of em are even to the point where they wanna fiddle with the kernel, maybe even compile thier own. Great! And lets face it, alot of us consider ourselves to be some level of Linux guru, so when your friends and family have some Linux-related task, its your job to take care of it, right?

Sorry if this is getting offtopic, but there are a lot of "trendy" folk starting to invade slashdot. They see these posts about the latest kernel, and they figure they gotta have it, even though they don't know why. ("It will be faster! Newer is always better!"). Ugh. Its really kinda like shooting yourself in the foot. While I like to follow the kernel development for mostly just interest's sake, I'm not so foolhardy to install a development-series kernel (though 2.4.x was moving in the right direction, the earlier releases were ugly monstrosities of a 2.2 kernel gone terribly wrong). But I digress..

On a bright note, I have an idea for the linux-distro people... The prefab kernels redhat, mandrake, suse, et al slap on thier CD's are junk! Lets just compile everything in, so it works for everybody! A good idea, but not so hot in practice. You can get a pretty good performance boost by rolling your own kernel, so why not include that as part of the installation process? Give the installer a choice between installing the stock kernel (faster install), or compiling a fresh kernel (slower install, but worth it, I think). The installer programs from RedHat and Mandrake (the only ones I've used recently) are pretty good at detecting hardware, so why not put that capability to good use by auto-configuring the kernel and compiling a custom one for that specific machine? Maybe its just me, but I have seemed to notice that the stock distro kernels are more prone to failure than a custom one. Why is it that a brand-new installation of Mandrake can crash and take down the whole machine?! WTF? Us Linux fans like to think linux is fairly powerful, stable, and customizable. Maybe we should really prove that to ourselves?

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[GRH]

Point taken regarding 2.5 kernels. (I'm not trying these myself). However, the original poster may have only wanted to know how to run multiple 2.4/2.2 kernels.

In my own case I use 2.2.19 and have played with a number of the 2.4 kernels.

I'm just thinking back to kernel 2.0.0 arriving and wanting to run it on my 1.2.12 box. Granted, setting up lilo was pretty easy, but what's wrong with some help to speed up the procedure? (as long as the learning part still occurs)

In any event, I agree that the stock kernels supplied with most distros are built for compatibility first, performance/stablity second.
I always build a new kernel when setting up a new machine and rarely have problems after that.

How about if after auto-detecting the hardware, the new kernel is rolled in the background so that once the install is finished (all the packages) the new kernel is ready to go. Then setup the defualt lilo to have the "compatibility kernel" and the "what you really need kernel".

At the least, this could compile the kernel for the proper processor (486/P/P2/P3/Athlon, etc.) and dump unneeded support for SCSI, etc. (major functional areas)

To bring Linux to the desktop requires a lead-pipe cinch install process that includes setting up KDE/useful apps/PPP dialup or whatever. It's pretty much a sure bet that Linux won't be pre-installed on PCs anytime in the near future in quantity, so the procedure needs to be:
1) put CD in drive and reboot
2) reboot once install process tells you to.

Of course, maybe /. just needs a big warning that goes along with the posting of a new kernel...

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[Descartes]

Y'know I'm sure you mean well, but seriously, lighten up.

I actually have been using linux exlusively for about six months and had been dual booting before that. I've taken classes in unix, etc. i.e. I don't consider myself a newbie.

I just figured that I didn't really need to go trudging through the linuxdoc.org pages about it. I've found the community to be a much more usefull source of information than any how-to file, especially considering how outdated the info often is (though probably not on this topic).

I also figured that other people, even the "trendy" newbies, might be interested trying out a new kernel w/o losing their functional setup.

I do agree with your autoconfiguring kernel idea. I think if most users knew what the benefit of a custom kernel was they'd be willing to wait for it to compile.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[mikey13]

yeah, i do it whenever i compile a new kernel, in case the new kernel does not work and i have to revert to my last one.

just compile each one of them as separate images, like /vmlinuz24 and /vmlinuz25, and options to LILO for each one of them, then run lilo.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[chompz]

add another stanza to the poem we call /etc/lilo.conf

It's one of my favorites.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[Anonymous Coward]

Where to find the FM? Let's see... What does boot your kernel? Lilo? Perhaps Grub?
Well... what's the UNIX command for reading manuals? Still with me...?

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[-brazil-]

The prefab kernels redhat, mandrake, suse, et al slap
on thier CD's are junk! Lets just compile everything in, so it works for everybody!

It hasn't been like that for years, at least not with SuSE. There's just too many different configurations out there. Now they boot with a rahter minimal kernel and use a ramdisk that has all the modules.

You can get a pretty good performance boost by rolling your own kernel

That's a myth. With the amount of memory available nowadays, a customized kernel gets you very, very little performance improvements.

Re:didledididee...two kernels

[Anonymous Coward]

Or do what those of us with lots of experience do.

1. Mount your Windows partition. If it's on the first IDE partition:
mkdir /windows
mount /dev/hda1 /windows

2. Edit your autoexec.bat file.
vi /windows/autoexec.bat

3. Add the following line to the autoexec.bat file:
c:\windows\command\fdisk /mbr

4. Unmount the windows partition.
umount \windows

5. Reboot the machine and at the LILO prompt tell the machine to boot the Windows partition.

6. You'll now have a lot of extra free drive space. Go to a Windows command prompt and use FDISK to turn it into a D: drive.

What are the new things they are working on?

[OS24Ever]

One of the key things for 2.4 if I remeber right was SMP support. Are they going to work on improving SMP support beyond the process level in 2.5? What could one list as the 'key bullet points' for 2.5 if talking to a manager type for futures of the Linux kernal?

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really have no clue.

Fake insightful comments are the worst

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[chabotc]

There are currently a few sub-projects going on for 2.5 to improve SMP/scalability on big iron.

It seens every top-kernel developer or company has a different aproach, so its not clear which will be the one being picked (prolly a combination of patches)

IBM has a patch to do a per-cpu que of tasks, allowing better scaling of the scheduler. This causes a lot of the task scheduler to be re-written

Alan has a in-between solution with 8 que's (no matter the amount of CPU's), and a small part scheduler rewrite.

Some other ppl have different aproaches to it all, cant remember their perspective on it (check LKM archives if ur interested).

However the main point (as pointed out by alan and linus) seems to be: 99% of the linux boxes out there run only 3 concurent running tasks, so the scheduler has to remain optimized for this situation (!). The current scheduler handles this situation very well. So any updates and fixes are prolly likely to be non-intrusive to the current scheduler ;-)

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[MindStalker]

thats the point, he didn't have a clue, thats why it was in the form of a question. Not a statement of knowledge.

