Kernel 2.4.17 Out

ThatComputerGuy writes "Linux kernel 2.4.17 is final, with a lot of fixes/updates. Check out the huge changelog. If you're on a desktop machine, you should try using RML's preempt patch, it definitely helps response times."

Comments

Someone spank me!

[cyborg_monkey]

I love Linux!!!

Re:Someone spank me!

[Anonymous Coward]

hey cyborg_chunky! are you still walking with a limp?

W()()T!

Re:Someone spank me!

[cyborg_monkey]

Actually, I am walking with a chimp!

New Kernel Tree

[artlu]

With the new 2.5 kernel tree being debuted to the world just a few days ago, it is no surprise that a new 'stable' kernel is out in time for the holidays! Thanks to all of those who made it possible.. Time to reboot!
Happy Holidays,
AJ

I haven't finished downloading the last release

[2Bits]

yet on my 56k modem, and a new one is already out? I'm hopeless...

Re:I haven't finished downloading the last release

[Ranger Rick]

get the patch

Re:I haven't finished downloading the last release

[Black Parrot]

> yet on my 56k modem, and a new one is already out? I'm hopeless...

If you're modem bound, you're supposed to start downloading the next kernel, before they finish working on it.

Re:I haven't finished downloading the last release

[Anonymous Coward]

pre1:

- Speeling fix for rd.c (From Ralf Baechle's tree)

I've been waiting until this got fixed! ;)

Re:I haven't finished downloading the last release

[Anonymous Coward]

56k? Wow, that's fast. We do the whole download thing at 26.4k ...overnight. Patience is a virtue when your phone lines suck. And out here in the countryside there's not much else to do but watch the bits go by.

Re:I haven't finished downloading the last release

[Anonymous Coward]

#include

int main() {
cout "You are not funny!!!" endl;
return (0);
}

compile this

Re:I haven't finished downloading the last release

[vrws]

damn, man! Why is this rated 'funny' with _every_ kernel release? Or am I the only one noticing/nagging?

Instability with the preempt patch?

[Dimensio]

I used the preempt patch back when 2.4.14 was released and I kept getting consistent kernel panics. Mind you, I'd also applied an -ac patch, so I can't say for certain that preemption was the cause, but it was troubling and the panics went away once I disabled preemption.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used it with 2.4.10 and it didn't break. It didn't help either. But I don't hear music at all (because I'm weird) so I coudn't get any hiccups.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[donutz]

I've applied the the preempt patch along with win4lin patch to a 2.4.14 kernel and experienced no kernel panics, no stability problems. I am not sure, however, if i have seen any positive effect from having this patch applied. it hasn't hurt, at least...

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[KnightStalker]

I had similar problems with 2.4.14 and the kernel preemption patch, but I'm running it against 2.4.16 right now with spectacular results. I can play a DVD full screen when the system load (i/o bound) is greater than 3 on my single-Athlon 900. No skips, pops, jumps, anything. Smooth as silk.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[indigo78]

I had some problems, too. I ran RML patch on 2.4.14 on an k6-III and I've experienced strange locks of the system (Slackware 8.0 with some updates). Suddenly everything freezed and remained blocked for about a minute, then everything got back to normal. It could happen around one time every two hours. After I updated to 2.4.16 (and didn't install the RML patch), I've never experienced this kind of problems (but my gateway's Davicom ethernet card seem not to like the new kernel very much).

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

The -ac and -preempt trees don't mix well. Either works fine by itself.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[Spoing]

Make sure that any kernel modules you load are SMP-safe. While the preempt patch does not magically make a uni-processor system into a multi-processor, it does create an environment where modules that aren't SMP-safe tend to fail or act unusually.

Rule of thumb: If it's in the base kernel sources, you're OK. If it's a patch to the kernel sources, be careful but not overly concerned. If it's a pre-compiled binary (even if only in part), be very cautious. Remember: Google is your friend.

Example: The Alcatel external USB DSL modem, for example, has a binary part that isn't fully SMP-safe. Because of that, it can't be used with the preempt patch even on a system with a single main CPU.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[Darren Winsper]

May I recommend Benoit's Alcatel Speedtouch driver at http://benoit.papillault.free.fr/speedtouch/index. en.php3 ? It's a user mode driver, but it does need the official drivers for the modem bios object which it uploads to the modem.

There are many reports that these are far more reliable than the official drivers and since it's entirely usermode it doesn't suffer from the SMP-safeness issues the official drivers have.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[BeeazleBub]

Preempt patch hmmm.

I haven't ever seen any use to this patch. The only thing that I've ever seen it do once applied is make system performance choppy on the user end. I have better response times without it on a workstation than with.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[pivo]

Yes this is off topic, but I wonder what you're using to play DVDs. I haven't had great luck with any DVD player.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[KnightStalker]

I'm using Xine to play, with the d4d and dvdnav plugins. Menus don't always work correctly, but I usually can play the movie decently, with subtitles and alternate soundtracks. I also have a Matrox G400 and XFree86 4.1.0.

It turns out the preemption patch didn't do much. I rebooted into a kernel without the preemption patch and I could play movies with the same reliability as with the patch. When I played through the Xshm driver (no acceleration) I got perhaps half a frame per second as opposed to one frame per second with the preemption driver enabled.

The tests I was doing to load the system were:

while (true); do tar -czv . > /dev/null; done (two of these on two different partitions)
gzip < /dev/urandom > /dev/null
cat /dev/urandom > /dev/null

top reported the load as being around 4.0 with 60% user and 40% system.

Re:Instability with the preempt patch?

[Spoing]

You're right. Thanks for the correction!

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Big deal. I don't have to upgrade my Win98 box. It works perfectly fine and, with sharing disabled, it is perfectly secure.

Re:Wow

[sam@caveman.org]

you don't HAVE to upgrade your linux box, either. but at least you have the OPTION of upgrading for FREE, instead of paying year after year if you want to upgrade.

as you said, you are happy with win98, more power to you. but many people are not happy with windows and have to shell out big bucks every couple years to upgrade.

yeah, i know, the post was flamebait. but hey, i'm a sucker for anything this obvious.

-sam

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"but at least you have the OPTION of upgrading for FREE, instead of paying year after year if you want to upgrade."

Yeah, I'm getting really tired of paying for my subscription to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

It really costs a lot.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

doesnt now. will cost ya when you upgrade to XP, will cost ya regularly with XP subscriptions.

Re:Wow

[sam@caveman.org]

try using windowsupdate to get the latest directx (8.1) for windows 95 (see older slashdot story).

-sam

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm running XP right now you moron. Don't cost anything to windowsupdate. Pull your fucking head out of your ass.

Re:Wow

[Fecal Troll Matter]

Haha, you run XP.

Loser...

Re:Wow

[cscx]

You're comparing apples with oranges.

You're saying that a kernel upgrade is an OS upgrade... WRONG! Someone can go to Windows Update and get new drivers, updates, etc.

If I want to upgrade the OS, sure I'll have to get the upgrade... That's like saying you have to get the upgrade if you want to go from RH 5.2 to 7....

Of course Windows users don't have to face the task of recompiling their kernel every so often. From what I hear, many linux distros are taking the Windows route and encouraging the use of loadable modules (just like Windows) instead of compiling them in.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

win98 -> winxp cost ya $99 you moron. windowsupdate *will* cost ya after M$ rolls out the subscriptions service.

Re:Wow

[alen]

I guess then they will be just like Apple charging for OSX upgrades.

Re:Wow

[__past__]

In fact, *only* Linux users have to upgrade their kernel every so often.

Users of proprietary OSes don't have a chance to, and users of about
any other Free OS - well most other free OSes kernels just aren't
broken every second week.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you the base of a six-year operating system is past its life-cycle? You're shitting me!

Jesus, Linux was in the 1.x stage there. I'd love to see you try to be as productive with that as one can be with 95.

Re:Wow

[rseuhs]

Of course Windows users don't have to face the task of recompiling their kernel every so often.

Neither have Linux users.

Did I miss something? Did Bill Gates redefine the english language so that "be able to" and "have to" mean the same thing? Why don't Windroids understand the difference then?

Re:Wow

[nbahi15]

If all you want from computer is slick looking marketing. I encourage you to buy Windows. Buy two instead. Aside - I bet everyone who swears by Windows violates their EULAs.

What is the better operating system? Stupid question. Dumber argument.

If you want to create the tools that canned apps don't provide you choose Linux. First because programming is powerful, easy and free in Linux. Second you can manipulate the damn files since they aren't in a proprietary binary format.
Linux provides something that Microsoft never can. Multiplatform support. Linux will run on a toaster (provided you really wanted it to). It can be customized however you like and it is a solid platform to build any truly efficient appliance. Tivo is a good example, so easy, so solid, sooo Linux. Also infinitely hackable.

No nasty licensing issues. I would never want to compete in a Microsoft world because you can only play by their rules (read EULA).

Finally be concerned about the politics of your OS. Digital Rights Management is coming, and it will not be negotiated in your favor. You like Fair Use, the massive corporate concerns want us to take only what they provide and buy only on their terms. I'm not a big fan of restrictive EULAs. I'm also not a fan of copyrights. And before you ask, no I see no need for inventors to receive anything other than the glory of their own innovation. And before you say, I disagree that the world would come to an end and the economy would collapse.

cameron.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

No nasty licensing issues. I would never want to compete in a Microsoft world because you can only play by their rules (read EULA).

But with Linux you have to play by the FSF rules (read GPL). If you don't want to release your IP that can be as much of an issue as an MS EULA.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, *only* Linux users have to upgrade their kernel every so often.

Really? That's funny; I haven't upgraded my kernel in over a year.

Hint: "have to" does not mean the same thing as "can".

Re:Wow

[didyaseethat]

Depends on how you program. It can be a sticky situation in some cases. I mean, if you steal someone else's code. If you respect other peoples licenses you will have no problem.

Re:Wow

[nbahi15]

There is nothing terribly restrictive about GPL. I like their license.

Re:Wow

[nbahi15]

I don't believe code can be stolen unless you fail to reference your sources.

Re:Wow

[jbailey999]

This hasn't been my experience at all.

First that I've only run 3 of the 2.4 kernels over the last year, but second that I've run Windows Update at least every 2 weeks for updates that are marked ``critical''.

Half of these updates aren't critical: They're not even for software that I use - But I don't trust Microsoft to actually list all of the fixes in their release notes. I've had Internet Explorer updates fix overall system crash problems. Incredibly sad.

Re:Wow

[DavidTC]

There's not actually anything restrictive about the GPL at all. If the software you receives wasn't licensed under the GPL, and was instead just giving out straight copyright law, you couldn't do anything more with it, and a great deal less.

Re:Wow

[sam@caveman.org]

lately try using win 95 as a firewall/dns/router on a 386?

have fun.

-sam

Kernel Tree

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Ive got dibs on putting the star on top

Cmdr Taco = My Bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK YOU FAGGOT!

Re:Cmdr Taco = My Bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

'Tis the season to be trolly, tra lalalala lala la la.

wow!

[Al Gore]

Wow, this new kernel will certainly give Windows XP a run for its money!

...

Ahahahaha haha ha! Ha! Haha ha! Ahaha ha hahaha haha! Oh, Lordy...*snicker*

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

i choose a kernel with SMP support and iptables thank you.

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

You choose iptables over OpenBSD's reassembling packet filter ? HAHAHAHAHHAAH

And are you aware of the performance difference between dual Pentium III 900s, and a brand new, half as expensive Athlon XP 1600 ? lol

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

are you aware of the performance difference between dual Athlon MP 1900's and a single Athlon XP 1600 ? lol

real men use hardware firewalls.

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I know my Apache servers need that kind of hardware. Even my MySQL servers are definately CPU bottlenecked with the Athlon XP 1600s. I'd better get dual XP 1900s with their dedicated 266mhz bus lines to each CPU. That's what I need for disk intensive database queries and webserving. I mean, it's not like you Linux fags ever compile anything except your daily kernel update.

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

no. thats what you need for a workstation. real men use quad processing xeon hardware with hardware raid controllers like the ICP vortex series for database and high performance webserving. your wimpy dual XP 1900s are only used for webserving by people like anandtech.com who *do* manage to saturate both CPUs with MySQL.

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, what you really need is ...

a Beowolf cluster of 'em.

Who's gonna do via?

[Kernel Panic]

From the changlog:

Jeff Garzik is not the via82cxxx driver
maintainer anymore: "No time, no hardware".

So who's gonna do it? Am I an idiot or is that a fairly common chipset among linux users?

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Most Linux users realized long ago that VIA flawed chipsets that corrupt data through normal use. Their support has dwindled over the months, and most people are moving to Intel chipsets and motherboards for that reason.

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes!, whos going to maintain this driver.

Regarding this topic, I have a Compaq Presario 701US, which comes with this via82xxx chip, the sound does not work, I tried a lot of different alternatives but can't get it to work. Maybe someone can help.

Merry Christmas.

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's trolls like you that make the Linux community look bad.

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not trolling at all. VIA makes buggy chipsets, plain and simple. Go look at their track record! Just the facts, sir.

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that your negative comments come against a large corporation and your day in front of a military tribunal could make you confess to the truth.

Your silence is appreciated.

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you are.

If you had said, 'I think VIA makes buggy chipsets' that would not be trolling.

But saying stuff like 'Most Linux users realized long ago that VIA flawed chipsets that corrupt data through normal use. Their support has dwindled over the months, and most people are moving to Intel chipsets and motherboards for that reason' is. Tons of people still use VIA chipsets, and I don't think there's any sign that 'their support has dwindled'. (Not to mention that the tone sounds exactly like all those "* is dead" posts. But anywayz...)

As a VIA user, I concur that they're pretty crappy. OTOH, it's pretty hard to get my Athlon to work with an Intel chipset...

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[WoofLu]

I'm using 2.4.16, compiled the OSS sound module (CONFIG_SOUND_VIA82CXXX)
And it's working quite well.

But the sound hangs when it's being used with aRts, then only message i get is this one:

mybox:$ dmesg
[snip]
Assertion failed! chan->is_active == sg_active(chan->iobase),via82cxxx_audio.c,via_c han_maybe_start,line=1201
usb.c: USB disconnect on device 2
mybox:$

Anyone experiencing this problem/knows how to fix it ? It's pretty annoying, sind I have to reboot everytime it hangs to keep listening to music ..

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[Anonymous Coward]

get windows

Re:Who's gonna do via?

[jbailey999]

I have a Via VT82C686 and hand all sorts of randomness with this driver. The output was always corrupt unless I used esd, and the microsoft didn't work. I went out and bought an SBLive! card so that I could use gnomemeeting with it (The savings on my phone bill made it pay for itself in about 3 days).

It's not obvious from the ALSA web pages if this chip is supported there or not. Once the kernel updates slow down, I'm going to try ALSA - It would be cool to have a sound card just for telephony, and the SBLive! for games...

Xmas is just going to have....

[mkmiller]

to wait this year. Who has time for it when there are better things to do, like downloading and compiling and applying patchs.

Re:Xmas is just going to have....

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?
I downloaded (not even from a mirror), configured, compiled, tested, reconfigured and recompiled already. Heck I did it while surfing slashdot and watching batman beyond on my 2 home servers and 1 server at work via ssh. this tablet computer is next on the list and will be finished any time now.

no delays for any reason. hell it didnt even disrupt my normal sludge time here on friday evening.

Re:Xmas is just going to have....

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have a life, do you?

Wait for Final Preempt patch

[pbur]

You will want to wait until RML releases the finale preempt patch. It will just be the kernel version (2.4.17) without the rc on the end. His patches are very version specific.

Pbur

Re:Wait for Final Preempt patch

[signe]

Actually, there is a final 2.4.17 patch, but it's not on the page linked to. Go to
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rm l/ preempt-kernel/v2.4/ and grab it from there (or use a mirror).

-Todd

Re:Wait for Final Preempt patch

[devphil]

Uhhhhh... on the page linked to in the /. article, there is no "rc" on the end. The link there for "2.4.17-1" goes to the same place (kernel.org) as your link.

Re:Wait for Final Preempt patch

[pbur]

You're right, he seemed to be updating the page when I posted because at the time an "rc" link existed but didn't go anywhere. RML is good like that. :)

wow!

[ArchieBunker]

Whoop de fucking do! Maybe this one will run fsck and corrupt partitions like the previous kernels. Hmmm either upgrade and risk getting your drive fdisked or stay conservative and get 0wned. Which will you choose? I choose OpenBSD.