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[AnonymousCowheard]

SMP first saw light in linux kernel 2.0.x.
Better firewalling, Framebuffer, and pcmcia was implemented in linux kernel 2.2; along with the infamous AIC7880 SCSI CDROM bug. Improved firewalling, improved process scheduler, and better disk caching was seen in Linux kernel 2.4 and the AIC7880 SCSI CDROM bug persisted until Linux kernel 2.4.9(wow that was an ancient bug, ixed).

Nothing new is in the 2.5 kernel except some fine-tuning on features and making everything more modular. The 2.4 kernel tree was the first kernel to go above the 100 MegaByte mark, but the question is how does its size compare with Microsoft's creepin' fud.

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[KidSock]

99% of the linux boxes out there run only 3 concurent running tasks, so the scheduler has to remain optimized for this situation

Interesting. But could this measurement be simplified to the point of being off base? A large percentage of these machines are webservers sitting idle so what do they care about scheduler optimizations? Same thoughts for single process number cruching ray tracing server farms. Shouldn't the focus be optimizing tasks that will benifit from being optimized? I know we have a few boxes that just run Java apps. I bet they would benifit from a new scheduler if the machine were a 4 way. So what are the bulk of these 99 out of 100 machines doing? They're not desktops.

Also, what prevents Kernel developers from optimizing the scheduler for a Kernel development workstation :-P

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[chabotc]

Actualy when i check my ps aux / top on my desktop, i do indeed find between 2 and 4 processes in 'R' state (running). The rest is waiting for input (be it disk, user, video, whaterver).

Remeber that very few desktop applications use all CPU slices (this would be very bad), but just respond on input, or play a mp3 or so (which is minimal cpu usage, it will be waiting for a timer event most of the time)

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[HiThere]

Perhaps. Certainly on my home box I don't normally run LOTS of tasks. Maybe 5 files downloading, a terminal to check on statuses. Perhaps a compilation, and a game (say, FreeCell), so I don't start up anything else while waiting for things to finish. (This is a report from last night.)

Most of the time I only have a quite small number of things happening. But during those times, the machine isn't busy anyway. But when I have several things happening at once, that's when the machine gets busy, so it needs the best scheduling.

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[4of12]

Hmmmm...[So I know next to nothing about how the kernel does its work.]

With that qualification made in advance, I'll ask this question:

Why can't the different process schedulers that might be appropriate to different work mixes, if they are significantly different algorithms, be loadable kernel modules?

Is it that the code necessarily bleeds into too many routines? Is VM management similarly impractical to shove into a loadable kernel module?

Apologies in advance if the question is too dumb.

Re:What are the new things they are working on?

[Anonymous Coward]

you simply do not mention 2.5 to a manager. You mention 2.6 as the "next" version, and 2.2 as the "heavily tested" one.
And then again, the kernel is not what a manager will care about. You d better try stg about centralised/automated admin, reduced down-time, and this "TCO" bull.

VM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows that 2.4 should have just been to stabilse 2.3 and they shouldn't have done a huge change. But when you've got screwy VM you don't gain much from stabalising it.

'Stable' just means it has a stable binary compatible API. It doesn't mean they won't add new features to it.

Re:VM?

[Trepalium]

'Stable' just means it has a stable binary compatible API. It doesn't mean they won't add new features to it.

No Linux kernel has ever advertised a compatible ABI between revisions, and it's fairly unlikely any ever will. Instead stable generally means that the kernel source API will remain fairly constant through it's lifecycle (so that all the drivers don't end up broken until they are updated to a new API) and few sweeping kernel changes will occur. The 2.4 kernel series has not followed this pattern at least partially due to the fact it's had some rather severe performance, scalability and reliability problems since release. Linus has repeatedly refused to support any type of ABI for the Linux kernel, at least partially in fear of having to constantly support buggy interfaces that can never be removed.

Re:RedHat 8 beta?

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE-3.1 SORTA_COMPILES
GLIBC HEAVILY_PATCHED (obj prelinker, gcc-3 fix, etc)
EMACS 22.0.999999 (writes your code, but announces every 5 minutes that you're using GNU/Linux)

Re:oh great

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I buy a Dell Desktop PC(TM)?

Re:Could Linux possibly...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have an issue with Linux so much as the user base it attracts. More and more I'm reading about and experiencing what I like to refer to as the "dumbing down of Linux".

Don't worry everyone, it's about the users instead, not the kernel.

Why all the names?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it trendy to be a kerneldeveloper? Sorry but I couldn't care less about *WHO* made a change.

You'd say, if people were so eager to have their name splattered all over the place just because they fixed a damn bug, they should consider writing proprietary software.

Sorry for my outburst, I'm off to fork the Linux kernel and remove all the dumb comments mentioning people >:)

Re:Why all the names?

[FauxPasIII]

> Is it trendy to be a kerneldeveloper? Sorry but I couldn't care less about *WHO* made a change.

It's probably less for the purpose of claiming credit than assigning blame. ;-)

But, if you have a problem with a specific area of the kernel, say a particular sound card driver, it usually helps to at least cc the author/maintainer of that chunk of code directly as well as posting to the list; just raises the probability of your bug report getting the eyes of somebody who can do something useful with it.

Re:Why all the names?

[kilrogg]

Sorry but I couldn't care less about *WHO* made a change.

Well, if one of them changes broke something, you'd know who to contact and blame.

Re:Why all the names?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think its a combination of giving credit (to someone besides Linus and Alan) and knowing who to contact when something goes wrong. How else do you keep track of who did what?

Re:Why all the names?

[jquirke]

Does it really hurt you that much to see people's names in the Changelog? Is your connection so slow that you think they are a waste of bandwidth?

I don't have a problem with people sticking their names in the Changelog - they've done this voluntarily and without pay, in their own time, when they could have been doing other stuff, don't you think they deserve just a little recognition? They've done a great job.

And it serves a purpose too as already pointed out - it allows you to see who was responsible for a change, so your type can be quick to blame them if feature X related to their change fails to work/crashes/panics/oopses/whatever

Kernel 2.5.2pre1 is out

[GeorgieBoy]

Is this next? Why do submissions like new versions of devel-kernels make it into Slashdot at all? It's not as if most users will download this and deploy it on ANY system.

I also don't see announcements of FreeBSD beta, only RELEASES. And it should stay that way.

Re:Kernel 2.5.2pre1 is out

[mobiGeek]

I also don't see announcements of FreeBSD beta, only RELEASES. And it should stay that way.

If we stopped posting about Linux betas and devel releases, then the only OS we'd hear about non-production-ready builds would be MS-Windows...arguably, every MS-Windows story is about non-production ready builds ;-)

Re:just a question about the kernel management

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of the C programming language?

New in 2.5.x?

[NetJunkie]

So what new features will we see in 2.5.x? Is there a roadmap somewhere?

Re:New in 2.5.x?

[be-fan]

There was a kernel summit about 2.5. I've also heard that they are working on lower latency (either through preemption or breaking up long no-preempt regions) and integrating ALSA.