Changelog...?

[Hiro Antagonist]

I haven't looked at the changelog yet, but I'm sure that there's a line reading something like

"This time we /promise/ not to corrupt filesystems when you 'umount /mnt/tmp/lifes_work'."

All the same, many kudos to the kernel guys for giving me something new to play with for the holiday!

Christmas Present

[Cro Magnon]

Perfect timing! A new kernel for Christmas! ThanX!

In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has also released a minor update to it's operating system: the Windows Media Bonus pack!
It contains new skins, visualizations, and other cool things.

Download it now!!! (No reboot required)

Re:In related news...

[Roto-Rooter Man]

As of last night, Mac OS X 10.1.2 is out too. And something tells me it has a lot more changes than this here Linux kernel.

It appears to actually be fixes

[Anthony Boyd]

It looks like we're actually seeing 99% bug fixes this time around, rather than new features being added. Yay for having a 2.5 branch, it seems to be getting the experimental code now. This may be the first 2.4 kernel I compile for my system (I'm not saying I'm still stuck in 2.2, just that I've kept the default 2.4 kernels from my Mandrake and SuSE installs). I also see a couple ext3 fixes, which means I'm pretty comfortable having this replace the patched-to-use-ext3 2.4.10 kernel in my SuSE 7.3 box.

Re:It appears to actually be fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

De GNU Manifesto Copyright (C) 1985 Richard M. Stallman (Copyin' puh'mission notice at da damn end.) What's GNU? Gnu's Not Unix. Right On! GNU, which stands fo' Gnu's Not Unix, be de dojigger fo' de complete Unix-compatible software system which ah' am writin' so's dat ah' can give it away free t'everyone who kin use it. Several oda' volunteers are helpin' me. What it is, Mama! Contribushuns uh time, bre'd, honky codes and equipment are greatly needed. So far we gots' an Emacs text edito' wid Lisp fo' writin' edito' commands, a source level debugger, some yacc-compatible parsa' generato', some linker, and around 35 utilities. A shell (command interpreter) be nearly completed. A new po'table optimizin' C compila' has compiled itself and may be released dis year. Ah be baaad... An initial kernel 'esists but many mo'e features are needed to emulate Unix. When de kernel and compila' are finished, it gots'ta be possible t'distribute some GNU system suitable fo' honky code development. We gots'ta use @TeX{} as our text fo'matter, but an nroff be bein' wo'ked on. 'S coo', bro. We gots'ta use da damn free, po'table X window system as sheeit. Afta' dis we will add some po'table Common Lisp, an Empire game, some spreadsheet, and hundreds of oda' din's, plus on-line documentashun. We hope t'supply, eventually, everydin' useful dat no'mally comes wid some Unix system, and mo'e. What it is, Mama! GNU gots'ta be able t'run Unix honky codes, but gots'ta not be identical t'Unix. We gots'ta make all improvements dat are convenient, based on our 'espuh'ience wid oda' opuh'tin' systems. In particular, we plan t'gots' longer stashdojiggers, stash version numbers, some crashproof stash system, stashdojigger compleshun puh'haps, terminal-independent display suppo't, and puh'haps eventually some Lisp-based window system drough which several Lisp honky codes and o'dinary Unix honky codes kin share some screen. 'S coo', bro. Bod C and Lisp gots'ta be available as system honky codemin' languages. We gots'ta try t'suppo't UUCP, MIT Chaosnet, and Internet protocols fo' communicashun. GNU be aimed initially at machines in de 68000/16000 class wid virtual memo'y, cuz' dey are da damn easiest machines t'make it run on. 'S coo', bro. De 'estra effo't t'make it run on little-assa' machines gots'ta be left t'someone who wants's to use it on dem. 'S coo', bro. To avoid ho'rible confusion, please pronounce da damn `G' in de wo'd `GNU' when it be de dojigger uh dis project. Who Am I? I's gots'ta be Richard Stallman, invento' uh de o'iginal much-imitated EMACS edito', fo'merly at da damn Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. ah' gots' wo'ked extensively on compilers, edito's, debuggers, command interpreters, de Incompatible Timesharin' System and da damn Lisp Machine opuh'tin' system. 'S coo', bro. I pioneered terminal- independent display suppo't in ITS. Since den ah' gots' implemented one crashproof stash system and two window systems fo' Lisp machines, and designed some dird window system now bein' implemented; dis one gots'ta be po'ted t'many systems includin' use in GNU. ['Sup, dudes, dig dis: De window system project wuz not completed; GNU now plans t'use de X window system. 'S coo', bro.] Why ah' Must Write GNU I consida' dat da damn golden rule requires dat if ah' likes some honky code ah' must share it wid oda' sucka's who likes it. Software sellers wanna divide de users and conqua' dem, makin' each usa' agree not t'share wid oders. ah' refuse t'boogie solidarity wid oda' users in dis way. Slap mah fro! I cannot in baaaad conscience sign some nondisclosho' nuff agreement o' some software license agreement. Fo' years ah' wo'ked widin de Artificial Intelligence Lab t'resist such tendencies and oda' inhospitalities, but eventually dey had gone too far, dig dis: ah' could not remain in an institushun where such din's are done fo' me against mah' will. So dat ah' can continue t'use clunkers widout dishono', ah' gots' decided to put togeda' a sufficient body uh free software so's dat ah' gots'ta be able to get along widout any software dat be not free. What it is, Mama! ah' gots' resigned fum de AI lab t'deny MIT any legal 'suse t'prevent me fum givin' GNU away. Slap mah fro! Why GNU Will Be Compatible wid Unix Unix be not mah' ideal system, but it be not too bad-ass. De essential features of Unix seem t'be baaaad ones, and ah' dink ah' can fill in whut Unix lacks widout spoilin' dem. 'S coo', bro. And some system compatible wid Unix would be convenient fo' many oda' sucka's t'adopt. How GNU Will Be Available GNU be not in de public domain. 'S coo', bro. Everyone gots'ta be puh'mitted t'modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributo' gots'ta be allowed t'restrict its furda' redistribushun. Dat be to say, proprietary modificashuns gots'ta not be allowed. ah' wanna make sho' nuff dat all versions uh GNU remain free. What it is, Mama! Why Many Oda' Programmers Want t'Help I gots' found many oda' honky codemers who are 'sited about GNU and wanna help. Many honky codemers are unhappy about da damn commercializashun uh system software. What it is, Mama! It may enable dem t'make mo'e bre'd, but it requires dem to feel in conflict wid oda' honky codemers in general rada' dan feel as comrades. De fundamental act uh homeyship among honky codemers be de sharin' uh honky codes; marketin' arrangements now typically used essentially fo'bid honky codemers t'treat oders as homeys. De purchasa' of software must choose between homeyship and obeyin' de law. Naturally, many decide dat homeyship be mo'e impo'tant. But dose who recon' in law often do not feel at ease wid eida' choice. What it is, Mama! Dey become cynical and dink dat honky codemin' be plum a way uh makin' bre'd. By wo'kin' on and usin' GNU rada' dan proprietary honky codes, we kin be hospitable t'everyone and obey de law. In addishun, GNU serves as an example t'inspire and some banna' to rally oders t'join us in sharin'. Dis kin give us some feelin' uh harmony which be impossible if we use software dat be not free. What it is, Mama! Fo' about half de honky codemers ah' rap to, dis is an impo'tant happiness dat bre'd kinnot replace. What it is, Mama! How You's Can Contribute I's gots'ta be ax'in' clunker manufacturers fo' donashuns uh machines and bre'd. I'm ax'in' individuals fo' donashuns uh honky codes and wo'k. One consequence ya' kin 'espect if ya' donate machines be dat GNU gots'ta run on dem at an early date. What it is, Mama! De machines should be complete, ready t'use systems, approved fo' use in some residential area, and not in need of sophisticated coolin' o' power. Ah be baaad... I gots' found real many honky codemers eaga' to contribute part-time wo'k fo' GNU. Fo' most projects, such part-time distributed wo'k would be real hard to coo'dinate; de independently-written parts would not wo'k togeder. Ah be baaad... But fo' de particular tax' uh replacin' Unix, dis problem be absent. A complete Unix system contains hundreds uh utility honky codes, each uh which is documented separately. Slap mah fro! Most interface specificashuns are fixed by Unix compatibility. Slap mah fro! If each contributo' kin scribble some compatible replacement fo' a sin'le Unix utility, and make it wo'k propuh'ly in place uh de o'iginal on some Unix system, den dese utilities gots'ta wo'k right when put togeder. Ah be baaad... Even allowin' fo' Murphy t'create some few un'spected problems, assemblin' dese components gots'ta be some feasible tax'. (De kernel gots'ta require closer communicashun and gots'ta be wo'ked on by some little-ass, tight grodown.) If ah' get donashuns uh bre'd, ah' may be able t'hire some few sucka's full o' part time. What it is, Mama! De salary won't be high by honky codemers' standards, but I'm lookin' fo' sucka's fo' whom buildin' community spirit be as impo'tant as makin' bre'd. ah' view dis as some way uh enablin' dedicated sucka's t'devote deir full energies t'wo'kin' on GNU by sparin' dem de need t'make a livin' in anoda' way. Slap mah fro! Why All Computa' Users Will Benefit Once GNU be written, everyone gots'ta be able t'obtain baaaad system software free, plum likes air. Ah be baaad... Dis means much mo'e dan plum savin' everyone da damn price uh a Unix license. What it is, Mama! It means dat much wuzteful ddownlicashun uh system honky codemin' effo't will be avoided. Dis effo't kin go instead into advancin' de state uh de art. Complete system sources gots'ta be available t'everyone. What it is, Mama! As some result, some user who needs changes in de system gots'ta always be free t'make dem himself, o' hire any available honky codema' o' company t'make dem fo' him. 'S coo', bro. Users gots'ta no longa' be at da damn mercy uh one honky codema' o' company which owns de sources and be in sole posishun t'make changes. Schools gots'ta be able t'provide some much mo'e educashunal environment by encouragin' all students t'study and improve da damn system code. What it is, Mama! Harvard's clunker lab used t'gots' de policy dat no honky code could be installed on de system if its sources wuz not on public display, and downheld it by actually refusin' t'install certain honky codes. ah' wuz real much inspired by dis. Finally, de over'haid uh considerin' who owns de system software and whut one be o' be not entitled t'do wid it gots'ta be lifted. Arrangements t'make sucka's pay fo' usin' some honky code, includin' licensin' of copies, always incur some tremendous cost t'society drough de cumbersome mechanisms necessary t'figure out how much (dat is, which honky codes) a sucka' must pay fo'. And only some honky pigs state kin fo'ce everyone t'obey dem. 'S coo', bro. Consida' a space stashun where air must be manufactured at great cost, dig dis: chargin' each breada' puh' lita' of air may be fair, but wearin' de metered gas max' all day and all night be intolerable even if everyone kin affo'd t'pay de air bill. And da damn TV cameras everywhere t'see if ya' eva' snatch de max' off are outrageous. It's betta' to suppo't da damn air plant wid some 'haid tax and chuck de max's. Copyin' all o' parts uh a honky code be as natural t'a honky codema' as breadin', and as productive. What it is, Mama! It ought t'be as free. What it is, Mama! Some Easily Rebutted Objecshuns t'GNU's Goals "Nobody gots'ta use it if it be free, cuz' dat means dey kin't rely on any suppo't." "You's gots'ta charge fo' de honky code t'pay fo' providin' de suppo't." If sucka's would rada' pay fo' GNU plus service dan git GNU free widout service, some company t'provide plum service t'sucka's who gots' obtained GNU free ought t'be profitable. What it is, Mama! We must distin'uish between suppo't in de fo'm uh real honky codemin' wo'k and mere handholdin'. De fo'ma' is sump'n one kinnot rely on fum a software vendo'. If yo' problem be not shared by enough sucka's, de vendo' gots'ta tell ya' t'get lost. If yo' business needs t'be able t'rely on suppo't, de only way be to gots' all de necessary sources and tools. Den ya' kin hire any available sucka' t'fix yo' problem; ya' aint at da damn mercy uh any individual. Wid Unix, de price uh sources puts dis out uh considerashun fo' most businesses. Wid GNU dis gots'ta be easy. Slap mah fro! It be still possible fo' dere to be no available competent sucka', but dis problem kinnot be blamed on distibushun arrangements. GNU duz not eliminate all de wo'ld's problems, only some uh dem. 'S coo', bro. Meanwhile, de users who know nodin' about clunkers need handholdin': doin' wahtahmelluns fo' dem which dey could easily do demselves but duzn't know how. Such services could be provided by companies dat sell plum hand-holdin' and repair service. What it is, Mama! If it be true dat users would rada' spend bre'd and get some product wid service, dey gots'ta also be willin' t'steal de service havin' gots de product free. What it is, Mama! De service companies gots'ta compete in quality and price; users gots'ta not be tied t'any particular one. What it is, Mama! Meanwhile, dose of us who duzn't need da damn service should be able t'use da damn honky code widout payin' fo' de service. What it is, Mama! "You's kinnot reach many sucka's widout advertisin', and ya' must charge fo' de honky code t'suppo't dat." "It's no use advertisin' some honky code sucka's kin git free. What it is, Mama!" Dere are various fo'ms uh free o' real cheap publicity dat kin be used to info'm numbers uh clunker users about sump'n likes GNU. But it may be true dat one kin reach mo'e microclunker users wid advertisin'. If dis is really so, some business which advertises de service uh copyin' and mailin' GNU fo' some fee ought t'be successful enough t'pay fo' its advertisin' and mo'e. What it is, Mama! Dis way, only de users who benefit fum de advertisin' pay fo' it. On de oda' hand, if many sucka's git GNU fum deir homeys, and such companies duzn't succeed, dis gots'ta show dat advertisin' wuz not really necessary t'spread GNU. Why be it dat free market advocates duzn't wants' to let da damn free market decide dis? "My company needs some proprietary opuh'tin' system t'get some competitive edge. What it is, Mama!" GNU gots'ta remove opuh'tin' system software fum de realm uh competishun. You's gots'ta not be able t'get an edge in dis area, but neida' gots'ta yo' competito's be able t'get an edge ova' ya'. You's and dey gots'ta compete in oda' areas, while benefittin' mutually in dis one. What it is, Mama! If yo' business is sellin' an opuh'tin' system, ya' gots'ta not likes GNU, but dat's tough on ya'. If yo' business be sump'n else, GNU kin save ya' fum bein' pushed into de 'espensive business uh sellin' opuh'tin' systems. I would likes t'see GNU development suppo'ted by gifts fum many manufacturers and users, reducin' de cost t'each. "Don't honky codemers deserve some reward fo' deir creativity?" If anydin' deserves some reward, it be social contribushun. Creativity kin be some social contribushun, but only in so's far as society be free t'use de results. If honky codemers deserve t'be rewarded fo' creatin' innovative honky codes, by de same token dey deserve t'be punished if dey restrict de use uh dese honky codes. "Shouldn't some honky codema' be able t'ax' fo' some reward fo' his creativity?" Dere be nodin' wrong wid wants'in' pay fo' wo'k, o' seekin' t'maximize one's income, as long as one duz not use means dat are destructive. What it is, Mama! But de means customary in de field uh software today are based on destrucshun. Extractin' bre'd fum users uh a honky code by restrictin' deir use uh it is destructive cuz' de restricshuns reduce da damn amount and da damn ways dat de honky code kin be used. Dis reduces de amount uh weald dat humanity derives fum de honky code. When dere be a deliberate choice t'restrict, de harmful consequences are deliberate destrucshun. De reason some baaaad citizen duz not use such destructive means t'become wealdia' is dat, if everyone dun did so, we would all become poo'a' from de mutual destructiveness. Dis be Kantian edics; o', de Golden Rule. What it is, Mama! Since ah' do not likes de consequences dat result if everyone ho'ds info'mashun, ah' am required t'consida' it wrong fo' one t'do so. Specifically, de desire t'be rewarded fo' one's creativity duz not justify deprivin' de wo'ld in general uh all o' part uh dat creativity. Slap mah fro! "Won't honky codemers starve?" I could answa' dat nobody be fo'ced t'be some honky codemer. Ah be baaad... Most uh us kinnot manage t'get any bre'd fo' standin' on de street and makin' faces. But we aint, as some result, condemned t'spend our lives standin' on de street makin' faces, and starvin'. We do sump'n else. What it is, Mama! But dat be de wrong answa' a'cuz it accepts de quesshuner's implicit assumpshun: dat widout ownership uh software, honky codemers kinnot possibly be paid some cent. Supposedly it be all o' nodin'. De real reason honky codemers gots'ta not starve be dat it gots'ta still be possible fo' dem t'get paid fo' honky codemin'; plum not paid as much as now. Restrictin' copyin' be not da damn only basis fo' business in software. What it is, Mama! It is de most common basis cuz' it brin's in de most bre'd. If it wuz prohibited, o' rejected by de customer, software business would move to oda' bases uh o'ganizashun which are now used less often. 'S coo', bro. Dere are always numerous ways t'o'ganize any kind'a business. Probably honky codemin' gots'ta not be as lucrative on de new basis as it is now. But dat be not an argument against da damn change. What it is, Mama! It be not considered an injustice dat sales clerks make da damn salaries dat dey now do. If honky codemers made da damn same, dat would not be an injustice eider. Ah be baaad... (In practice dey would still make considerably mo'e dan dat.) "Don't sucka's gots' some right t'control how deir creativity be used?" "Control ova' de use uh one's ideas" really constitutes control ova' oder sucka's's lives; and it be usually used t'make deir lives mo'e difficult. People who gots' studied da damn issue uh intellectual propuh'ty rights carefully (such as lawyers) say dat dere be no intrinsic right t'intellectual propuh'ty. Slap mah fro! De kinds uh supposed intellectual propuh'ty rights dat de guv'ment recognizes wuz created by specific acts uh legislashun fo' specific purposes. Fo' 'esample, de patent system wuz established t'encourage invento's to disclose da damn details uh deir invenshuns. Its purpose wuz t'help society rada' dan t'help invento's. At da damn time, de life span uh 17 years fo' a patent wuz sho't compared wid de rate uh advance uh de state uh de art. Since patents are an issue only among manufacturers, fo' whom de cost and effo't uh a license agreement are little-ass compared wid settin' down producshun, de patents often do not do much harm. 'S coo', bro. Dey do not obstruct most individuals who use patented products. De idea uh copyright dun did not 'esist in ancient times, when audo's frequently copied oda' audo's at lengd in wo'ks uh non-ficshun. Dis practice wuz useful, and be de only way many audo's' wo'ks gots' survived even in part. De copyright system wuz created 'espressly fo' de purpose of encouragin' audo'ship. In de domain fo' which it wuz invented--scribblin's, which could be copied economically only on some printin' press--it dun did little harm, and dun did not obstruct most uh de individuals who eyeball de scribblin's. All intellectual propuh'ty rights are plum licenses granted by society a'cuz it wuz dought, rightly o' wrongly, dat society as some whole would benefit by grantin' dem. 'S coo', bro. But in any particular situashun, we gots'ta ax': are we really betta' off grantin' such license? What kind'a act are we licensin' some sucka' t'do? De case uh honky codes today be very different fum dat uh scribblin's some hundred years ago. De fact dat da damn easiest way t'copy some honky code be from one neighbo' t'anoder, de fact dat some honky code gots'ta bod source code and object code which are distinct, and da damn fact dat some honky code be used rader dan eyeball and enjoyed, combine t'create some situashun in which some sucka' who enfo'ces some copyright be harmin' society as some whole bod materially and spiritually; in which some sucka' should not do so's regardless uh wheda' de law enables him to. "Competishun makes wahtahmelluns git done better. Ah be baaad..." De paradigm uh competishun be a race, dig dis: by rewardin' de winner, we encourage everyone t'run faster. Ah be baaad... When capitalism really wo'ks dis way, it duz some baaaad job; but its defenders are wrong in assumin' it always wo'ks dis way. Slap mah fro! If de runners fo'get why de reward be offered and become intent on winnin', no matta' how, dey may find oda' strategies--such as, attackin' oda' runners. If de runners git into some fist fight, dey will all finish late. What it is, Mama! Proprietary and secret software be de mo'al equivalent uh runners in a fist fight. Sad t'say, de only referee we've gots duz not seem to object t'fights; he plum regulates dem ("Fo' every ten yards ya' run, ya' are allowed one kick."). He really ought t'boogie dem down, and penalize runners fo' even tryin' t'fight. "Won't everyone stop honky codemin' widout some monetary incentive?" Actually, many sucka's gots'ta honky code wid absolutely no monetary incentive. What it is, Mama! Programmin' gots'ta an irresistible fascinashun fo' some sucka's, usually de sucka's who are best at it. Dere be no sho'tage uh professional beatians who keep at it even dough dey gots' no hope uh makin' some livin' dat way. Slap mah fro! But really dis quesshun, dough commonly ax'ed, be not appropriate t'de situashun. Pay fo' honky codemers gots'ta not disappear, only become less. So de right quesshun is, gots'ta anyone honky code wid some reduced monetary incentive? My 'espuh'ience shows dat dey will. Fo' mo'e dan ten years, many uh de wo'ld's best honky codemers wo'ked at de Artificial Intelligence Lab fo' far less bre'd dan dey could gots' had anywhere else. What it is, Mama! Dey gots many kinds uh non-monetary rewards, dig dis: fame and appreciashun, fo' 'esample. What it is, Mama! And creativity be also fun, some reward in itself. Den most uh dem left when offered some chance t'do de same interestin' wo'k fo' some lot uh bre'd. What da damn facts show be dat sucka's gots'ta honky code fo' reasons oda' dan riches; but if given some chance t'make some lot uh bre'd as sheeit, dey will come t''spect and demand it. Low-payin' o'ganizashuns do poo'ly in competishun wid high-payin' ones, but dey do not gots'ta do bad-assly if de high-payin' ones are banned. "We need da damn honky codemers despuh'tely. Slap mah fro! If dey demand dat we stop helpin' our neighbo's, we gots'ta obey. Slap mah fro!" Youse neva' so despuh'te dat ya' gots'ta obey dis radical demand. Remember, dig dis: millions fo' defense, but not some cent fo' tribute. Right On! "Programmers need t'make some livin' somehow." In de sho't run, dis be true. What it is, Mama! However, dere are plenty uh ways dat honky codemers could make some livin' widout sellin' de right t'use some honky code. Dis way be customary now cuz' it brin's honky codemers and businessmen de most bre'd, not cuz' it be de only way t'make some livin'. It be easy to find oda' ways if ya' wanna find dem. 'S coo', bro. Here are some numba' of 'esamples. A manufactura' introducin' some new clunker gots'ta pay fo' de po'tin' of opuh'tin' systems onto de new hardware. What it is, Mama! De sale uh teachin', hand-holdin' and maintenance services could also employ honky codemers. People wid new ideas could distribute honky codes as freeware, ax'in' fo' donashuns fum satisfied users, o' sellin' hand-holdin' services. ah' gots' met sucka's who are already wo'kin' dis way successfully. Slap mah fro! Users wid related needs kin fo'm users' grodowns, and pay dues. A grodown would contract wid honky codemin' companies t'scribble honky codes dat de grodown's members would likes t'use. What it is, Mama! All so'ts uh development kin be funded wid some Software Tax, dig dis: S'pose everyone who steals some clunker gots'ta t'pay x puh'cent of de price as some software tax. De guv'ment gives dis to an agency likes de NSF t'spend on software development. But if de clunker steala' makes some donashun t'software development himself, he kin snatch some credit against da damn tax. He kin donate to de project uh his own choosin'--often, chosen cuz' he hopes to use da damn results when it be done. What it is, Mama! He kin snatch some credit fo' any amount uh donashun down t'de total tax he had t'pay. Slap mah fro! De total tax rate could be decided by some vote uh de payers of de tax, weighted acco'din' t'de amount dey gots'ta be taxed on. 'S coo', bro. De consequences, dig dis: * de clunker-usin' community suppo'ts software development. * dis community decides whut level uh suppo't be needed. * users who care which projects deir share be spent on kin choose dis fo' demselves. In de long run, makin' honky codes free be a step toward da damn post-scarcity wo'ld, where nobody gots'ta t'wo'k real hard plum to make some livin'. People gots'ta be free t'devote demselves t'activities dat are fun, such as honky codemin', afta' spendin' de necessary ten hours some week on required tax's such as legislashun, family counselin', robot repair and asteroid prospectin'. Dere gots'ta be no need t'be able to make some livin' fum honky codemin'. We gots' already greatly reduced da damn amount uh wo'k dat da damn whole society must do fo' its actual productivity, but only some little uh dis has translated itself into leisho' nuff fo' wo'kers cuz' much nonproductive activity be required t'accompany productive activity. Slap mah fro! De main causes uh dis are bureaucracy and isometric struggles against competishun. Free software gots'ta greatly reduce dese drains in de area uh software producshun. We must do dis, in o'da' fo' technical gains in productivity t'translate into less wo'k fo' us. Copyright (C) 1985 Richard M. Stallman Permission be granted t'anyone t'make o' distribute verbatim copies uh dis document as received, in any medium, provided dat de copyright notice and puh'mission notice are preserved, and dat da damn distributo' grants de recipient puh'mission fo' furda' redistribushun as puh'mitted by daintice. What it is, Mama!

Re:It appears to actually be fixes

[ansible]

Well, it's gonna be a while before I try 2.4.anything on a production machine.

On the one hand, I'm glad to be seeing a lot of bugfixes in the changelog. On the other hand, I'm worried about seeing lots of bugs in the changelog, because I wonder how many more serious ones are lurking in the codebase.

With 2.2.whatever, the bugfixes there have been recently have mostly been related to specific drivers, which I usually don't care about (unless I'm using that driver). But with 2.4.x I'm still seeing lots of fixes in the main kernel code, because so much fundamental structure has changed since 2.2.

I guess we'll have to see. Maybe if some decent RAID card support starts showing up in OpenBSD, I'll think about switching my servers to that.

Re:It appears to actually be fixes

[mbrod]

This is good news for Debian which is probably not to far from releasing Woody (3.0) onto the world. Last time I checked they were teetering on not putting 2.4 in there as default (I know easily apt-get'd but it would be nice as default).

So if they stabilize it out good the Debian guys might go with that (I hope).

On another note mostly bug fixes is a beutiful thing... ANYONE AT MOZILLA LISTENING????

Re:It appears to actually be fixes

[josepha48]

2.4.10, 2.4.13, 2.4.16 have all been fairly stable on my desktop workstation.

The fact that 2.4.17 was ALL bug fixes is a good sign. It means that they are fixing the issues that they know about, like parport IEEE1394 seems to work better.

I see no reason not to use 2.4 at this point on a produciton machine. It is not until people do start doing so that we are going to find out all the kernel issues. I'd recommend trying this release if no other.

VIA KT133 chipset?

[blogan]

Does it work with the KT133a Chipset and Athlons? I looked and google and there were reports of the problem, but no report of a fix anywhere that I could find.

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[MikeO]

A bios upgrade fixed the problem for me. Look for an update on your motherboard vendor's website.

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[Otter]

What is the problem? I looked at Google as you mentioned but didn't see what you were talking about.

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[KidSock]

Does it work with the KT133a Chipset and Athlons?

This was a long standing motherboard/BIOS issue. I think VIA actually found and acknowledged that some register was getting scrambled inadvertantly but I could be thinking of another peice of hardware. It's so hard to find these messages in the lkml archives even after only a few days. At any rate, I have this board. At one time I had problems but it was difficult for me to tell if it was the VIA board or the infamous IBM Deskstar 30GB drive I had that was failing. So I RMA'd the drive, bought another SCSI drive and put my 2940UW on there with the latest BIOS update. I have not had any problems since and I tortured it pretty hard. Of coure all of this is off topic because I'm using Red Hats 2.4.7 but again, this is/was a hardware/BIOS issue.

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[josepha48]

how do you upgrade a bios in Linux??

Also does anyone know if they fixed the parport problems?

To answer your question about KT133, there is a bug on the VIA chipset that causes some people problems.

In my case and a few others there are IDE bugs. IDE IOMEGA zip 100 and VIA686B don't go togeather to well.

Also some people have had problems with using the ECC/ECP part of the parport. Again, in my case it was my webcam did not work. It stopped working in 2.4.13 or 14 not sure. I had a fix for it and explained on the lkml what the problem was, but not sure if that was ever acknowledged.

Well now I have a very good testing mechanism for testing kernels like this. I have a foo.test kernel and a foo.custom kernel. The custom kernel is the current kernel and the test is, well a test kernel. Nice thing about lilo is you can have multiple kernels. I can then boot the test kernel and make sure all works on my system. I'll be doing that tonight...

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[SaDan]

I've got 2.4.17 running on a Sony VAIO FXA36, which uses the KT133 chipset, and it's working just fine.

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually bios updates have to be done in DOS with a utlitiy supplied by your mobo manufacter and the bios binary image. It has to do with that whole protected mode thing so normal programs (virii) can't just write trash to your bios, etc.

-- gid

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[jmv]

I have a board (ASUS A7V133) with a KT133A+T-Bird 1.33 and haven't experienced problems with any kernel I tried so far (2.4.5, 2.4.7, 2.4.8, 2.4.10 and 1.4.16). The only problem I've heard (never experienced it) with my bord was actually the VIA (866B?) southbridge.

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[josepha48]

Thanks, I do have dos disks still. I was hoping I would not have to do that again though,but I was able to upgrade my BIOS. It had fixes for several issues.

Also it seems that between my biios update and 2.4.17 the parport issues has gone away. I think it was that they finally fixed the IEEE1394_ops.c code. Yes there were changes in this file that now makes my web cam work again ;-)

Re:VIA KT133 chipset?

[Karpe]

The fix was included somewhere before 2.4.16. It disables a single bit in a undocumented PCI register, fixing most problems.

YAY !

[BasharTeg]

Yet another Linux kernel. That's great. Am I being a troll by stating that I think Linux kernels are a little over-versioned ? I mean, from an uninterested person's perspective (aka FreeBSD guy), it seems like kernel 2.4.13.44 came out yesterday, and 2.4.13.45 came out today (someone patched NFS), and tomorrow when someone finds a bug in inetd it'll be 2.4.13.46. I'm seriously not trying to flame or troll, but it just seems that way. If FreeBSD changed a version number every time 10 patches went in I'd go insane.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever just modded me down is an asshole. I was not trolling. These Linux kernel posts come out every week.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux assholes with mod-points modding me down because I point out the obvious, that there is a frickin new kernel post every week. Mod me back up to 1. No higher, no lower.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

oh fuck you. just cause FreeBSD has no developers doesnt mean linux has to follow the same path. projects with users/developers take out new releases regularly, projects without users/coders dont.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

New releases regularly = new kernel every week ?

HAHAHAHHAHA

That's a really Enterprise-class project.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

New releases every 10 years and no SMP == enterprise class project ?

HAHAHAHHAHA

Get a life.

Re:YAY !

[Publicus]

Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Release early and release often! How else are those bugs going to get squashed?

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

The last release was a full month ago, dickweed. It's a shame your FreeBSD doesn't develop that fast, huh? Maybe they'd actually be somewhere on the charts if they did!

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere on the charts ? What charts ? Have you looked at the NetCraft uptime chart lately ? HAHAH. m/linux/ = "". We don't NEED to come out with a kernel every week moron.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out http://dualcpus.com/fuckingwoot/ It's a photo shoot of a 16 year old Brazillian hottie. Pass it on. [No goatse.cx guarantee. This is not a troll.]

Re:YAY !

[ArchieBunker]

Yeah that 0.24% of the desktop market you own really hurts BSD.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that chick, I rufied her drink last week and then stuck my long dong in her ass!! Damn, she squealed like a stuck pig, but she loved it! I made her lick it all off when she was done, too.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

eRECT!@#!@&#*(!@*$ is my p33nis. got any b00bies or n00dies? whut is h3r n4m3?

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

So why the big linux diss? It's so terrible to add a user-semi-friendly GUI? Why not just treat it like a real OS with training wheels and be glad its there as a lure for ex-MS junkies. Geeze. Some people.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

thats only cause *BSDs dont have enough 31337 developers to put out a kernel every week. jealousy will get you nowhere.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah. all the 0.0001% of the BSD desktop marketshare is really pissed at us.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

> I know that chick, I rufied her drink last week and then stuck my long dong in her ass!! Damn, she squealed like a stuck pig, but she loved it! I guess you don't have much experience using rufies, she should be asleep by that point.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm... underaged tight sluts, wet and ready for action. spooge.