Re:New in 2.5.x?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the main points that were explicitely targetted in 2.5 were:

* a rewrite of the block i/o layer (i.e. how do you access your various disk drives, iirc) to remove some big single lock there that was holding back scalability.

* a rewrite of the driver model that would lead to better dealings with dynamic device configuration (ie. everything would be considered hot-plug), and to better keep track of all drivers used in a machine.

* the removal of old, deprecated code in I/O that is still hanging around.

* a better scheduler to better deal with more than 2/4 CPUs.

* the integration of ALSA (but I could be wrong, there).

The rest would be icing on the cake.

As for an official roadmap, I don't know. LWN did have a special report on the Linux Kermel Summit held earlier this year which could be considered the closest to a roadmap as can be. I think that Linus & Alan (and others, esp. IBM) basically want the Linux kernel to better scale upwards to deal more gracefully with, say, a big f**king Oracle database running on a gazillion processor mainframe.

I hope this helps.

Re:New in 2.5.x?

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of interest, do you know if there are any plans to modularise the drivers more? If they're re-writing the driver model, surely now would be the time to do this?

Not to sound like a troll or anything, but the current Linux driver model is pretty sucky. It would surely add to stability overall to provide a clean API between drivers & kernels, rather than just letting drivers hook into the kernel structures directly.

Re:New in 2.5.x?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, not being on the lkml nor being a kernel developper, I can't answer that. Some information on he new driver arch. can be found on the following URLs:

http://lwn.net/2001/1206/kernel.php3

http://lwn.net/2001/1025/kernel.php3

and

http://lwn.net/2001/1025/a/driver-model.php3 (especially, since this is the actual RFC for the new driver model).

I hope this answers all of your questions.

Re:just a question about the kernel management

[cduffy]

A great many of the drivers are arch-independant. Indeed, the total architecture-dependant portion of the kernel is only 18.5% of the code size as a whole (decompressed, unbuilt; it's far less in a built kernel). Compilating the download process (making folks get both a generic and an arch-specific package) just doesn't seem worth it to me given the paucity of return, particularly considering the complication this would add to the patching process.

The mirrors

[djn]

Folks, the kernel mirrors are not at mirrors.kernel.org.

The proper site for mirrors of the Linux Kernel is here.

Here's a quick link to those of you looking for US-based mirrors.

-dan
into unix and punk? check out unixpunx.org

no roadmap, but some focus

[Proud Geek]

Well, Linus doesn't make a roadmap; I think he feels it is counter to the Linux development methodology and would be unproductive. What gets put in the 2.5 series depends upon what patches people decide to submit.

That said, I've read that the stuff that Linus WANTS to put into the new kernel include features for NUMA machines and stuff to improve scheduling abilities for embedded systems. Both of those probably mean a higher focus on making things SMP safe, and possibly work on making the kernel more preemtible. One thing Linus has said he will make sure of is that performance on uniprocessors and small SMP's doesn't suffer much as a result of this.

Besides that, we can expect support for more devices, tons of bug-fixes, probably some more journalling filesystems, and all the other stuff that comes with Linux slowly maturing.

Fixing the !*)@(# pagecache

[strredwolf]

Can't they fix the 2.4.x bug which loves to chew up a ton of pagecache?!? Just cut that thing down...

Re:Fixing the !*)@(# pagecache

[aeil]

when 2.4.17 comes out the pagecache will be much improved. Not perfect, but much closer. That has been a major push for this release.

Re:Get Windows XP

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I haven't. But that site is really funny... thanks for the link.

This doens't belong here!!

[ljaguar]

Since when did slashdot started announcing the DEVELOPEMENT kernel releases?! Go read LKM if you want this!

Re:This doens't belong here!!

[zCyl]

Since when did slashdot started announcing the DEVELOPEMENT kernel releases?! Go read LKM if you want this!

Did you read that third word in green at the top left of the page, right under "Slashdot"?

Yes, we're nerds, we care. If you aren't, go read a pop news site.

Re:This doens't belong here!!

[mbrubeck]

Since when did slashdot started announcing the DEVELOPEMENT kernel releases?!

You must have an awfully short memory.

• 2.4.0-prerelease
• 2.4.0-test2
• 2.3.41
• 2.3.40
• 2.3.0
• 2.2.0pre9
• 2.2.0pre6
• 2.2.0pre4
• 2.2.0pre3
• 2.2.0pre1
• 2.1.131
• 2.1.130
• 2.1.129
• 2.1.128
• 2.1.126
• 2.1.125
• 2.1.122
• 2.1.119
• 2.1.118
• 2.1.117
• ...a couple dozen more 2.1.x announcements. Do your own damn search. :-)

Re:This doens't belong here!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a nerd.

I run NetBSD, Windows 2000, and Windows ME on various machines at home. Plus OS/2, and I have two TRS-80 Model 100s.

I program mainly assembly language in PIC embedded controller chips for cool applications. The kind of stuff that sometimes makes it onto the Slashdot page. And some Motorola 68HC11 stuff. I've coded entire medical devices in Assembly language for NEC 4-bit embedded controllers.

I find these Linux kernel update 'articles' tedious, boring, and irrelevant.

Yes. I'm a nerd. Not some bored kid who plays around with 'Linux' because he learned everything there is to know about Windows 95.

Whoa there, cowboy (michael)!

[MicroBerto]

Now I'm all for the front-paging of stable kernel releases on slashdot, but you gotta be kidding me here! There's going to be hundreds of 2.5.x releases!! You can't front page this all the time! Maybe only the milestone ones...

Re:Whoa there, cowboy (michael)!

[Outlyer]

I think it should be noted that this is the first 2.5.x release that actually forks away from the 2.4 (2.5.0 was just a 2.4 kernel in disguise) so this is an event... this is the first new tree since 2.3 closed.

In that sense, this is a big deal. Of course, posting all the 2.3.x announcements would be excessive.

Re:Whoa there, cowboy (michael)!

[Kirkoff]

Maybe only the milestone ones...


Well, to be fair, a ton of the kernel will be re-written by 2.5.2. From what I've been reading at LKML, the block IO layer will have been re-done, and then the new kbuild will start to be integrated (Optional on supported platforms at that point). That's actually some pretty big stuff.

--Josh

Re:Whoa there, cowboy (michael)!

[Jeremy Erwin]

I seem to remember that slashdot fronted many releases from the 2.1 series...

Re:Whoa there, cowboy (michael)!

[Cro Magnon]

Really! I thought 2.4.15 was a 2.5 kernel in disguise!

Re:Whoa there, cowboy (michael)!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a clue, numbnet, where have you been?

Tulip cards - help!

[tulare]

I have to support some of those old monsters. Does anyone know what the story is on the seperate driver issue? Considering the amount of effort it took to learn how to configure those boogers, I'm a little bummed that all that effort is going to waste.