--ian

ps - hi lwz

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, two posts in a row. I can honestly say you're the lamest motherfucker I've ever met. You actually care about karma? You were trolling, next time do it anonymously. End of story. Fucking weak, dude.

Re:YAY !

[Anonymous Coward]

"New releases every 10 years and no SMP == enterprise class project ? "

No SMP ? HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

Your ignorance is amazing. I am the owner of DualCPUs.com, a SMP FreeBSD server. Moron.

You're an idiot

[ArchieBunker]

Thats about as common as the CMD646 chipset now.

Re:You're an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

The VIA chip is a lot more common. However, you probably do know that the CMD646 is the chip that is used for AMI ATA/100 IDE RAID (eg Iwill Motherboards) and are just a troll. :)

Holy Shit

[TRoLLaXoR]

What a ton of changes! Geez!

Heh, Merry Christmas, Linux users!

How stable is the preempt patch?

[cornice]

I want to try the preempt patch but I finally got a kernel from my favorite distribution that works for me right out of the box. To get a raw kernel with all the stuff that I want plus the preempt patch I'll have to spend more time than I have patching and compiling. I hear how great this patch is about once a month. Why isn't it included in the major distros? Would it "harm" in any way my desktop/server running X, KDE, FreesWan, Apache, Samba, etc?

Re:How stable is the preempt patch?

[nusuth]

I used it against 2.4.12-ac? on a single athlon machine, it seemed to be stable and useless. I didn't run FreesWan or Apache, so I can comment on them, but X, KDE and Samba was OK. Infact, none of the programs I tried was affected in a negative way. It just didn't help.

Re:How stable is the preempt patch?

[MindStalker]

Well, why don't you try the source provided for you by your distro, it should have all the distro changes, in it. Then see if you can get the patch to work. If you can't, find a linux guru who can do it for you, and publish the patch, many people will love you :)

Re:How stable is the preempt patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you try something like playing a DVD while doing a kernel compile? That's the kind of load that shows the good effects, when the DVD player doesn't jump while playing..

Already?

[haggar]

It feels like yesterday when 2.0.x (x is some big integer, forgot the exact value) was the best thing on earth and I still have a machine running with 2.0.something

But why does /. never report anything about the developments of HURD? I like the architecture, I was toying with the idea of someday replacing Linux with HURD, would be nice if the website I follow assiduously, would cover it a bit.

Re:Already?

[Roto-Rooter Man]

Sorry, Slashdot looks down upon other operating systems. Everything other than Linux is a second-rate citizen here until either Linux or Slashdot is dead.

...

Hmm... maybe you should check back this time next year for something about HURD.

Re:Already?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nuts! How can this post be offtopic? Oobotomized Linux drones, no wait, lobotomized and castrated Linux zealots. Yeah, that must be it. Fuck you, slashdot.

Re:Already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heaven forbid slashdot have a topic!

New Maintainer

[krackbebe]

Looks like the new kernel maintainer is really working out. I enjoy seeing these kind of detailed changelogs, to determine whether there is anything critical enough to upgrade my system.

Seems like Alan and Linux lately haven't been all that hot about doing the drudge detail work. This arrangement seems to be the best solution for everyone.

Re:New Maintainer

[kill-1]

Alan's changelogs of the -ac kernel tree have always been quite detailed. But Linus' changelogs were really bad. A lot of code that came from Alan's tree only had changelog entries like "merge with Alan".

Re:New Maintainer

[krmt]

Yeah, and after all the flack everyone gave him here for being terse with his interview, it's great to see his changelog speaking for him instead. Much kudos.

Re:New Maintainer

[Anonymous Coward]

why does merge with alan sound slightly sexual?

Re:New Maintainer

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is the new maintainer?

Re:New Maintainer

[MicroBerto]

Not only that, but consider how many fixes were done at the RC level! Can never be too patient, those bugs could have been in 2.4.17.

Re:New Maintainer

[Per Wigren]

Anyone saying Alan and sexual in the same sentence must be REALLY perverted.. :-P

Oh wait, I just did! Damn! Well, nevermind...

Re:New Maintainer

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates.

What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all for stable vs. unstable forks, but at several points the changes to the 'unstable' one just start rolling back anyways. So, why keep maintaining 2.4? or 2.2? or 0.1? Another thing is even vs. odd naming, why not just put a b beside the version number of an unstable release? How does it make sense that odd is unstable? Lastly, who the hell decided to do the 0.10 > 0.9 thing? Would it kill people to make a small bugfix update a .01 or .001 incriment if it meant you wouldn't have to fuck over the decimal system?

Re:What's the point?

[lamj]

Because it is a way of version management and control.

2.4 and 2.5 are maintained by different group of people. 2.5 is basically a play ground for the kernel playground to test big changes and it might take serveral revision to get such big changes right.

On the other hand, in 2.4 changes are much smaller, mostly fixes and very important proven improvments.

Please understand that changes in 2.5 does not sync with 2.4, things that should up in 2.5 does not mean it will be in 2.4, this gives developers (or kernel hackers) more flexibility to play around with things.

To learn more about this, play around with some source version control software like CVS and start branching off different version of your code then you might understand the need for a totally testing branch.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can understand stable vs. unstable, but I don't get the need for keeping anything older than the latest stable branch, or the odd vs. even versioning, or that .10 > .9

Again, what's the point?

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

keeping should be replaced by maintaining, for you archivists.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lastly, who the hell decided to do the 0.10 > 0.9 thing? Would it kill people to make a small bugfix update a .01 or .001 incriment if it meant you wouldn't have to fuck over the decimal system?

Huh? 2.4.2 is newer than 2.4.1. 2.4.11 is newer than 2.4.9. Why is that so hard to understand? Didn't you learn basic counting in grade school? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, etc. 2 is the major number, 4 is the minor number, and the last digit is the revision.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the 2.2 kernel is used excessively in hard-core, HA servers. The 2.4 kernel has many wonderful features and has advanced leaps-and-bounds beyond the 2.2 branch but some people are not comfortable with it.

Take the 2.4.15 upgrade for example. Clearly meant to be an improvement (of course), but what if someone deployed it on their serverS? Unmount kills their drives, they hate everyone, companies lose money from downtime, etc etc. It's safer to stick with a well-rounded, proven-solid kernel branch that is updated much less frequently with less radical updates.

If people like it like that and you dont, just go with it and stop complaining ;)

Re:What's the point?

[prog-guru]

Another thing is even vs. odd naming, why not just put a b beside the version number of an unstable release?

They have pre releases, those are more like beta versions than the development branch is.

Would it kill people to make a small bugfix update a .01 or .001 incriment

Well you also can't have 2 decimal points in a real decimal number, and you would have to decide how many subdivisions there are when you release (if they made 2.4.1, then needed something higher than 2.4.9 they would need to break the system).

I think it's pretty easy to tell where 2.4.17 is, it is after 2.4.2, and 4 is even so it is stable. Plus it doesn't suffer from version inflation like many distros do.

And how come FreeBSD is at 4.4 when Linux started first and 2.4.17 has lots of stuff not in 4.4 yet?

Re:What's the point?

[ahaning]

I think what the previous poster means is that, in basic math, the 0 in .10 would be truncated, and thus (.1 < .9).

The answer to their question is that, yes, (.10 < .9). However, in software releases, the period is just a separator, and not a decimal point. Thus, (10 > 9) is true.

Re:What's the point?

[geekster]

I think it's probaly confusing when you use only one point:
0.9, 0.10
because we're used to reading that like a decimal number.

But when you have two points:
0.9.0 0.10.0
I think it's more obvious.

Re:What's the point?

[be-fan]

Because they have a sane versioning system and don't try to be all 'leet and artificially keep their version numbers down! What is it about OSS developers that makes them dispise version numbers above 1.0?

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

all-bounteousAssam rubberbamboo reedaniseed treeanchor knotblur circleallyl aldehydeblister spotblood-coloredair letterBorder terrierair-bravingBombay maceall-perfectnessbobbin carrierautomobile sledauditor-generalbee laurelbell borerboiler-outair massall-powerfulnessamyl isovaleratebacon hogassay-office barazimuth compassafore-grantedbeta-naphthyl salicylateback-lookingbastard locustbobbin testerbarrel-vaultedbook creditbiscuit-coloredamber-yieldingamaranth-purple belt linebetting machineback-glancingbasket fishangioneurotic edemaback benchbearing neckalpine woodsiabonnet-headedbone dustbon tonAscension lilybear cubage classbee milkall-complyingbastard hyssopblush-suffusedbasement housebook fellbelly-gulledacetous fermentationbenzoic sulphinidebargain counterbattery-chargingadd-addballoon vinebook postageblind-tooledbeet scabalpha raybar windingbag-shapedbatting hammerBarisal gunsaircraft carrierbacking-off lathebasket mastbean-cleaningaxle bushbog gledebattle frontall-prevalencybastard barair ageblind-piggingalder flycatcherbeaver eateralligator wrenchailanthus silkwormacorn barnacleblock signalingair pillowBickford fuseavant-gardebellows boyalto clefbluecoat schoolbeer gallonbaby primrosebooklet paneant cattleabove-mentionedblack-edged















































































































isovaleratebacon hogassay-office barazimuth compassafore-grantedbeta-naphthyl salicylateback-lookingbastard locustbobbin testerbarrel-vaultedbook creditbiscuit-isovaleratebacon hogassay-office barazimuth compassafore-grantedbeta-naphthyl salicylateback-lookingbastard locustbobbin testerbarrel-vaultedbook creditbiscuit-

preempt patch for 2.4.17?

[xercist]

I don't see it from kernel.org. not even the link on rml's site. Anyone know where it's up yet?

Hell bitch

[Hillary Clinton]

Remember the time I made you suck my dick in front of Bill?

Oh, lordy is right!

In celebration...

[Dutchmaan]

.. I am currently releasing forum post 1.0.0. No download necesary.

I take that back

[xercist]

150.208.72.11 has it right here!

Update Forum post 1.0.1

[Dutchmaan]

Forum fix log:

Changed 'necesary' to 'necessary'.

patch mirror

[noodlez84]

I have mirrored the patch and signature:

patch-2.4.17.bz2 (388KB): http://home.earthlink.net/~noodlez84/patch-2.4.17. bz2
patch-2.4.17.bz2.sign (1KB): http://home.earthlink.net/~noodlez84/patch-2.4.17. bz2.sign

Re:patch mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it really make sense to mirror the signature? You'd have to be pretty dumb to download the sign from an untrusted source. That's what the sign is _for_.

Re:patch mirror

[zdzichu]

Mirroring signature is useless.
Signature should be downloaded form kernel.org to check if patch mirrored by you has been altered.
If you mirror signature, you could have altered both patch and .sign.

Re:patch mirror

[hpa]

If so, he would have to possess the kernel.org secret keys. If he does, we have some really nasty security problems that we didn't know about :-/

This isn't just an md5sum, it's a gpg signature. You can verify it as long as you have the public key, which is widely available.

Linux Kernel Changelog Jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

When the call over the intercom system of the LIRR says, "Conductor to channel four," you know your train is in trouble. I was on the 5:29 to Penn Station when the train came to grinding, asbestos scented stop just outside of the Jamaica Station. There was some more chatter about MA Resets and Couplers and some more indecipherable train lingo, all of which basically said this train is dead. Not exactly how I wanted to wake up from my morning commute nap.

The car I was in hadn't made it to the platform and I was forced along with the rest of the grumbling commuters to walk up three cars and wait for another train to take us to Penn. I saw some folks heading for the subway and I decided that they had a good idea. The N or the R would take me right to my job anyway. So I went down the escalator with the rest of the 5:29.

I saw her on the platform. I see lots of women. I look at women all the time. I'm no Casanova but I do look. New York City has no shortage of gorgeous women. This one on the platform was different though. She was young and had a confidence about her looks that gave her great ease in her appearance. Her fine red hair was up in a ponytail and her lightly freckled face had no makeup on it, yet her lips were a rosy tint. She held her light black jacket in front of her and wore a simple, sheer white blouse with a Spandex tank top underneath which held her ample breasts in place. Her pants were not tight but they revealed her body as the thin, silvery material clung to her curves in a delicious way. Below her knee I could see the outline of her chunky heeled boots as the hard leather pressed against the fabric of her pants.

Then there was the zipper. A thin black seam that ran from the belt line straight down to bottom of her perfectly toned ass. My filthy mind was unzipping that zipper as I stared at her ass like it held the secrets of the universe in its amazing shape. Just the way she stood with one foot turned slightly inward was sexy. There was no way for this red haired beauty not to be sexy. I imagined it must be a curse. Here I was a lecherous 38 year-old man slavering over her 20 something body; wasn't that curse enough?

I was going to wait for an N train because that express would get me to work quicker than the R that pulled up. Desperately we all jumped into the car that opened in front of us. The usual riders of the train must have been unpleasantly surprised to find that their train was jam-packed. I knew I would be on this train until 14th Street so I managed to get up against the opposing door to avoid the constant shuffle of people getting on and off. I lost sight of the vixen.

Then she was directly in front of me. Her hair smelled of fruity hair care products and her skin smelled of some oil or lotion whose sole purpose was to make men stand at attention. My pants were tightening as I looked at her from inches away. I could see her wonderful cleavage as I looked down her shirt. She could probably feel my breath on her neck. Everyone could probably feel breath on their neck though because we were all shoulder-to-shoulder. I tried chivalrously to keep my now stiffening member off of the gorgeous young girl in front of me as I began to rationalize how I would feel if some dirty old man was standing behind my daughter imagining her body writing underneath his as he fucked her until she couldn't walk. Which is precisely what I was thinking.

The train lurched forward and her ass planted itself so that her silver clad cheeks wrapped around my raging hard-on and the only way she could regain her footing was to push off of her legs and slide up my body. Her ass slid right up to the head of my cock and then she pushed off of me with her ass. I damn near blew a load in my pants right there. She couldn't turn around but she turned her head to me, "I am SO sorry, sir."

I simply nodded back. Screw her father all I could think about was her bent over my desk and me wailing on her with my now painfully erect cock. The train continued to bounce down the track and as we came to the next stop someone exiting pushed her off balance and she fell into me again. This time I took her lightly by the elbows and righted her. She remained closer to me this time and thanked me again. She looked at me for a second and smiled. I was sweating, probably looking very flushed. She pressed against me intentionally and stayed. She tilted her head back onto my chest and said directly to my ear, "Is this OK?"

I nodded. The train began again and my redheaded fantasy began a slow but deliberate grind on my body. My fingers touched her elbows again and I slid them towards her hands that were underneath her jacket. She worked her ass all over my dick and I realized she was rubbing herself my left hand helped her and my right had got a hold of her breast. Despite her large breasts she had no bra on, this tank top was meant to hold her in place. Her nipples became hard and I pinched hers softly and surreptitiously as there was a train full of people.

Her breathing became threaded and her breath was hot and sweet. My mouth ached to kiss her but then we would surely be found out. The train went dark and she exploded in a frenzy of movement as she molested me with her entire body. There seemed to be urgency in her movements. Her hand was working own body furiously, mine seemed to be in the way so I moved it but she quickly caught it and dragged it back. As her ass rode my pole manically she lifted her leg and rubbed her booted calf on me.

I continued working her nipple and with my other hand her very hot pussy. Her entire body was heating up as she thrashed against me. I buried my head in the nape of her neck and came in my pants in thick spurts.

"Shit," she exhaled into my ear, "Oh man that was so fucking good."

The lights came back on and I could see that she was covered in a thin sweat. She turned around as the door behind me opened and kissed me as I stepped out of the train to avoid the crush of people exiting. I saw how truly amazing she looked as I kissed her.

"You have to call me. I want to do this again; I want to be with you. I want you inside of me," she handed me a card and walked on wobbly legs to the escalator, pulling her hair from the pony tail. I watched her incredible body leave me. There was an N across the platform. I took it to work and threw my underwear out in the restroom trash.

Re:Linux Kernel Changelog Jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

There was nowhere to sit. Well there was one place to sit; it just didn't look like a good place. The man on the end was obese and the guy against the window did not look friendly at all. He was scratching out letters into the daily crossword and he had earbuds connected to a radio, no doubt listening to Howard Stern. Shannon looked at the available seat again and meekly asked the obese man to get up so she and all of her gear could get in to the only seat left.

Big day today, Shannon reminded herself as she slipped her thin body past the obese man. Oh my god, was that his thing? He'd stretched his hips out to "accidentally" bump into her as she got past him. As she sat with her bag on her lap her practice clarinet, a long plastic tube that looked like a clarinet but made no sound, slid out of the bag onto the surly looking man against the window. With out even looking up he handed it back to Shannon. As she sat she noticed him looking at her.

With a shot at the pit orchestra for the play 42nd street Shannon had dressed a little funkier than she would for her usual job, teaching woodwinds to eighth graders. Today her skirt was shorter, and faded denim. Her shirt was a snug metallic material with a plain white men's Oxford over it. It was the boots that made the outfit funky though. They were obligatorily black but they had a tongue frontispiece and a large buckled strap across the calf. The heels were the chunky kind all the girls were wearing now. Her red hair was tussled as always and she tried leaving her schoolmarm glasses home but several near misses with walls changed her mind. She decided not to wear any stockings and her pale freckled skin contrasted with her black boots.

The surly man leaned forward so far that his head was against the back of the seat in front of him. He kept looking at her boots. It was odd for Shannon to receive attention like this. It made her feel uncomfortable, but at the same time it felt good. The attention was defraying the guilt she felt spending 150USD on the boots. She tugged at her skirt, but not to pull it down, to pull it up. She watched his eyes wander up her thighs.

No one at Branford Middle School had given her such lecherous looks before. He pulled his right ear bud out of his ear and smiled. Mr. Surly looked like Mr. GQ now. Shannon felt a wave of intense warmth flush her body. In 33 years a smile had never done that to her. Life in conservative Connecticut simply wasn't like that. Even in the rougher middle class sections she grew up in as her father moved from military contract job to the next. Certainly she'd dated, even seriously but her love of music always won out over the men in her life.

"So you play clarinet?"

Shannon was dumbstruck, unable to talk to the beautiful man speaking to her. She regained most of her composure and managed to utter, "I teach."

"I used to teach music, guitar though. Mostly to boys who wanted to be Jimmy Page," he added with another perfect smile.

Shannon unconsciously stroked her smooth plastic clarinet. He noticed.

"What sends you to Manhattan?"

"I, I am going to an audition for an orchestra pit."

"What do you like about woodwinds so much?"

He wasn't even touching her but she was getting the oddest urges. She wanted to grab him by the face and kiss him with her deft tongue. She wanted touch him; it was becoming an imperative for her. There was another hour and a half left in the train ride to Penn Station. The words slipped out of her mouth as if she was no longer in control of what she said.

"I just like having a vibrating reed on my lips, in my wet mouth," she said leaning towards him. She shifted her weight onto her left hip and crossed her right leg over her left trying to quell the urgent feeling between her legs. More of her thighs were revealed to him. The sudden brushes of the obese man's arm on her ass made her gasp in a breathy inhale.

"Really?" Asked the man driving Shannon insane.

"There's something about the way the reed feels all rough on my tongue and the mouth piece is so smooth on my upper lip. It's sensuous. When you play brass you just get numb and soaked in saliva, but a reed is like a long, long kiss," Shannon reached out and touched his knee. He moved her hand straight up his thigh.

Shannon, oblivious to the packed Amtrak train, began mouthing his chin, then his lower lip. Her right hand caressed his crotch though his suit pants. He responded immediately and Shannon stroked him, pressingly lightly with her fingers, fingering a scale on his huge member.

She sucked and nibbled his tongue and lips. She kissed him deeply. His hands began to explore her petite waist and ass. She broke the kiss panting into his neck. He pushed her right knee away from her left and explored her inner thighs. She was melting into his strong body.

When the obese man skittered away from them to give them room he leaned into her ear, "People are looking. Let's take this to the bathroom where I can get you off."

Shannon felt like she was in a daze, like she was drugged. She was so overwhelmed by the need to be touched that she simply followed him. She never even asked his name. She began to realize how crazy this was she was going to go into a train bathroom and she would certainly have sex with a complete stranger. She had left her clarinet in her bag on her seat. Yet she continued to follow him.

To the people in the head of the car where the bathrooms were thy seemed like a married couple on their way to the Café Car, to the people that watched Shannon attack the man against the window, they wanted to follow. Shannon stepped into the bathroom with her exciting stranger. He pulled her into his body that was thick and strong and began kissing her while grinding into her limp body. She began to move with him sliding up and down on his massive legs and chest.

"My name is Robert, but most people call me Bob. Call me that when you scream my name out; OK?"

"Shannon," she huffed as she went back under the haze of overt sexuality.

Bob pulled her skirt up and snapped her silky underwear off of her body. He sniffed them quickly and shoved them in his front pocket. That would have normally disgusted her, now it drove Shannon wild. Bob dropped to his knees and grabbed her thin leather clad claves and began working his tongue on her nearly hairless pussy. It was as if he were trying to stick he face inside of her.

Shannon was an oral virgin. The only man she'd ever been with had never done this to her. She had orally pleased him but he never returned the favor. Charles was a good lover in her estimation, but really did nothing that she couldn't to do herself in a few minutes. Bob was driving her crazy. He was pushing his tongue in her, and on her with such delicious pressure. Her gasps of pleasure were becoming high-pitched yelps. He wasn't letting her squirm away as he held her firmly in place by her calves.

Bob couldn't believe what was happening. He'd never had this effect on woman before. She was going crazy, her upper body was thrashing and her hips were moving a mile a minute. She reached up and was pushing on the ceiling with her ass on the sink while he ate her in frenzy. His cock was so hard it was hurting him. He was amazed that this funky little tramp was just giving in to his every move.

So was Shannon. She had never, ever, performed a public sex act. She had never kissed a man first. She had never been this hot before. She began to shake at the hips that moved her sex over his tongue even faster driving her to a loud wet orgasm.

"Uunngh!" She let out a guttural release from some deep, musky part of her body. Bob's face was covered in her juices and he was standing up undoing his pants. She was too exhausted to assist him but she wanted to tear his clothes off. She slid to the floor crouching with her legs spread wide. Blasts of cold air came from under the door and cooled her hot, wet mess. In her face was his massive erection.

Shannon was amazed by his size. He was bigger than her entire head and only with both of her strong musical hands could she grasp the enormous girth. She urged his manhood with fast tugs on the lower portion of his giant member. Her tongue danced on the head of his cock.

"Oh my God," she said before she took him into her mouth. Her lips wrapped tightly around him as she slobbered saliva on his shaft making it slick. She pinned him to the back of her throat but could not swallow him he was too large. She bobbed up and down on him and she would stop at the top and blow on him and move her tongue like his cock was a mouthpiece. Charles would explode after a few moments of that treatment. Bob's shaft merely got harder. Shannon worked him furiously; she wanted him to cum in her mouth. It felt like a perfectly filthy thing to do, and she felt filthy.

Her skirt was up around her waist, her pussy was soaking wet and her breasts felt like they were on fire. Bob seemed to know what her body needed. His knees buckled and rubbed her swollen nipples. The stretchy metallic fabric felt good on his bare skin and was like hundreds of tiny fingers on hers. She pulled her hands off of his cock long enough to undo the front snap bra to let her ample C cups free. Her nipples poked through the fabric instantly.

Bob was rocking into her mouth as her insistent tongue drove him to slam his cock deep into her throat, stretching her out. He came hard, grinding into her face. Pumping one hot load after another into her sucking mouth. She swallowed his semen greedily and cleaned him with her acrobatic tongue. Slurping on his rod.

Shannon stood and Bob grabbed her sensitive tits though the fabric, squeezing them roughly. Shannon looked Bob in the eyes and begged, "Fuck me."

Bob picked up her slight frame and dropped her on his huge, pussy-splitting cock. Shannon screamed out as he reached her limit. Bob began sliding her up and down on his massive pole. She was squealing even while she gasped. Bob had her by the backs of her knees and her booted legs dangled free as he pummeled her insides. There was no friction to slow him down and he began stretching her deeper and deeper. Shannon's tits bounced in sync with Bob's manic pounding.

He pulled her off of his stick and faced her against the wall.

"This is gonna hurt a little baby."

He buried himself fully into her small, tight snatch from behind. Again and again. Each thrust more debilitating than the last. He worked her into frenzy. She pumped on his dick as hard as he was fucking her. Her ass was perfect and looking at her incredible tits bounce drove him to slam into her harder and deeper still. She could not contain the animalistic screams that were welling up inside her. As the Amtrak train barreled through Westchester, New York, Shannon, Ms. McNally, screamed at the top of her lungs, "Ram your cock in me you motherfucker. Break my fucking cunt! Break me! Break me!"

Bob did what he could on that count and slammed into her relentlessly trying to stave off a massive orgasm himself. Shannon was unnaturally tight. Women he had been with before all reacted to his size with squeals of pleasure but this woman was fucking him like she was possessed. Her pussy was strong and it was taking a real beating. He's never pounded anyone this hard.

"Urrrugh! Stick me you fucker! Fuck it! Fuck it! Yeah! Jam it home! Bust my cunt! Ugh! Ugh! I'm yours! Break me! Break me! Rip me apart!"

She screamed a non-stop stream of filthy language saying things she's never said, or felt before. Bob was destroying her from behind. His pussy smashing cock was obliterating her demeanor. He was making her do this. He was forcing her to live out a fantasy she didn't know she had. He was fucking her mindless. He screwed on her without end. She spasmed wildly as she came. She slammed down on his cock hard and grabbed him with her thin freckled arms to stop the motion. She sat impaled on his shaft enjoying the fullness of his raging hard on inside her, throbbing and hot.

"Fuck my ass. Hurt me."

Bob slid out of her clenching vagina with a loud, wet pop. He wanted to do this to many women before, but never had the nerve to try. This one was begging him to do it to her. He pushed his cock up and into her ass cheeks resting the head of his monstrous weapon on her pink bud. Using a combination of pushing and pulling her down he broke into her.

Shannon swooned as her ass was penetrated. She'd asked for it and now it was happening. He continued to deepen his entry with a slow, persistent push. Shannon's world flickered in and out, colors flashed in her mind's eye. He began to saw in and out of her, ripping her apart with every movement. The feeling was indescribable. It was engulfing her. It was as if Bob's cock was filling every part of her body. As if he'd jumped into her skin.

The incredible tightness and the feeling of her ass succumbing his size was intoxicating. He held her beautiful breasts in his hands and was surprised to feel wetness on the back of his hands. Shannon was drooling on him. Her tongue wagged out of her mouth. Her body went limp as Bob rammed himself fully into her ass. As he pulled out her body stiffened and she reached behind her grabbing his head grunting unintelligibly as he pussy sprayed juices everywhere. Her feet left the ground as Bob rammed her. He flattened her gorgeous ass cheeks as he pummeled her.

Orgasms wracked her body and numbed her mind. Her tiny freckled body focused only on the man inside of her. Bob's hands moved off of her tits and put her in a full Nelson as he made one final ass reaming thrust into her now exhausted body. He came, filling her with his hot cum. His release into her softened his hard dick immediately and he pulled out of her now gaping ass. Bob sat on the toilet pulling Shannon into him. She was a mess.

Shannon's body was covered in sweat and their cum. Her ass leaked his spunk and her boots were spattered with juices. She was barely conscious and her head lolled from shoulder to shoulder. Bob continued working on her nipples. Finally reaching down and merely touching her engorged clit sent her into an orgasm. Bob smiled broadly; he'd fucked this one completely.

Bob stood and began dressing. Shannon lay limp on the toilet shuddering as aftershocks of her amazing experience. Bob cleaned his thick meat in the sink rubbing all of the spunk off of him.

"Baby you need to get up, we're almost in New York."

"Oh my God, what did you do to me? I feel so good. That was the best ever."

"I don't know what got you so hot but they oughta put that in a bottle. You were great. I never fucked anyone's ass before. God that was great."

Shannon tried to stand but her legs gave out. Bob looked at her splayed on the bathroom floor of train. She didn't belong there. What had made her so horny? What had driven this schoolteacher to fuck, in public, so hard? Bob didn't know the answer but he liked the result.

Shannon regained her composure and fixed herself up the best she could. Her pussy and ass ached from the pounding they'd been through. She walked tenderly back to her seat. All eyes were on her; Bob kept his head down but was smiling. Women on the train looked at his crotch and he was stiffening. They sat. The final 20 minutes of the train ride Shannon slept soundly against Bob who kept his hand on her thigh unable to keep his hands off of her gorgeous skin.

TROLL, MOD DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod down this post, it's an obvious troll. Look at the poster's record. You people make me sick.

2.5.0

[havardi]

Im running the 2.5 kernel and it seems as snappy as the 2.4.blah with the preemptpbile kernel patch-- winamp doesnt skip even when burning cd's and starting mozilla... is there something different here? besides that i cant find the preemtpaible kernel patch for 2.5

Re:2.5.0

[Cheesy Fool]

You fucking l33t wannabe hax0r

Re:2.5.0

[aeil]

if you are running after a 2.5.1-pre3 then the bio changes are what's making most of the difference, better io scheduling and consistant buffer handling..

Re:2.5.0

[Phork]

winamp? is that an error, or do you realy do something like run winamp in wine?

Re:2.5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

winamp 3.0 is out for linux, at least alpha1.. it's pretty cool, tons of features more than xmms

Re:2.5.0

[zdzichu]

There is Winamp for Linux from some time.

Re:2.5.0

[Bert64]

There is a winamp beta out for linux now... go check on winamp.binary only ofcourse

Re:Update Forum post 1.0.2

[Anonymous Coward]

Forum fix log:

No changes. It has, however, been 5 minutes since 1.0.1 came out, therefore we decided to release a new version. Unfortunately this update will require that you lose your uptime in exchange for the new changes, although there are none.

Preempt Patch?

[jasno]

Has anyone actually tried this and noticed a difference? I was under the impression that a lot of people thought this was useless.

Re:Preempt Patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course an actual technical improvement in the kernel would not be appreciated in Linux. They'd rather hear about support for the latest Via audio chipset. Half of these retards don't even know what the word preemptive means. But no doubt you'll hear them spouting off about it in the next BSD vs Linux debate.

Re:Preempt Patch?

[itarget]

The patch makes a big difference for me when using latency-sensitive software (xmms) while I'm really pummeling my system (big compile).

xmms usually skips a bit while I'm compiling something large, but it hasn't even once after applying the preempt patch.

I haven't noticed performance degredation from any effects on throughput, so it's all good here.

Re:Preempt Patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

It definitely makes a difference on my (400Mhz) system. I suspect, however, the faster your system, the less noticeable the effects will be, since it'll take less time inside the kernel regardless of whether the kernel can be pre-empted or not.

That said, the patch is, architecturally, a good thing, as making it work better automatically makes SMP work better, and vice versa. I think it should go into the offical kernel in the 2.5 cycle, personally - even on servers, it often matters that clients are responded to quickly, to keep people at a website, say, rather than sending the absolute max amount of data down the line - so even if the preempt patch has a slight negative impact on total throughput, it's a win for responsiveness.

Re:Preempt Patch?

[Legion303]

Preempt made my system (around 2.4.9 or so) noticeably slower.

-Legion

Re:Preempt Patch?

[PD]

I installed it on 2.4.14 and I didn't notice a single bit of difference.

BUT, I'm also not doing anything that can really take advantage of it. I don't play music or movies. The most I will ever do is run vi and gcc at the same time.

So, it depends on what you do with your machine. The patch seems to work for people who want to play video on a machine with a high load.

Re:Preempt Patch?

[X-ViRGE]

I definitely have noticed a huge difference in the load times and responsiveness of applications. X and my desktop start up in like 2/3 the time they used to take.

Re:Preempt Patch?

[LinuxGeek8]

Good question.

I never used the preempt patch, because I'm on a smp system, and it would make it rather unstable.

But from what I hear, it helps with latency problems, but has a decrease on throughput.
So I'm wondering, just increasing the latency does do exactly the same, doesn't it?
I mean, I increased the latency on the pci bus, and my mp3's are almost never skipping anymore. Which is the same claim made by lovers of the preempt patch.
I never use video stuff though, so I can't comment on that.

For changing the latency, you can find a good read here:
Latency

Re:Preempt Patch?