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[npietraniec]

Run the latest 2.4 - or upgrade your hardware, you can get new tulip cards (the netgear FA310TX for example) for 15 bucks, Or... I'm sure there will be a patch when 2.6 comes out.

but I mean... Would it kill you to run 2.4.xx when 2.6 is out? I mean, bugfixes are still being applied to the 2.2 kernel...

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[tulare]

Actually, as to the new tulip card issue, the problem with that is that the "cards" are actually integrated with some ancient DEC mainboards I take care of. I can always put extra cards into them, but it quickly turns into a hassle dealing with the second NIC (considering it takes about two hours to recompile a kernel on one of these things when I screw one up, and ordinary configuration is anything but fast)

Of course, it wouldn't hurt at all to just leave them as they are, but what I'm really hoping for is one thing: more effecient IO processing. On machines this old, even a marginal improvement makes a big difference. And on the budget I have to work with, disposal is not an option.

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[LinuxGeek8]

Afaik there are 2 tulip drivers, tulip.o and de4x5.o. I believe tulip.o is the old driver.
This would mean that your old tulip cards are only supported with tulip.o, and not anymore by de4x5.o.

Or I'm wrong, and the reference to "old driver" is a reference to Donald Becker's tulip.o driver, which isn't included in 2.4 or 2.5. I believe that came with the 2.2 kernel and only supports 2.4 since recently.

There are lots of different tulip cards. On 2.2.17 and earlier linksys cards had lots of troubles with the kernel drivers, and always came with their own drivers. For newbies that sucks.
I think it's a good thing to seperate some of the drivers.

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[RussGarrett]

As an aside, Netgear has since replaced the FA310TX with the FA311TX, which uses a National Semiconductor net-card-on-a-chip chipset. That's supported in 2.4, and I've had no problems with it.

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[ImaLamer]

What are your tulip cards?

Linksys seem to work with any distro I throw at it except TurboLinux 6.0 [but they are supported I believe in newer versions].

Everything finds them fine and gets them to work off the bat... what is your problem?

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[bfree]

considering it takes about two hours to recompile a kernel on one of these things when I screw one up

Well then you should just compile the kernel on another machine and copy it across :-) Even if you have screwed the network access you can get a kernel across on a floppy (if you want to bring the source etc. over aswell I guess it better be a CDR(W).

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[Paul Jakma]

de4x5 is DEC's own driver for the DE4x5, DE500-XX cards and the DE-2104x-XX and DE-2114x-XX chips. in addition any 3rd party card that use a DEC (or clone) 21{0,1}4x chipset and uses DEC's SROM format are supported.

(read the top of drivers/net/de4x5.c).

tulip is Donald Beckers driver. It is the newer of the 2, and supports more types of tulip cards/chipsets/srom formats than the Digital de4x5 driver does. It also was the more higher-performance and more 'linux' driver. however, the addition of support for every weird type of DE21x4x clone card has cruftified the tulip driver ever so slightly.

for 2.5, i believe they plan to rip tulip apart.

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[psamuels]

I have to support some of those old monsters. Does anyone know what the story is on the seperate driver issue? Considering the amount of effort it took to learn how to configure those boogers, I'm a little bummed that all that effort is going to waste.

'tulip' as I'm sure you know supports quite an array of chips and cards - from the original DEC 21040 through the 10/100 2114x and several "imitation" chips. Not only that, but the other hardware on a tulip card can vary in minor but annoying ways.

What seems to be happening is that the kernel people (Jeff Garzik probably) are getting tired of supporting all those configurations in a single driver. Thus the older chips and configurations will go in one driver and the newer ones in another. The old driver will need very little maintenance since it won't have to support any new hardware in the future.

This is similar to what happened with the NE2000 driver - long ago it was split up into a legacy (ISA etc) driver and a PCI driver. See also the various NCR SCSI drivers.

Upshot is, you just need to pick the correct driver for your hardware. Then do whatever it is you need to do currently to set up your card correctly (media settings?).

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[Jburkholder]

I wasn't able to buy the 310's last time I needed cards, and the 311's now have realtek chips, I believe.

But that doesn't make sense anyway to buy new NICs with tulip chips. If buying new cards was an option, wouldn't he just get something well supported in the first place? I bet his problem is motherboard-integrated NICs.

Re:Tulip cards - help!

[tulare]

I bet his problem is motherboard-integrated NICs.

Exactly.

Re:Tulip cards - help! --Offtopic

[The Ape With No Name]

Kill Smart Tags:
meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE"

Is this true?

i agree

[Transient0]

i agree, i went a bit off the handle there. this is a much better suggestion.

new proposal: a new topic category for versioning.

not like /. is a democracy or anything...

[grin]

-AC?

[andrewjnr]

Can anyone tell me what is happening to Alan Cox's -AC releases? He hasn't posted a new one since 2.4.13-ac8, and I can't find anything saying he's stopped or whatever.

Re:-AC?

[Anonymous Coward]

99% is in 2.4.17-rc1.

Re:-AC?

[captredballs]

Alan Cox no longer maintains the 2.4 kernel. He wanted to be more involved in 2.5 development and handed the job over to Marcelo Tosatti.

Re:-AC?

[andrewjnr]

Yeah I am aware of that, but how about Alan's personal set of patches (the -ac patch)? Is he still doing them?

Re:-AC?

[Zeio]

Alan *never* maintained 2.4.X, he maintains 2.2.X to this day, you can even see a changelog recently involving some weird DMCA secrets withheld from the general populace (do a diff lay-Z people ;p) from 2.2.19 to 2.2.20.

The -AC 2.4.X were a testing ground largely for his endeavors to merge as much as possible into the kernel above and beyond Linus' stable-er or more conservative (an approach which is subjective; some such as Alan see the new VM as avant guard) merging approach. I think that part of the aggressive merging going on in 2.4 with the -AC branch seeks to give RedHat the leg up on other distros with regard to the feature-laden-ness of the RedHat official kernel. For example, the RedHat 2.4.9 kernel release that is RPM-able (RPM KERNEL ARE EVIL ;p) contains EXT3 (as does the original RH7.2 kernel modification of 2.4.7). This was considerably sooner than 2.4.15. While Alan's 2.4 work is invaluable, he was not the maintainer.

The maintenance of 2.4.X was handed off to Marcelo at 2.4.15 by Linus, according to "The Linux Portaloo" written by Cox sporadically, there was some confabulation regarding who would maintain 2.4. According to some recent posts, Alan fully intends on continuing his tireless and aggressive merges, but in the tie being he is, by my speculation, busy digesting the 2.5.X roadmap and rewriting SCSI drivers (:

As far as the 2.5 kernels go, try them out, complain to the right people, and make sure to love Linux as well should.

-Z

Re:-AC?