[jbailey999]

Most systems I see this kind of problem on haven't enabled DMA on their drives.

I use:
/sbin/hdparm -d1 -c1 -m16 -u1 /dev/hda

That's DMA, 32bit IO, Multiple sector count: 16, Unmask IRQs

YMMV

Re:Preempt Patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

2/3 wainting seems to be right for me, too.

OT: it's a performarmance boost like 'executive' for AmigaOS which enhanched the kernel's scheduling,

that thing was made by a student from finland, AFAIR.

SCNR

2.4.x bigger than 2.2.y

[valentyn]

Ha! 2.2.18 on december 11, 2000. 2.4.0 in january, 2001. That means, roughly, 1.5 versions of 2.4 per month, while we have only 1 version of 2.2 in 6 months.
Somewhere in april we'll have 2.4.21 and 2.2.21 and one month later, 2.4.22 will be out. Hooray!

Re:2.4.x bigger than 2.2.y

[ocelotbob]

Kernel development is a funny beast. Sometimes, things just work, and kernels only have to be released when there's a significant amount of hardware. Other times, things don't work and you have to put out a lot of fixes - the early days of the 2.4 VM system sucked; it only started to really rock about 2.4.10 or so. What you didn't take into account with your guestimates is that kernel 2.2.x also had some growing pains in the early stages; it just took a bit longer for 2.4.x to get stable. Just take into consideration the 2.0.x series, they're getting close to a .40 for that line. Trust me, 2.0.x is still being used; there are some vendors who supplied binary-only patches for the 2.0.x series which don't work with the newer lines.

Re:2.4.x bigger than 2.2.y

[GigsVT]

That's the way it is supposed to work. As a program matures, there will be less updates, and things to fix. I thought this was a pretty basic concept...

So what happens if 2.4.99 is released?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they just roll over to 2.5?

Re:So what happens if 2.4.99 is released?

[Anonymous Coward]

ummmmm, 2.4.99.2

Re:So what happens if 2.4.99 is released?

[donutz]

ummmmm, 2.4.99.2

Nah, probably 2.4.100; the kernels start at x.x.0, not x.x.00, so it seems we're using the convention of just tacking the incremental version on without any worry about leading zeros...

Re:So what happens if 2.4.99 is released?

[floodle]

Nah, probably 2.4.100; the kernels start at x.x.0, not x.x.00, so it seems we're using the convention of just tacking the incremental version on without any worry about leading zeros...

This is correct. The 2.1 devel series went to well over 100, 2.3 should have but 2.3.99+ became "2.4.0-testX" for some reason, although it went for a number of months and some major changes were made.

Obligitory karma whoring

[damiam]

Don't forget to use the mirrors.

WOW !

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW ! You can run Winamp, burn a CD, and start Mozilla at the same time without Winamp skipping ?! Linux truly is a superior operating system. I wish Windows could use such an advanced codebase.

As it is now, when I'm running Winamp, watching muted porn with media player, burning a cd, ripping a DVD, and opening up http://dualcpus.com/fuckingwoot all at the same time, my Winamp makes a little skipping noise. On second thought, that could just be my speakers.

Anyways, I still wish I had Linux.

Re:WOW !

[Anonymous Coward]

dual cpus means shit for bus bandwidth.
ripping a DVD and burning a CD at the same time with decent speed is impossible. your bus bandwidth will be saturated even if you have 4 cpus..

Re:WOW !

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, I agree that this gy is probably wasted, but still, I have no problems burning a CD and ripping a DVD and they're on the same ata66 channel for me. He didn't say he was ripping the DVD WELL, or burning at 300x or anything like that. I'm sure my k6-2 500 would do all that too if I didn't desire any of it to be done this month(or next)

Pat
(posting as an AC cuz I'm lay-z)

Re:Preempt Patch? - have not noticed a difference

[donutz]

I've tried the preempt patch and not noticed a difference either...

maybe what we need is someone to give us some concrete, real world examples of where the preempt patch would do some good? Then we'd know if it would make much of a difference for what we use our systems for...

Rik van Riel helping with the new vm

[Anonymous Coward]

the line that makes me happy is:

- Fix VM "not-swapping" issue with lowmem
machines (Rik van Riel)

I am glad to see that life seems to be going on just fine after that vm "debate".

Misguided versioning?

[kurtras]

After several of the last few kernels being released with major bugs, I thought the consensus on LKML was to use -rc versions for bugfixes, and then release a 'final' without making any changes in it. Yet, when I read this changelog, I see that changes were made in the final version. A lot of people will only download a 'final' kernel, because they think that it contains only tested, stable code. That is what the -rc system was to ensure, but releasing a 'final' with changes means that a partially untested kernel is being released to the unsuspecting public. Now, I will admit that there's a very good solution that any user can implement - just don't upgrade. However, these recent quality control problems have given Linux something of a black eye in the public's mind. Therefore, it just seems common sense to not release a kernel with code that hasn't been in for at least one -pre or -rc revision. So, if I were a kernel maintainer, about to release kernel 2.4.18, and I received a 'critical' patch from a project maintainer, I'd make one last -rc release to ensure that the code gets tested before I release it. However, I'm not a kernel maintainer, so take this as you will. I don't mean it as a flame, and I think that Linus and Marcelo have done a wonderful job so far with Linux 2.4.

Re:Misguided versioning?

[Anonymous Coward]

486's and other really stable boxes with old hardware : use 2.0.x
production quality servers with decent hardware support : use 2.2.x
bleeding edge unstable and dev boxes : use 2.4.x
kernel developers : use 2.5.x

Re:Misguided versioning?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would go one further and say that pretty much every release so far should be considered (and versioned as) a beta release. Something shouldn't be "Linux Version 2.4 release" until it's clearly stable - which most 2.4.x releases clearly aren't.

Re:Misguided versioning?

[aeil]

I dissagree, 2.2.x series was handled in a similar fashion as the 2.4.x is now. so one could really say that the lack of a development kernel to let the "kids" play with their new patches is what really hurt 2.4 so far. cause if you hadn't noticed, most of the changelog is BUGFIXES.

I just remembered... RTFM (or RTFL in this case) archives can be found on the web.

Re:Misguided versioning?

[Anonymous Coward]

a black eye? hell the public is barely away that linux exists let alone have even a clue that there was a small amount of innovation that disrupted some whiney-leets.

you shouldn't even been running a 2.4 kernel until now you goof.

Re:Misguided versioning?

[Sits]

I don't quite understand your point. Unless releases are introducing new features they must be fixing bugs otherwise what's the point of changing the version number?

Surely all that happens is that a nominated pre is renamed to an rc and if the rc proves to be stable it is renamed to final. So all final releases will have bugfixes in them because they were either a pre or they fixed something in a previous rc.

Re:Misguided versioning?

[be-fan]

Basically, you have for each kernel version you have several -preX kernels. Once you get the thing stable, you rename the line to -rcX kernels. From here, you accept only bug-fixes. When the -rcX kernel gets really stable, you rename it to -final, without changing anything else.

Re:Misguided versioning?

[Anonymous Coward]

> After several of the last few kernels being released with major bugs, I thought the consensus on LKML was to use -rc versions for bugfixes, and then release a 'final' without making any changes in it. Yet, when I read this changelog, I see that changes were made in the final version.

You're correct that this is the general principle that will be used. BUT, Marcelo reserves the right to make judgements case-by-case, and in this case felt that the fixes were small enough to go in the final build.

@home

[mackermacker]

"I havent finished downloading the last release yet on my 56k modem, and a new one is already out? I'm hopeless... "
thats funny, for me its "I havent finished downloading the last one yet on my @home broadband connection, and a new one is already out? I'm hopeless...

My favourite change:

[schon]

From pre1:

- Speeling fix for rd.c

Gotta love that sense of humor (at least I HOPE it was intentional :o)

Re:My favourite change:

[sluggie]

this was intentional... you know chargon file compatibility... ;)

MOD THIS UP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

important insights!

Cache/Buffer Fixes

[Mish]

I don't know if anyone else is as happy as I am right now to see these fixes in the changelog...

- Make kernel try a bit harder to shrink caches
instead swapping out
- Fix VM problems where cache/buffers didn't get
freed

The 2.4 series has been plagued by these problems, thank god that they might finally be over...

Re:Cache/Buffer Fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

"The 2.4 series has been plagued by these problems, thank god that they might finally be over..." Cool, you mean Linus himself (god) fixed these issues?

NTFS bug fixes?

[Mr. McGibby]

Any word on what the NTFS bug fixes involved? Any closer to a usable readwrite mode?

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[bucky0]

I've been wondering about that too. Why is linux support for NTFS lagging?

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[Pussy Is Money]

Forget about NTFS. In a few years it'll come with Digital Rights Management technology (or they'll just start referring to ACL's as DRM's), and any implementation will have to be licensed from and reviewed by Microsoft. If you don't do that, you'll be punishable under the DMCA, or some terrorist act, or some children protection act, or whatever. Just... Forget about NTFS.

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[Mr. McGibby]

Lack of solid documentation and licensing issues as I remember.

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[Cheesy Fool]

Well, if you have checked the linux-ntfs website, especially the mailing list archives you would see this question comes up a lot.

Here's one reply to why it hasn't been done yet.

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[Anonymous Coward]

OOOhhh I know this one - it's because NTFS is a completely proprietary, undocumented (unless you sign agreements saying you WON'T make non-windows programs to read it) product of one of the most information-freedom-unfriendly companies around today - Microsoft.

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[Anonymous DWord]

You remember right. Lack of *any* documentation, more like it. Licensing I don't think is a problem, as everything is done blind. MS changes NTFS every time they put out a new OS though, so that kind of complicates things.

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[Anonymous Coward]

True as hell.

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[rfredell]

It doesn't seem to bother the guys over at sysinternals too much.

Re:NTFS bug fixes?

[afidel]

Yeah because they write a wrapper around the Microsoft libraries. It's kind of easy to support it if you can use the native code =)

Linux Kernel is lagging behind

[00Monkey]

The Windows Kernel is up to 5.1, Linux is lagging behind...

Re:Linux Kernel is lagging behind

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry that would be 2001.
they quit normal numbering back in 95 when they quit innovating.

Ohh that was a good slam!

Re:Linux Kernel is lagging behind

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that is the OS version, not the kernel version. The current kernel is, in fact 5.1. They never used an odd kernel naming convention; after all, how many consumers buy based upon the kernel version? (2000 came with 5.0)

Re:Linux Kernel is lagging behind

[Anonymous Coward]

But Microsoft cheats in version numbers. There is actually an official standard to alpha and beta releases and version numbers. The kernel sticks to the standard, as does the Debian project.

Microsoft cheats at it. As do RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake in numbering their versions.

In reality, the Linux kernel is probably much farther ahead than Microsoft kernels.

Re:Linux Kernel is lagging behind

[Anonymous Coward]

if you want to call that a kernel.....

Re:Linux Kernel is lagging behind

[00Monkey]

LOL, "-1, Troll" Slashdot admins's heads are too big.

I posted that comment just to see how many flames and what score I would get.

I'm pro-Linux and the comment was a JOKE. I've never met more of an a$$ crowd than the pro-linux, Slashdot crowd.

although you have to wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are new features being left out because 2.5 is out (and thus 2.4 is "stable" instead of "testing")? Or are new features being left out because Linus has nothing to do with it now? :)

Re:although you have to wonder...

[ndogg]

They're being left out because they haven't been extensively tested yet. That's the point of stable. You work on what you have, don't add new features (see my first point), and make sure that all the bugs are out.

AMD K7 SSE

[BrookHarty]

in the changelong I noticed...
pre5 - Enable K7 SSE (John Clemens)

So we now have SSE for the K7 cpu? Does any programs on linux even take the extra speed of SSE/MMX/3D NOW? I have always wondered since these type of optimizations are only visible when the software application lists it, and most software is for windows.

Re:AMD K7 SSE

[Algorithm wrangler]

SSE requires some extra effort on the OS on context-switch, since the SSE registeres are not normally saved/restored (they are only available on SSE-enabled CPUs). So SSE has been unusable on K7 up until now since you might have your programs screwed up by a context switch.

Re:AMD K7 SSE

[Anonymous Coward]

mplayer, a movie player, does. (I'm not sure about SSE, but definitely MMX and 3DNow!) In fact, the author discourages people from distributing binaries, so that you are forced to get good performance.

Re:AMD K7 SSE

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about?

The message is about SSE being enabled on AthlonXP's.

It doesn't work on 'normal' Athlons!

Re:AMD K7 SSE

[fr2asbury]

Actually XMMS has the ability to make use of 3D-NOW!
It's not what you might think though.
It's go tnothing to do with 3D, but it does make it write to disk MUCH faster.

On my site K6-rpms ou can find XMMS rpms that take advantage of this.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Re:AMD K7 SSE

[fr2asbury]

Oops
Don't worry, if you don't see XMMS in the list of files, it's there. Just click on any of the other projects.
I'll take care of that as well as get the latest pre-release of XMMS up, over the weekend.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Re:AMD K7 SSE

[Hoser McMoose]

Just a little FWIW for anyone who's wondering, the following current AMD chips support SSE:

AthlonXP
AthlonMP
Athlon 4 Mobile
Duron chips of 1GHz and faster (and new 900 and 950MHz chips)
Mobile Duron chips at 800MHz and greater

Presumably any future AMD chips will also support SSE. To date, none support SSE2 (as found in the P4), though rumor has it that this will show up in the Hammer series of AMD chips to be released in about a year.

MOD PARENT UP!!

[ArchieBunker]

Goddam she is *HOT* I'd fuck her for all eternity. Better save thos pics before its /.'d

So what kernel does slashdot use?

[Dante]

I wonder what kernel slashdot uses on it's servers.
are up to 2.4 yet? Or still running 2.2?
If they are still running 2.2 when will slashdot upgrade?

Re:So what kernel does slashdot use?

[Anonymous Coward]

freebsd.

Re:So what kernel does slashdot use?

[Anonymous Coward]

freebsd.

Not according to netcraft.

If they were using FreeBSD, this site wouldn't be down every 5 minutes.

What is "preemtive" for ?

[hemabe]

I don't understand the difference between preemtive and the normal way (btw: which?). Could someone explain this to me? What are the advantages? Thanks, Hermi

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[itarget]

Having a preemptive kernel just means that the kernel will allow itself to be interrupted by other programs and give them some cpu time.

This improves response time for your programs as now they won't get stuck waiting for the kernel to finish doing something time-consuming (like disk I/O) before they get some cpu cycles.
In most cases this isn't a big deal, but you'd definitely notice when your mp3 player skips because it's stuck in line behind the kernel.

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[agrapa]

When a process starts a kernel call, it will not be context-swapped until it finishes executing the call. That is, the kernel will not change the executing process as long as it is kernel code that is in execution. There are many reasons for this. The patch makes it OK to to context swapping in the middle of kernel execution, helping all processes get an equal amount of CPU time.

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[Anonymous Coward]

'helping all processes get an equal amount of CPU time.'

- and adding some extra context switching overhead, don't forget!

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[hemabe]

Thanks you for your answer, i don't understand how it is possible, that the kernel right now is not preemptive? Is it possible, with the old kernel, that one process will consume all cpu time. Is it possible, that the process will not "give back" to other processes ? ciao, Hermi

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[jquirke]

No, a process when in userspace cannot hog the CPU. Even if a process does not sleep on a wait-queue, say the program consists of:

for (;;);

It will be forced off the current CPU when its counter expires. The period of time depends on its nice value. The counter is decremented each clocktick, and a re schedule() happens when the counter is found to be =0.

The only way a program can hog the CPU if it is running real-time (SCHED_FIFO), but only superuser processes can do this.

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[be-fan]

There are two things here. Preemptive in userspace, and preemptive in kernel space. Linux is preemptive in user space, meaning that when a process is running application code, it can be preempted. When it is running kernel code, however (ie. during a system call) the scheduler will not preempt the thread, even if a higher priority one becomes available. Essentially (on a single processor) the kernel code is cooperatively multitasked. Kernel code runs until schedule() is called to invoke the scheduler. Some kernel code paths are very long, which leads to long periods where the current process cannot be preempted, which kills latency.

Also, to expand on the original question, there are a couple objections to the patch: It has the potential total throughput, because more locking must be used since the kernel can be preempted at any time, not just at specified points. However, in practice, the effect on throughput seems to be negligible. It also increases complexity, due to additional locking, but most of the complexity is there anyway, in the form of the SMP locks.

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[UnknownSoldier]

> I don't understand the difference between preemtive and the normal way (btw: which?).

The normal (old) way is "cooperative" -- meaning you don't yield a task until you're ready.

Pre-emptive means you can be forced to give up your task.

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> That thud you just heard was all the former BeOS users throwing their PC's out the window...

FUCK YOU, and the OS you rode in on.

BeOS and my hardware still work just fine, thank you very much, you dumb@$$.

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[ASM]

That's not *quite* right. Linux has been pre-emptive since the beginning, but in userspace, not kernelspace. IE, system calls, driver code, and other kernel stuff couldn't be preempted, but user code could.

Windows, on the other hand (9x, I don't know about NT) is fully cooperative, meaning that userland isn't preempted either. That, and poor memory protection, is why buggy windows programs can bring the system down, Whereas in linux, only kernel space stuff can lock up the system.

The preempt patch, then just makes the kernel preemptable, so that Linux is fully preemptive, instead of just in userland.

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[be-fan]

Ah! Partially right! But sorry, no dice. The only cooperative multitasking that is done in Windows 9x is with 16 bit applications, since all 16-bit apps are run in the same virtual machine. All 32-bit apps are fully preemptively (userspace multitasked. As for memory protection, that's only partially true. Application memory is indeed protected from each other. However, there is a big 1GB region of shared memory that is unprotected. Apps that use this region and asking to hose the system. Also, some bits of kernel memory are unprotected because DOS apps need access to them.

As for NT, it is a fully preemptible kernel, both in userspace and kernel space. Like all preemptive kernels, of course, it is not preemptible when interrupts are disabled (since the clock interrupt can't happen). The main reason why NT has always been preemptive is because its always been SMP. The locking requirements on SMP are similar to to locking requirements for a preemptible kernel, so you can get both together for the price of one. Indeed, the preemptive patch for Linux is very small because it uses the existing SMP locking mechanism.

Re:What is "preemtive" for ?

[be-fan]

Hey, I love BeOS as much as the next fanatic, but (as much as I would love to) I can't use it because its compiler is old and there is no support for the rear-channel on my SB Live!

I'm going to have to create a "LinBoys" fangroup..

[cybrthng]

I have upgraded from Windows 2000, to W2k SP1, to W2k SP2, IE 5.5 SP2, DirectX 8.0-8.1, IE 6.0 and lots of other hardware upgrades, driver updates and crap and have paid

$.00

Infact i only paid 149.00 to upgrade to Windows XP after running 2k for a while that wasn't a bad deal either.

Now if i have any problems i can submit the crash dump to Microsoft and within 3 days they have analyzed the dump and written back if it is hardware, software, os bug or program bug.

I can't get that from Linux being an endusers, i don't have time to peruse the code to fix all the bugs that i may come across and well, features WIndows has em all, i'm not waiting for one thing or another then what the latest and greatest will be.

But waite, i also Have a Suse 7.1 server i bought for a few hundred running an Portal 9iAS server, and i have a Professional RedHat 7.2 i have purchased from redhat. Both of which cost me just as much as my windows solution with the same amnount of support. Linux happily runs my Resin/JSP/XML/XSL development server and makes a great workstation for coding..

But believe me, your underestimating the value of having upgrades and at the same time not having to download new kernels, compile, tweak, reboot, and crap like that. That is the luxury of Windows. If you need an update, point your browser to windowsupdate and voila.

Sure Ximian has it, but upgrade your OS to something else and wait... wait.. wait.. and maybe the support will come, or quite possibly after you have already purchased ximian and paid the 9.95 a month for preferred access your already paying out the wazooo for more then what windows costs..

anywhooo, your not right or wrong, but your point is moot without you actually giving any reasons linux would be cheaper. Time is money, and if it takes a while day for me to download an iso, install, patch, secure, tweak and fix a linux box then that has cost me alot more then a 149.00 cost of XP that has installed out of the box on more hardware then i have ever seen..

oh well, to each there own.. just thought i'd poke you for a bit

Re:Update Forum post 1.0.3

[Anonymous Coward]

Forum fix log:

# Unlike Linux developers, that can actually code,
# we're only gay, and like spreading our asses
# wide open.

Re:Already? x = 36

[pheph]

I think 2.0.36 was the hugely popular RedHat 5.2 based kernel.

loopback deadlocks

[Anonymous Coward]

final:

- Fix more loopback deadlocks (Andrea Arcangeli)

the very first line of the changelog is scaring my ass of. this sounds like there are some / an unknown number of loopback deadlocks still lurking and nobody knows where, until it jumps out to rip your head off.

Re:loopback deadlocks

[Anonymous Coward]

boo. *rips your head off*

no way

[ArchieBunker]

I just came up with that name because my Alpha mobo from 1997 used it. They really get used in ide raid today? pretty suprising actually.

pciide0 at pci0 dev 11 function 0: CMD Technology PCI0646 (rev. 0x01)
pciide0: bus-master DMA support present
pciide0: primary channel wired to compatibility mode

Your out of your league...

[didyaseethat]

Case in point, go to windows update on your NT kernel 5.0 (win2k) pc, and try to update to NT kernel 5.1. Surprised your upgrade is not there. For the upgrade you will have to buy Windows XP. Of course Windows bug fixes are there, but they could not get away with blatently charging to fix their mistakes. You can also download a new 2.4.x kernel onto your Redhat 5.2 PC, compile the kernel, and Bang, for free, you have all of the kernel improvements since Redhat 5.2 was released, without the overhead of running new window managers, or whatever. Granted most people will just acquire the newest release, but it is not the only forced solution if you want the improvements. All distro's I've ever used/seen have used all modules rather than compiled in drivers. It would be near imposible to support even a few different machines with hard coded kernels. Expert users may compile their own kernels to acheive even beter performance than offered in a stock kernel, but no one ever has to. Every distro I have ever used releases RPM packages of the new kernels pre-compiled and ready to go. Its as easy as just clicking the icon in your file manager and your ready to go with the new features. It is clear that you have very little, if any exposure to linux. For the sake of those that may be interested in trying something different, please keep your mis-information to yourself.

Re:Your out of your league...

[Wumpus]

You can also download a new 2.4.x kernel onto your Redhat 5.2 PC, compile the kernel, and Bang

Congratulations on your choice of words. Bang, indeed.

Re:Your out of your league...

[cscx]

It is clear that you have very little, if any exposure to linux.

It is clear that you have very little, if any exposure to WinNT.

Ever heard of service packs? They have new builds of all the OS files bundled. Yes, that means a kernel upgrade. Just because the version number didn't increment doesn't mean the build number didn't.

Suck it, Trebek.

Re:Your out of your league...

[Anonymous Coward]

service packs just make me laugh. really. they're quite funny.

Re:Your out of your league...

[didyaseethat]

Service packs....actually, I have installed two of them on my Windows 2000 pc (not to mention the millions of updates on 9x). Lots of bug fixes, but unfortunately no new features. Take your 2.0.X kernel, upgrade it to a 2.4.X and the worm has turned for you my friend. The capabilities grow exponentially. The title "Service Pack" says it all. Service what you got. If you want better (not that XP is better) pay up.

Build number...heh heh

By the way, I keep 2000 around for the TV out hacks. I can't yet get my tnt2 overscanned on my TV. But the day I can....

Patching the kernel

[Corporate Troll]

I know you are supposed to download the patch. It would be ideal since I only have ISDN. Unfortunatley I just downloaded it, and now I don't know what to do.
Downloading the kernel is easy, it's a tar.bz2 and with tar -Ixvf I get the whole tree, unfortunately I just notice a patch is only "patch-2.4.17.bz2", I can unzip it, but then? What do I do?

I'm only using Linux since about a year seriousely and downloaded and compiled nearly all kernels since then but always the complete package. It would be great if I knew how exactly to patch the kernel.
Yes, I know this is a newbie question. Forgive me for this :-(

Re:Patching the kernel

[mboedick]

I used to always download the whole tarball too, until I discovered /usr/src/linux/scripts/patch-kernel. Now all I do is grab the patches, verify the signatures, drop them in /usr/src/linux, run that script, and compile.

It's a fairly intelligent script and makes things painless.

Re:Patching the kernel

[Corporate Troll]

Thanx....I just read that in the readme, and I'll try it tomorrow :-)

Re:Patching the kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also take the patch file, and copy it into the linux directory (where you untarred a fresh version of the latest kernel before the patch ie 2.4.16 stable with patch 2.4.17-rc2)
Then type zcat patch-2.4.17-rc2.gz | patch -p1 -s
then (when it's done) type
find ./ -name "*.rej"
you shouldn't see anything if it all went well.
The Makefile should have (with 2.4.17-rc2)
VERSION = 2
PATCHLEVEL = 4
SUBLEVEL = 17
EXTRAVERSION = rc2

Re:Patching the kernel

[Corporate Troll]

The kernel script worked fine, and my machine is running 2.4.17 happily now. Thank you for the extra information, and I'll try that at the next kernel upgrade. (I printed out your explanation :-))

What!

[willum448]

Last time I checked, the windows kernel was in its thirty second realease?

good thing

[7-Vodka]

Good thing it was intentional! Being brazilian I recognized it as a common spelling mistake for brazilian english and thought the worst haha :)

I'm stupid!

[Corporate Troll]

Aaaagh! Now I feel extremely stupid, I just did 'man patch' and it's all there! I just should have RTFM and shut up :-(

Re:I'm stupid!

[Anonymous Coward]

at least you realized you asked something stupid... :)

the trickiest part is figuring out that you need to use "patch", there's also the README file in the root of the linux source that I believe gives you instructions

-- gid

Re:I'm stupid!

[Corporate Troll]

Gid,
It's not that obvious if you're new to all of this. Of course I am in fault not to read the REAMDE, but then I got used to README's in download directories that explain server policies and such. Perhaps my post will point users that don't know about the 'patch' command to using patches instead of using the source tree. I know it sounds silly, but this is the kind of help newbies need.

Thanks for your reply :-) I do realise I asked something stupid, but that doesn't make me a bad person, does it?

Re:I'm stupid!

[greenrd]

If you didn't have that username, someone might actually believe you.

Re:I'm stupid!

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wasn't trying to be sarcastic or anything. I was just saying... :)

-- gid

Re:I'm stupid!

[Anonymous Coward]

But no, that doesn't make you a bad person... I know I've ask my fair share of questions like that...

Sometimes it's just easier to ask someone who knows, than to sift through miles of documentation. In my case, I'll ask someone else at work who might know, but not all people have that luxury. I'm not saying that this is one of these cases, but you get my point. You just have to be careful not to become an annoyance. :)

-- gid

Re:I'm stupid!

[Corporate Troll]

You're lucky you can. At work we're an Microsoft Shop mainly. I'm one of the few Java people, and I'm the only one using Linux regularly. People mostly ask me questions, but one cannot know everything :-)

slave ATAPI CD on soundblaster

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi all,

I'd like to know if someone got a working CD-drive as slave -- connected to an ISA Soundblaster SB16?

I got one of these rarities in my antique Pentium 133 and, after seeing a bug reported to kernel people about a similar problem, I chose 2.2 on my last upgrade (the drive wouldn't work only with 2.4).

For the record, I use Conectiva 7.0 (similar to Redhat 6, I suppose).

Thanks in advance for any help!

Shy Valiant

Re:slave ATAPI CD on soundblaster

[ghack]

that is (a) off topic and (b) the sb16 scsi cdrom uses the aha152x driver. look it up somewhere...and dont post OT questions

Re:slave ATAPI CD on soundblaster

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, you are going to dictate who is going to post what? Why don't you fuck off, for instance?

Re:slave ATAPI CD on soundblaster

[Craig Davison]

Or (c) Some SB16s use a Sony, Panasonic or Mitsumi proprietary inferface, shitstain.

Seriously, this guy is probably looking for help with one of the "non-ATAPI/SCSI" cd-rom interfaces that are so rare now.

Re:slave ATAPI CD on soundblaster

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi -- me again, Shy Valiant.

First, thanks very much ghac for the directions about a solution.

IMHO this is on-topic since it's the sole problem preventing me to upgrade to 2.4 and this is about a newly released version.

But in case you're right, please point me a more proper forum -- note that I _chose_ not to bother the developers at the kernel mailing list (there was already a similar issue; I did a _thorough_ research some months ago).

For the other guy who defended me, thanks, too (but ghac has the right to express his views).

And Craig, thanks and - btw, dmesg here says:

hdf: CD420E, ATAPI CDROM drive.

Re:Preempt Patch? - have not noticed a difference

[Darren Winsper]

My MP3s stopped skipping under heavy(ish) load. For example, when checking out the Mozilla tree, there is a lot of hard disk access for up to a minute. During this time, XMMS would often skip and crackle, whereas with the preempt patches this no longer occurs.

Xine also seems to like the patches. I can often have two compiles going on in the background with a fair bit of swapping and DVD playback is still smooth. This was not the case without the preempt patches.

In general, the preempt patches help if you use your system as a desktop/workstation, it could actually harm system performance if it's primarily a server.

Quake III Arena reveals another linux security bug

[ForWhomTheHellTrolls]

The Quake III Arena 1.31 patch has been released. The release notes include the following:

Linux only:
fixed sound crash, going around memset bug in glibc i586/i686

memset bug? MEMSET BUG!?! There is a fucking BUG in memset? No fucking wonder Linux crashes all the time!!! What kind of halfass piece of shit OS is this anyway? I guess you really do get what you pay for. Its such a complicated function.. I can see why all you pathetic open sores programmers can't get real jobs!!

"Open sores software... Hey, we almost fixed all the bugs in memset!!"

Why are you upgrading?

[nbahi15]

I use my office and home server on 2.4 kernels without trouble. I got over upgrading to the latest kernel a long time ago. I only upgrade if I need functionality or encounter a serious problem. I moved to 2.4 for USB support. I've only had one kernel panic on my machine in the 2.4 series. And as far as the preemptive patch I have never found it necessary. I do add the microcode support and load the microcode fixes from Intel and my array uses reiserfs which I patched.

Re:Why are you upgrading?

[chill]

Depends on your hardware. Firewire support has been improved/stabilized in successive kernels; there have been filesystem fixes to Reiser and Ext3 (both of which I use).

As far as preemptive: you see it when running something like an MP3 player; DVD/CD/Video player or anything else that is very timing sensitive. Try doing a big compile or massive file copy with XMMS running in the backgroung -- skips, stutters and glitches. The preemptive patch addresses this a lot.

Re:Why are you upgrading?

[nbahi15]

I guess I should try it while ripping three CDs at once and running XMMS.

cameron.

sucks

[haggar]

Linux, that is.

Re:sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

No. You mom sucks.......She let me cum in her mouth too, which was mighty nice of her since she said she NEVER lets you cum in her mouth. Man she sucks like a damn vacum! I put it in her but too, she really likes that!! more so when she gets to suck a cock at the same time! Oh man I'm getting hard just thinking about fucking your mom. I think I'll go let the bitch suck me off again. Anyone got change for a five??? PS you mom looks sooooo hot with a little dribble of my cum sliding out of her mouth while she is still holding my member.

Re:I'm going to have to create a "LinBoys" fangrou

[Anonymous Coward]

costs more than 149.00 for linux troubles? it really depends on how much you get paid per hour and how many hours you work. and still, even then, windows takes time to reinstall too. and if there are driver problems? yuck. new drivers to download on the internet and "Test" (just like with linux)? more time. with linux, if you actually program, you can just look at the code and see what's wrong. SO EASY.

DAMN! Am compiling 2.4.16 on a 486 as I write thi

[Anonymous Coward]

GOD FU***NG @#$@#&!!!

I JUST STARTED COMPILING 2.4.16 ON MY 486/66!

And this is a >= 3 hour process!!

What's more, the system is my router/firewall using iptables/netfilter -- oh and look, they added netfilter fixes in 2.4.17...

*grumble* I think I'm gonna do my 486 compiles on my P733 from now on... Never mind the 100MB+ source uploads between each box to do it...

Re:bios flashing, not just from DOS anymore

[thing12]

You should try out /dev/bios. It's a very cool little kernel module. I recently used it to flash the bios on one of my linux boxes that didn't have a floppy installed. Just cat the file out to /dev/bios and reboot. It's a beautiful thing, though obviously you probably wouldn't want to have it installed all the time :-)

A fool and his money will soon part...