[psamuels]

Yeah I am aware of that, but how about Alan's personal set of patches (the -ac patch)? Is he still doing them?

No. 2.4.15 was where Alan pushed most of his ready-for-primetime stuff to Linus, and that was the end of the -ac series for now. Alan pushes stuff straight to Marcelo now (see the changelogs), and presumably he doesn't have all that much queued up from -ac anymore.

big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? Linux versions come out every week.
Linus should be a real man and put the kernel
in a centralized CVS repository, unless he's
afraid of someone taking over his namesake.

Re:big deal

[didyaseethat]

Nahh... I think he's afraid of ignorant hacks jacking up the beauty of a codebase that is the Kernel.

bio?

[Dynastar454]

Reading the change logs, and there's lots of "bio" in there. What's that? Basic I/O?

Re:bio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Block I/O

Argh(Argh())

[matticus]

There are 5 standard replies every time slashdot lists a new kernel release.

• Only the brave need apply! This is not for servers! Blah Blah!
• Slashdot shouldn't post this!
• So exactly what has changed?
• My uptime! Argh!
• There are 5 standard replies every time...

Re:Argh(Argh())

[Anonymous Coward]

And there's always one smart alec who posts one thing about what everyone else will post.

Re:Argh(Argh())

[Cro Magnon]

6. But I just compiled $KERNEL_VERSION - 1!

Re:Argh(Argh())

[RainbowSix]

You forgot the
"There are x standard replies everytime blah" rant that gets posted every time a new kernel is released.

Re:Argh(Argh())

[HoaryCripple]

all bullshit aside, this was one hell of a profound comment. Subject and all.

Re:Argh(Argh())

[millette]

You forgot:

• odd is for devel. Do not deploy!

Re:Argh(Argh())

[dsb]

You forgot

Use the mirrors folks!

Re:Argh(Argh())

[snoozerdss]

You also forgot t "There are x standard replies everytime blah" rant that gets posted every time a new kernel is released". You know. The rant about the rant ;) hell sonebody had to say it.

Re:Argh(Argh())

[Erasmus Darwin]

No. The fifth reply listed is a reference to the "X standard replies" rant.

Re:Argh(Argh())

[jooniqzb1tch]

yeah, but he probably copied it all from the last kernel release's 'five standard replies' rant :)
jk.

Re:Argh(Argh())

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he didn't forget. That remark always appears in the standard editorial heading, not the replies....

Re:Argh(Argh())

[tuxisuau]

You forgot the changelog (sometimes posted a thousand or two of times)

Upgrading

[Zog]

I just finally got version 2.0.34 to not make my toaster oven radiate green antimatter. I've heard that 2.4.15-pre14 has this feature built in if I remount my disks enough without syncing and doing lots of little changes to my filesystem - I guess it'd be a bit unorthodox to use that method to make my toaster stop, but it should theoretically work. Does the 2.5 series have this problem solved?

I kind of got frustrated after trying to patch it for a while, and just let it eat stuff before I finally made myself fix it, but when I sent in the patch, he said it was too big and obfuscated (I'm not quite sure what he meant - BettyLuJane could read it fine if I held her head on for her), but now I have to try all over again? 2.1 or 2.2 I think I could get done before it starts eating the sofa again, but 2.5? It'd eat all the way through the safety systems on all my Acme stuff, and I don't want that to happen again.

I mean, 2.5 just sounds really big. Does it mean I have to use real names for my variables instead of just my favorite letters? Also, I don't think my toaster liked gcc. It said something about being incompatible with M$ PROPRIETARY ANTIMATTER-GENERATING TOASTER's. I still don't know where that came from, but it all went away when I rewrote the kernel in Visual Basic 2.0+.

Well, thank you for your time. If you have any suggestions (or if you want to send me a new toaster - I can't really afford a new one quite yet), my email is gheiste.strauss@mickeymouse.com.

P.S. If it does fix the antimatter problem, does that mean I don't have to worry about it destroying the city anymore? (these guys in suits wouldn't take me seriously when I told them I couldn't figure out what was going on, and they let me go after a couple of years, but I don't like them anymore - they aren't as polite as they used to be)

Re:Upgrading

[chabotc]

Had me laughing out loud for a couple of minutes, thanks for cheering up my morning! ;-)

Re:Upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't funny. It was inane.

Re:Upgrading

[archen]

"Does it mean I have to use real names for my variables instead of just my favorite letters? "

I wish someone would apply this to some of the program names in Linux...

Re:bio? --Nevermind

[Dynastar454]

Reading down a bit further in the logs, it seems to be "Block I/O". Now I know. :-)

welp

[NotAnotherReboot]

Home Alone 2 is on TV and after watching all of the terrible accidents that the bad guys go through I now realize why I don't attempt to update Linux myself, especially a development version. I could practically kill myself in the process, and it would be by my doing.

Re:welp

[ShadeEagle]

*NotAnotherReboot finishes compiling the new kernel, and all of a sudden, his computer explodes, making a hole in the roof. As he reels around, he is suddenly buried in paint cans. He digs himself out, and realises that the paint is REAL sticky. He opens a window to get rid of the paint smell, but as he does this, several thousand black and white feathers fly into the room. NotAnotherReboot, now covered in feathers, turns to go for a shower, when he slips on some micro machines carelessly left in the hallway. He stands up, and vows never to install another "development" kernel again.*

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real-world events is coincidental, but I doubt that EXACT series of events will happen to this or any individual, mainly because I've never seen a computer explode. Plus, it'd really suck if it did.

Re:welp

[Anonymous Coward]

"Madge, who left the exploding penguin on top of the telly?"

Who cares ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't compile. It doesn't work.

Re:Who cares ?

[Subjective]

if only that was a haiku...

(sorry, /me not get much sleep)
(sorry again, me too much irc did, yes)

Re:2.4? (Offtopic)

[FlowerPotAdmin]

Yes, there is a point to Google caching a copy of itself -- they don't have to code in a special case for their own site.
Value(Code clarity) >= Value(Memory for one cached page)

Don't overdo the caution

[The Pim]

from the only-the-brave dept.

Ok, this is a development kernel, so you shouldn't just jump in as if it were a stable release. But keep in mind that this is only 2.5.1, where 2.5.0 == 2.4.15, a stable kernel. Since it's only been one revision, it can't have destabilized that much.

A quick primer on kernel engineering might help. You know how the 2.4.x series solidified release by excruciating release? Well, the 2.5.x series is the same, only in reverse. It takes as much work to destabilize a kernel as it did to stabilize it, so don't expect crashes and corruption right away. In fact, just as a few 2.4.x releases were regressions, 2.5.1 might even be stabler than 2.5.0. That would be an accident, though, and the developers try to prevent it.

To the Slashdot editors: You can dispense only so much over-caution before the readers decide you're crying wolf. As a community, we need to save up our restraint for the real hour of need, when the siren song of exotic new features lures even the most stolid administrator from the doldrums of predictable stability, into the roiling churn of highly evolved breakage. I would recommend toning down the warnings for now, and becoming progressively more shrill as the kernel hits its maximal instability.

Re:Don't overdo the caution

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you would be surprised how much could break between just one number jump.

The bio stuff is fairly extensive.

Re:Don't overdo the caution

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you READ the release? Literally HALF of the block device drivers are broken, as is the SCSI subsystem. Someone mod this down, this guy's a retard.

Re:Don't overdo the caution

[KidSock]

No shit.

Re:Don't overdo the caution

[WhiteLynx]

Thats not strictly true...

Programmers use the new 2.5.blah series to try out new stuff. That new stuff doesnt always work as expected, and in some setups can cause loads of problems...

Saying 2.5.blah is only one step from 2.4.15, and therefore equally stable, doesnt really hold true.

I agree with the earlier posts that non-programming people (myself included) should try these new kernels to help the development of the open source project. Just be careful about it, and dont be too surprised if it all goes horribly, horribly wrong...

Thats all, flame now....

Re:Don't overdo the caution

[antientropic]

Since it's only been one revision, it can't have destabilized that much.

2.5.1 introduces major changes to the block device layer, a rather crucial bit of code. Bugs in that code might well eat your data. In fact, it's a good idea to put the dangerous changes in early rather than in a late phase of development.

It takes as much work to destabilize a kernel as it did to stabilize it

Absolutely untrue, as any programmer knows. It takes a lot of hard work to make something stable, but it only takes a one-character change at the wrong place to destabilize the system for all users (cf. 2.4.15).

Re:Don't overdo the caution

[CatherineCornelius]

Since it's only been one revision, it can't have destabilized that much... It takes as much work to destabilize a kernel as it did to stabilize it, so don't expect crashes and corruption right away.

You may be right with respect to most software, but remember that this is an O/S kernel--it has absolutely unfettered control of the hardware. It can take just one serious barf at kernel level to turn it into an active menace. Looking at Kernel.org, I see the notice:

Don't use the 2.4.15/2.5.0 kernel. It has a filesystem corruption bug in it. 2.4.15-pre8 or 2.4.16-pre1 should be OK; 2.4.15-pre9 has the same bug.

Caution is recommended. A kernel can eat your filesystem.

Re:Don't overdo the caution

[Anonymous Coward]

2.5.1 introduces major changes to the block device layer

I threw out all my QIC-2120 tape drives last night.

The trash man (presumably) hauled them away this morning.

Free at last. I'm free at last. Thank God, I am free at last.

Re:Don't overdo the caution

[damiam]

Sarcasm.

I think you guys missed some of the point...

[CMiYC]

A lot of people seem to be complaining that Slashdot doesn't need to announce a development release... I think that its only being announced because its the first release of 2.5. Kind of like saying "hey, its started, just thought you'd crazy ones would like to know!" I very much doubt we are going to see EVERY 2.5.x release on the front page.

And if you are one of those complaining... c'mon... grow up. Like it *really* killed you to read one extra headline.

Re:I think you guys missed some of the point...

[Oily Tuna]

I very much doubt we are going to see EVERY 2.5.x release on the front page

You're new here aren't you, number ... err ... 6473?

Re:I think you guys missed some of the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Actually this is the second release of the 2.5 series. 2.5.0 was released November 23rd.

Re:I think you guys missed some of the point...

[sar]

i'm not new here, have read it since before the domain was registered and it was Rob's personal page. the kernel releases are an artifact of the fact, that slashdot used to be Rob's linux news site, so if he wants to put every kernel release on the front page, it's his option.

Re:I think you guys missed some of the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Until someone at VA Software replaces him, that is.

I vote for Jon Katz.

Re:I think you guys missed some of the point...

[The Pim]

You're new here aren't you, number ... err ... 6473?

One word: EBay. :-)

Worse than beta

[Webmonger]

This is a development kernel. It's not beta. Beta generally means "feature-complete, but not fully tested". It's not alpha, because alpha usually means "mostly complete". Development means "not complete at all".

Our company just started on the next release of our software, so I feel a bit "in tune" with where the kernel developers are at.

The beginning of a new release should be the place where you make all the hard choices and break things. Then you start putting the pieces together, and if you broke the right stuff for the right reasons, it will be better (but probably less stable) than before. Gradually, you add more and more features, but they don't tend to break things as badly. Finally, you stop adding features, and work on polish.

This is a development kernel, and things are broken because smart people decided to break them. Don't think it's beta. It's not.

two words

[Anonymous Coward]

man patch

Wait a second

[/dev/trash]

Was 2.4.x Alpha then?

The smart alec part of the comment...

[Anonymous Coward]

it went right over your head.

Re:The smart alec part of the comment...

[Anonymous Coward]

*chuckle* the grandparent of my post just completes my day. Sorry dude, if you intended to do that or not its funny.

Jeremy

"Explicitly turned them on"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Smart tags aren't currently enabled by default in Internet Explorer, but this is the way to stop it for those that have explicitly turned them on.

Smart tags appear to the user as blue rectangles beside words on the page. When there's the plain text 'Internet Explorer' they would cause a link to the MSIE page regardless of whether the page had a link to MSIE. Microsoft have said they would sell space on others pages as advertising.

Re:"Explicitly turned them on"

[kawaichan]

I think they disabled them in IE6 final due to the possible misuse of the "technology"

A toy?

[EvilOpie]

Linux has its place. We use Linux at the college I work at for things like DNS, Web servers, system monitoring tools, and proxy servers. Heck, one of my desktop systems even uses it. Seriously, when it's hard to come by budget money, things like Linux come in handy. After all, it's a lot easier to tell your boss that you setup a server for nothing, than having to tell him you spent like $25,000 on your typical Unix solution. (we've got a Digital/Tru64 UNIX box on campus that cost almost $100,000 new)

Now to keep this on topic, I'm surprised that people flame /. so much for posting this. It's not like they're forcing you to upgrade, it's just a notice that 2.5.x is out. (not like I'm ready to upgrade yet anyways, I've just upgraded to 2.2.20 on my slackware box)

Re:A toy?

[Anonymous Coward]

At my college we use Linux as a teaching OS. We used to use Minix but these days all the old 8088 and '286 machines have finally worn out. Minix is a fine teaching OS with a good solid focus for learning, but Linux is useful there as well.

We'd certainly never let the Upper Division students run Linux as if it were a real OS. We have a widely used network of machines running Solaris and Digital Unix for those people.

Beauty?

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't actually read through the kernel code, now have you?

NTFS r/w

[omega9]

I noticed mention of an upgrade to NTFS in the changelogs. I realize it can be argued as a non issue, but is there any real effort to stablize NTFS read/write? At work we're locked in to using W2k domain controllers, and have W2k in a few other places as well. Samba bridges the gap through the network, but in some cases directly mounting an NTFS partition would prove extremely useful. Or is this a non issue?

Re:NTFS r/w

[ocelotbob]

From what I understand, the NTFS situation is as much a legal problem as it is a technical issue. There are several people willing to hack the NTFS code, but they're currently under NDAs with MS, and as such, can't do anything about fixing the code. However, many of those NDAs are expiring, and people are beginning to hack the filesystem so that write support actually works. As it stands, reading from an NTFS partition works, but writing requires a chkdsk when you next boot Windows, but YMMV.

Re:NTFS r/w

[Proud Geek]

I wonder if NTFS was the first journalling filesystem supported under Linux. That would be amusing, to say the least.

Re:NTFS r/w

[omega9]

Not fully supported. Remember, we've got ext3, jfs, reiserfs, and others with much better records then just read-only stable access with NTFS.

Oh, and I've been researching more since I posted and if anyone else is interested check here for for Linux-NTFS tools. They have two tools: ntfsfix attempts to repair any damage done when mounting NTFS partitions as r/w (couldn't they just merge the two projects?), and mkntfs allows you to create NTFS partitions. Their not new, but others may be interested in them. I happened to be there doing unrealated research.

{offtopic}
Can anyone provide insight as to where file permissions are stored on the drive? Are they stored as part of the header of the file(?) or is there a central location that holds that information? I.E. - if user omega9 has rwx on file.txt, where are the actuall bits that describe "omega9" and "rwx" in relation to "file.txt"? This has been imposibbly hard info to find.
{/offtopic}

Re:NTFS r/w

[AYEq]

Not to nit-pick but rieserfs has been in the kernel since (i think) 2.4.4. (and ext3 in 2.4.16)

Re:NTFS r/w

[Proud Geek]

It's stored right beside the filename in the directory entry. Headers attached to every file? What do you think this is, MacOS with resource forks that can have metadata? YMMV if you're using something funny like BeOS or MSDOS, of course.

Re:NTFS r/w

[Proud Geek]

Well, then, definitely. NTFS support has been in the kernel since 2.2.0.

Re:NTFS r/w

[vidarh]

That's entirely up to the filesystem. And with ext2fs at least, they are NOT stored right "beside the filename" in the directory entry - they are stored in the i-nodes that are just referenced from the directory entry.

Re:NTFS r/w

[psamuels]

I wonder if NTFS was the first journalling filesystem supported under Linux. That would be amusing, to say the least.

Well ... that depends on

a) how you define "journalling" - some people consider NTFS to be a "logging" filesystem instead ...

b) whether you count the fact that the Linux NTFS support doesn't actually journal the write data (which is what makes it so broken, I believe) ...

c) if point (b) is ok with you, whether you consider a filesystem to be supported before it actually exists. Because ext3 in non-journalling mode was supported ever since ext2 was merged, which was way before NTFS support. (:

Re:NTFS r/w

[mrfiddlehead]

Journalling pretty well assumes that one be able to actually write to the filesystem, so I would have to say that no, NTFS is no where near being the first supported journalling filesystem.

XFS is probably the best supported, best performance journalling fs out there at the moment. IBM has JFS too but it, apparently, has performance issues. And then there's the old standby, ReiserFS. I think Reiser was first, then JFS and finally XFS.

Re:This is development! DO NOT ENJOY

[rjamestaylor]

Strange you feel compelled to give this advice, since anyone capable of running the 2.5.x series would understand this implicitly... Afterall, no distro with a GUI installer and free penguin squeeze toy will be deploying the 2.5 series... The advice is sound, though.

Yup, gotta love those toys

[raistlinne]

Linux runs on machines from a wristwatch to an S/390.

2000/XP runs on? Oh, that's right. A PIII through a PIV. Yup. Those microsoft guys make real OS's that run on real hardware.

As for commercial Unices, well, what exactly classifies one as a commercial UNIX? Are you counting unix-type systems that are sold for money, or does the code have to have been licensed from sys V at some point? If it's the former definition, then linux is a commercial UNIX (IIRC it even got unix98 certified).

Btw, did you recommend that people move off of NT when there were the alpha and beta builds of 2000 being circulated around?

Oh well, enough feeding the trolls. Back to studying for real analysis. It would be nice to actually help out on this kernel, too. From what I can gather there are plenty of jobs that are quite doable by non-experts. For example, adapting block drivers to the new interface.

Re:Yup, gotta love those toys

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, saying that Linux runs on machines from a wristwatch to an S/390 is a pretty pathetic claim.

People have shoehorned bits and pieces of the Linux kernel to run on a wristwatch. Ever been at the command prompt on a wristwatch? Here's a clue: it's worse than being at the Command Prompt (via Hummingbird's INETD) on a Windows NT box at work from a Palm Pilot running Telnet, which is something that I have personally done (it was kinda cool, actually, typing DOS commands in graffiti).

My point is, Linux only scales that widely if you consider any poor excuse for a Comptuer Science experiment to be 'Linux' if it includes some smidgens of Linux kernel code as a starting point.

If you want a widely ported OS, try NetBSD. Hell, from one single code base you can build it on far more processors and computer architectures than Linux. And we are talking real computers, not some wristwatch.

Part of the Puzzle

[Anonymous Coward]

True enlightenment will come when you realize that there are 5 standard replies for every Slashdot article.

Re:Part of the Puzzle

[Anonymous Coward]

And those 5 are... (drumroll please)..

#5.. the infamous "BSD is dying" article

#4.. the Taco Snotting FAQ

#3.. Poo Ratings

#2.. Natalie Portman IS really hot

#1.. and my personal favorite.. Eat My Nuts ascii art!!

That's right, I'm enlightened...

Let's get this over with

[roie_m]

I don't get it, Linux 2.5? I'm using Linux 7.2. But in any case, even if this were a new version, I'd go to freshmeat to check out on these things, not slashdot. (Yes, I know about Freshmeat even though I can't tell the difference between Linux and Redhat). Don't upgrade, anyway, Linux is a bunch of crap. You're better off upgrading to Windows 2005 or MacOS XIV. They even let you keep your uptime even during power outages. And when you do that, always use the mirrors. That way you see any secret messages in mirror-writing on the packaging.

Oh, did I make first post? ;-)

Re:Let's get this over with

[Anonymous Coward]

Only power users like you get to use the latest.

O well, just let those who play with an old version like 2.5.1 have their fun...

Critically important question [ot]...

[rakslice]

Is restless product placement for cheese slices? Answer carefully.

(Know or do not... don't worry if this doesn't click.)

Any more significant plot explanations will also be accepted with glee. Especially those involving erotic writing. Fnord.

YOU FUCKING KARMA WHORES EAT BACOM

[Anonymous Coward]

BBBBAAAACCCCOOOMMMMM

with an unnessesary _M_ !!!

cunts.

FYI & AA & FU & :-O===8 ... asshole.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, that is a cock being sucked

dude... DONT eat yo moma's cunt!

[Anonymous Coward]

it's smell lika fisha!

So when are...

[doorbot.com]

XFS and JFS supposed to be merged into the kernel? I saw a post a while back on Slashdot that claimed Linus wanted IBM/SGI/etc to wait for 2.5. Well 2.5 is here...

So the 64000 Euro question is... when are we getting ACL support? I've heard the IBM solution was good, but required a lot of kernel patches -- but that's what development kernels are all about!

Re:So when are...

[elefantstn]

So the 64000 Euro question is... when are we getting ACL support?

You're probably going to have to offer more than $1.37 to get someone to hack that for you.

Re:So when are...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just buy $1.37 worth of itching powder and sprinkle it on a kernel hacker.

FreeBSD probably has a more sensible policy here

[absurd_spork]

I also don't see announcements of FreeBSD beta, only RELEASES. And it should stay that way.

This is mainly because FreeBSD does not assign flashy version numbers to their betas, only to releases. For a current beta, grab the FreeBSD-current distribution, and you're up to date. If you don't know how to do that, then it's not for you anyway.

They don't advertize that, and I think it's a good idea not to do so, because it saves a lot of end users a lot of trouble. There's an extra section in the FreeBSD manual saying that the -current distribution is not "a fast-track to getting pre-release bits because you heard there is some cool new feature in there and you want to be the first on your block to have it", and that sums it up quite well. Better than assigning 5.0.7b1-BETA and waiting for end user complaints to pour in, anyway.

ABI vs user API vs internal kernel API

[Paul Jakma]

actually:

the Linux API is /extremely/ stable.

the Linux ABI is also very stable. the only thing that isn't guaranteed stable is extremely low-level linux-specific interfaces. (Eg firewalling, routing, network setup, /proc interfaces, etc..). Note that the most significant determinant of the stability of the ABI is /not/ the kernel, rather it is libc and libc++. (ie glibc for most linux systems.) If you have the right libraries you can still run 5 year old a.out binaries on linux 2.4.

the internal kernel API is not stable. and linus likes it that way.

Freshmeat

[Anonymous Coward]

When did Slashdot turn into freshmeat. These kernel update news stories are getting quite rediculous.

Re:Ok here's my deal....

[Subjective]

linux kernel doesn't affect end-users.
Also, overhauling your engine won't make your driving any better - you just have to get over the illusion that you're in England.

Anyone else, just think about it - program installation on the kernel - you ain't seen 'monolithic' yet ;)

Is 2.2 officially complete?

[boltar]

Will there be any more updates to the 2.2 series
or is this officially finished now?

Re:Linux is zionist

[gazbo]

Have you seen how many bites egg troll gets?

Re:bio? --Nevermind

[psamuels]

Reading down a bit further in the logs, it seems to be "Block I/O". Now I know. :-)

Yup, a shiny new block device layer, supposed to scale better on big boxes. It required significant changes to all block drivers, meaning all the hardware drivers for IDE, SCSI, RAID, floppy, etc.

This is what makes 2.5.1 a "caution, do not try this at home" development kernel. The early kernels in 2.3 were pretty tame by comparison - the big breakage there (the Great Page Cache Migration) didn't happen until I think 2.3.7.

You are SO right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.

An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.

Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.

According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).

The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.

Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".

The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.

I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.

Flashing neon sign over parent: HUMOR

[The Pim]

Good god, people, if you couldn't read that one, the terrorists have already won! It was not interesting or insightful or overrated or any of the less polite things suggested by other posters. It was FUNNY.

Please, restore my faith in humanity by reading it again and at least pretending to laugh if you still don't get it.

Re:FreeBSD probably has a more sensible policy her

[CatherineCornelius]

What follows is a kernel newbie's comment on the development of BSD and Linux kernels.

BSD kernel development and Linux kernel development seem to be examples of two very different paradigms[1]

FreeBSD[2] kernel development, bug tracking and fixing appear to be very formal, resulting in a rather sedate evolution. Linux versions of the same thing, although every bit as centralised as BSD projects (or even more so, because Linus decides what goes into the release), appears to be much less formal--I can find no Linux equivalent of FreeBSD's bug tracking system.

The FreeBSD project does also appear to have more rigid project management. It's also much more of a single entity, too. Whereas the Linux kernel project is distinct from the distributions that use it, typically a BSD project includes management of everything from kernel development through package management to documentation, promotion and distribution of source media.

[1] Sorry for dumping the p-word on you without warning there, but I think it's merited in this case [G,D&R].

[2] Taking FreeBSD as an example of a BSD project.

A tribute to g0ff

[Ark]

251!!! 251-5049!!! CATS!

That is our tribute to g0ff for the day. Thank you, drive through.

development kernel upgrades

[mr. marbles]

does anyone have a link to what new features are on the wish list for the new development kernel?

Re:Spread that Christmas Cheer

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, bravo. I appreciate the work that was put into this timeless Christmas tradition.

Re:2.4? (Offtopic)

[damiam]

They could just deny all access from GoogleBot in their robots.txt file.

compile probs

[domo_jojo]

ide-floppy.o `ide-floppy_end_request'
ide-floppy.c:699: warning: comparison between pointer and integer
ide-floppy.c:699: warning: comparison between pointer and integer
ide-floppy.c: In function `idefloppy_que_pc_head':
ide-floppy.c:779: incompatible types in assignment
ide-floppy.c: In function `idefloppy_create_rw_cmd':
ide-floppy.c:1214: warning: comparison between pointer and integer
etc........
Back to my trusty 2.4.16

Goatse.cx link, do not click

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the title says. What a dickhead.

Re:Hello

[Anonymous Coward]

The left wing and the right wing are just the two big flappy wings on the same big dirty bird.

And it's a buzzard searching for carrion to swoop down on.

Get some perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been using Linux exclusively for 6 months? That's it?? I've been using it for 2.5 years and I still consider myself a newbie. Maybe after 6 years you can say "I'm not a newbie", but 6 months...hahahhahahh.

Re:Get some perspective

[Descartes]

Hmmm...let me get this straight.
You're bragging about being stupid.
Wow, I'm really impressed. Ok, you win, you are definately slower at learning OSs then I am.

3 concurrent tasks

[Anonymous Coward]

"99% of the linux boxes out there run only 3 concurent running tasks, so the scheduler has to remain optimized for this situation (!)"

With only 3 concurrent tasks, the scheduler could be optimized by one untrained monkey trying to sandpaper a bobcat's ass in a telephone booth and it wouldn't matter.

g0ff

[HenryFool]

MEoW