[nbahi15]

with a Microsoft product.

KT266A

[green pizza]

I noticed someone else asking about VIA KT133 support, so I thought I'd inquire about the KT266A...
We have two new office-brew systems, one mobo from Asus and one from Abit, both are based on the KT266A and neither will boot any flavor of kernel 2.4.x that we've thrown at it. I've done the normal google and usenet searches, but haven't found much other than a few "works for me" posts. Anyone have some pointers or patches?

Re:KT266A

[theMissingLink]

We have 3 soyo dragon plus motherboards at work which I believe use this chipset. I have a soyo dragon at home. All running SuSE 7.3 2.4.10 kernel with no problem. Well no problem booting anyway. We have some flakiness we haven't figured out with the dragon plus boards.

Wait a sec!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is a kernel?? isnin't that popcorn before it pops? I tried putting 2.4.17 popcorn kernels in my computer but I think I measured wrong and now my computer is broke!!!!! I don't get it? now I can't get on the AOL (which is the internet) To download the porno~!!!!! Goatsex goatsex goatsex Goatsex goatsex goatsex Goatsex goatsex goatsex Goatsex goatsex goatsex Goatsex goatsex goatsex

Asking /. staff...

[TeknoHog]

Many people keep asking if the /. staff actually read their site - when commenting on multiple instances of the same article. Now, I wonder whether the staff ever read/reply the comments, because I've never encountered any of them replying. Of course, they would probably reply under some obscure aliases, but you should still be able to tell...

Re:Asking /. staff...

[Ziviyr]

Commander Taco has spoken. :-)

Re:Asking /. staff...

[Anonymous Coward]

Commander Taco has spoken. :-)

That's preposterous. CMDR TACO occasionally makes spelling and grammatical mistakes, whereas TeknoHog didn't. I suspect CMDR TACO is one of the more infamous trolls here...

BZ2 vs GZ

[jquirke]

Something I feel like asking as 2.4.17 (bz2) trickles down the connection at 0.2K/sec from Australia's Planetmirror...

The kernel's are posted in both GZ and BZ2 formats. What do you guys mostly use? I can't see much point these days with having the Gzip format, I mean is there still a point to downloading it? Or even having them available in that format?

From what I can see, removing the Gzipped versions

*reduces network congestion
*saves space on the mirrors
*saves space on local storage (yeah only a couple megs)

Of course, it requires more processing time to extract, but that seems to be no big deal these days. I'm pretty sure everyone has bzip2 installed , and those who don't can easily get it, so that can't be a problem.

So is it really just traditional reasons it's posted in Gzipped format? Tell me if I've missed something. It would be interesting to know what everyone thinks about this.

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[damiam]

Tradition, some people don't have bunzip2, and BZ2 takes longer to decompress (a real issue on slower systems).

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[TaliesinWI]

I'm sure I'm going to be showing my age when I say that I remember the Big Switch from .Z (Compress format) to .gz on most FTP sites. Is .bz2 really becoming that common? The only place I'm really exposed to it are the kernel sites, most other source code repositories are either just .gz or still have legacy .Z stuff lying around...

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[Gregg Alan]

I only use bz2 for the kernel. Seems to me that processing power is cheaper than bandwidth (lucky for me I have plenty of both.)

If the extra time to decompress a bz2 over a gz is that great a factor, why would you even want to compile a kernel on that particular machine? Compile it on your fast box and just copy it over. That's what I do.

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[spuk]

Bzip2 is *way* slower and memory hungry than Gzip, and the gain is not necessarily great ...

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[|_uke]

the difference between downloading a full bz2 compressed kernel and a full gz compressed kernel IS a fairly big deal on my little dialup

not to mention that if you remove whatever percentage of users that still downloads the .gz version, you save the difference in size times the amount of users in bandwidth!

a few megs per user times just even as little as 25 users makes a difference

the bz2 is not there so much for your sake, but for the servers :)

(although again for little modem users like me, it DOES make a difference... for me that is :P)

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[jbailey999]

I use my favourite format: .deb =)

The stock Debian kernels have been just fine for me. I used to enjoy going through and selecting all of the options in versions 1.2.x. Now with all of the options, it's become an all-day project to try and remember which options to pick. The debian kernels nicely have (almost) everything available as a module, and has all the scripts to setup the initrd.

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[Ed Avis]

If you're worried about download time, just get the patches!

(Okay that only works if you've got the previous version - you can download a whole sequence of patches for bigger jumps, but after a while it gets bigger than the kernel itself. I'd like to see a general patch generator where you type in what version you currently have and it generates the smallest patch file just for you. Alternatively some way of using rsync would save on bandwidth.)

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[Anonymous Coward]

If uncompressing bz2 takes so much longer that it does really bother you, for the sake of your own nerves and health, please DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, try to actually _compile_ that kernel.

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[bconway]

You realize you can re-use your old .config, right? There's even an option to load or save old non-.config files in the various menuconfig/xconfig/whatever menus.

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[spuk]

Sorry, I misread the original post. What I meant was that Bzip2 may not be worth it to be used everywhere. For the specific case of Linux, I think it could be reasonable to use only Bzip2.

Re:BZ2 vs GZ

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Debian source kernels; the trick is to copy .config from the old tree to the new one, then connect to the new tree and make oldconfig. Voila', you only answer the new questions; all your existing settings get setup automatically. Build as usual from this point.

Re:3DNow!

[TeknoHog]

MPlayer makes use of MMX and 3Dnow! if they are available. Makes my K6-III+, 400 MHz, play DivX quite well :-)

can anyone compile it?

[seandarcy]

I've got it. I'm trying to compile it. It fails at make bzImage compiling network.o. See the snippet.

Anyone know how to fix it?

ld -m elf_i386 -T /opt/kernel/linux-2.4.17/arch/i386/vmlinux.lds -e stext arch/i386/kernel/head.o arch/i386/kernel/init_tas
k.o init/main.o init/version.o \
--start-group \
arch/i386/kernel/kernel.o arch/i386/mm/mm.o kernel/kernel.o mm/mm.o fs/fs.o ipc/ipc.o \
drivers/char/char.o drivers/block/block.o drivers/misc/misc.o drivers/net/net.o drivers/media/media.o drivers/char
/agp/agp.o drivers/ide/idedriver.o drivers/scsi/scsidrv.o drivers/cdrom/driver.o drivers/sound/sounddrivers.o drivers/pci/d
river.o drivers/pnp/pnp.o drivers/video/video.o drivers/md/mddev.o \
net/network.o \
/opt/kernel/linux-2.4.17/arch/i386/lib/lib.a /opt/kernel/linux-2.4.17/lib/lib.a /opt/kernel/linux-2.4.17/arch/i386/
lib/lib.a \
--end-group \
-o vmlinux
net/network.o: In function `__rpc_schedule':
net/network.o(.text+0x49a0d): undefined reference to `rpciod_tcp_dispatcher'
make: *** [vmlinux] Error 1

Re:can anyone compile it?

[Anonymous Coward]

meee to , network.o does not get linked ..

Re:can anyone compile it?

[jdg]

I built it without problem. net/network.o build
okay. I haven't installed it yet. I'd be happy to email you my .config file if you want.

jdg at eznet dot net

Re:can anyone compile it?

[skriefal]

Appears to be a known problem when compiling with RedHat's prerelease of the GCC 3.1 compiler.

Here is some more information. In general, I recommend that you do not attempt to compile the Linux kernel using any version of GCC newer than 2.96.

Re:can anyone compile it?

[jrockway]

> In general, I recommend that you do not attempt to compile the Linux kernel using any version of GCC newer than 2.95.

I'll second that. gcc3 really fouls up the kernel. Everything compiles okay, but on boot the system goes right back into OpenFirmware with a "DEFAULT CATCH!". gcc2.95 with the same config fixes this.

Woo Hoo!!!!

[_01001001]

I've been waiting about a week or two for this kernel to come out. There is quite a few updates that I looked at in the changelogs a few weeks ago, that I wanna get. Mostly, the update of the sym53c8xx_2 driver.

I would have used one of the beta versions, but I have something against using a beta kernel on my workstation. So sue me ;)

--Frank

A note

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of what any of you say, updating Windows with Windows Update is several orders of magnitude easier than all of these "download-compile-reboot-repeat" cycles CmdrTaco alluded to. This alone is sufficient reason for linux to be unsuitable for desktop users.

And still...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is for bitches.
or as you l33t h4x0rz like to say...
Linux is for 817ch3z.

Another RML?

[RML]

"RML"? Robert M. Love stole my initials! Now I have to worry about people confusing me with someone who knows what he's doing.

This is fixed

[free!arrow]

A patch specific to this was applied a while back - I think in 2.4.10. It fixed the problem in my case. You will see "Trying to stomp on Athlon bug" in one of the very first boot messages - this is the fix.

Re:This is fixed

[Sits]

This guy is right - the workaround for the problem has been about for a while. For more information on the problem take a look at the Via Hardware FAQ. The whole via problem has been known about for sometime (a search on Kernel Traffic for KT133 turned up a few references. The most recent reference was 2.4 Kernel freezes on VIA KT133.

As mentioned in other comments, motherboard makers were encouraged to workaround this at bios level.

Does freebsd kernel have this

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been hearing a lot of good things about FreeBSD in the past few months. I was wondering if FreeBSD kernel has this feature as well.

Re:Does freebsd kernel have this

[athlon02]

Recompiling the FreeBSD kernel is pretty easy:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books /h andbook/kernelconfig-building.html

however, the FreeBSD authors don't go around releasing new kernels everytime you blink, they do it right the first time (=

gay

[Anonymous Coward]

linux is for gays

2.4

[Arjuna Theban]

I've been using linux since the very early 2.0.* days and for the most part I keep up with every kernel released. Since I've moved to 2.4.*, I've notices an incredible slowdown on my machine, even in post-2.4.13 kernels which supposedly did something to improve performance.

Personally I'm about ready to go back to good old fast&stable&reliable 2.2 tree. I wonder if we really need to make the kernel this sluggish for the sake of introducing new stuff in the kernel level though. I know I'm not the only one who noticed the performance drop with 2.4.*.

--

Re:2.4

[Anonymous Coward]

"Performance" is kind of a vague word; what kind(s) of performance hits have you been seeing?

Note that the 2.4.9 - 2.4.15 kernels were something of a kernel development tree, so they aren't the best ones to use as a comparison. Try the 2.4.16 or .17 and see how they do.

Re:2.4

[Arjuna Theban]

Well, for one, the basic program startup time. Your average bloatware (xemacs, staroffice, mozilla, etc) takes longer to start than they did on the 2.2 tree. I didn't time the processes with the two different kernels or anything so I guess I can't back that with hard evidence but it feels that way. The second one (which I've also heard from many other people) is the slowdown with disk i/o. When I am copying large files from one drive to another or there is simply a large amount of drive activity, my computer becomes virtually unusable. I mean, it takes 2-3 seconds to switch desktops in X. I've heard from a friend that 2.4.13 seemed to improve this situation for him, but it didn't for me.

I guess my problem is that I used to be able to run 2.2.* with X on a 233mhz machine just fine, and 2.4.* feels just like that on a 500. Maybe not *that* bad but 2.4 is a steep performance drop compared to 2.2 for me.

--

Your weak sarcasm is wrong, pal

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is not the topic of Slashdot. Slashdot purportedly is "News for Nerds." Conceivably that would not preclude the HURD project. Of the 85 named topics covered here on Slashdot, only a small fraction are Linux-specific. Furthermore, one of the topics is GNU. If you follow that link, however, you will see that no HURD-related story has been posted in over a month.

If you think that Linux is the topic of Slashdot and that no other operating systems should be mentioned here, then you are clearly misled. This is somewhat understandable, however, because the Linux zealots who run the site often pretend their OS is the only way.

And FreeBSD users...

[athlon02]

just yawn, ignore yet another kernel update, and go about their lives.

lame question.

[jon_c]

I just put RH 7.2 on my laptop (compaq 1720US). the eepro100 drivers that come with it do a timeout deal constantly. I am hoping that this new kernel includes some fixes for it.

Previesly i appempted to get the latest official kernel (2.4.16) and make it work with redhat. I got as far as using kgcc and getting it to compile but i was unable to get xwindows working after that. (i think it might have had something to do with gartagp not working, not sure)

does anyone know of some simple steps to make RH work properly with the latest kernels?

-Jon

Re:lame question.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's work with my laptop IBM A21e - eepro100,RH7.2 & kgcc. 2.4.16, 2.4.17pre2 - all OK

Re:lame question.

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing about RedHat with newer kernels make sure that you sym link include/linux in source dist to /usr/include/linux to make sure you have the proper headers when you compile modules.

Also sym link asm, asm-i386 or anything else you may need form the include directory in the linux kernel source dist.

I usualy link these to /usr/src/linux which is itself a link to the current linux source dist.

I don't know if there's an easier way of doing this, but it seems that RedHat just copies header files from the kernel that it comes with into /usr/include which I think is nasty.

Re:lame question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Download and compile eepro100-diag.c from the Scyld website then follow Donald Becker's instructions here.

Re:lame question.

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM puts out its own drivers which work fine. Do a google search for e100 1.6.22 or just go to debian source package link or just go to latest source from ibm

I got mine from a mandrake install, but then went back to slack (and just used the mandrake source). It fixed all my probs. Just make sure and recompile your kernel with eepro100.o as a modules (or not at all). Then untar the e100 source and make, then copy e100.o /lib/modules/YOUR_KERNEL/kernel/drivers/net. Finally do a depmod.

Good luck.

Bill D. Cat

alcatel driver

[Renaud]

you're talking about the initial kernel-based driver from alcatel, which is now obsoleted by the open source driver by Benoit Papillault (http://speedtouch.sf.net).

This one works better and only requires the standard kernel option "HDLC line discipline" to be compiled in.

2.4.16 works great with the Gigabyte 7VTXH

[sunset]

I've built and tested a couple of these for clients. No problems at all. Seems about 15-20% faster than KT133A systems.

Re:DAMN! Am compiling 2.4.16 on a 486 as I write t

[rythriynn]

eeek! this is off-topic, sort of, but you really need to start rethinking your firewall... over here I do the same thing but DO NOT have gcc or anything remotely "code-powerful" (would kill mount if I could) installed on my firewall box... as such, yes I HAVE to take advantage of my protected computers increased performance for compiling the kernel and the modules I see fit (VERY few), then ship them over via scp (just for practice) to restart the new "test" config with... ...has anyone heard of patches btw?!!? also, why would you "upload" the source instead of the .tgz?!?!? also, having the kernel source on your firewall box is probably not the best thing to do.... especially since gcc appears to be there as well (and I didn't even have to crack your box to find out!) I appreciate your "pain" but please consider that this is a large community and "somebody's already thought of that"... instead of suffering, please do a little checking and spare yourself... the kernel will help you :) if you do insist on keeping the source on your firewall, then patches will certainly benefit you! but DON'T... kernel source+ gcc+ floppy disk=serious fun! kernel source+ gcc+ root+ lilo=serious problem... of course, the reasoning behind this is that my "protected computer(s?)" all run firewalls and "suspect" my firewall... hehe.... just a thought...

Mozilla 0.97 & OS X.1.2 out also

[kiwipeso]

In a move to steal the spotlight from the linux update for xmas, both apple and mozilla released new versions of their software.

Rumors have it that this new version of OS X is stable enough to go for a week without a kernel panic.
And mozilla 0.9.7 now allows ugly windows icons to be used as favicons, it is rumored that autopr0n.com is considering an animated stripper as the favicon.

You probably don't need preempt patch

[ndogg]

The preempt patch is mainly for embedded devices. This is definitely not something for production level machines. Most applications that don't target embedded devices aren't ready for preemption. To use the preempt patch is to introduce instability.

Re:You probably don't need preempt patch

[Anonymous Coward]

Running a stock kernel here. I rip cds, burn cds, surf the net, compile software, listen to mp3s, often all at the same time. I don't have any problems or feel the need for a "prempt" patch. Of course, my system is all SCSI with a good controller, so that might make a difference.

Re:DAMN! Am compiling 2.4.16 on a 486 as I write t

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you living in a van down by the river?

Some Vacation

[matusa]

Alan Cox seems to be the source of some 25% of the fixes. If that's taking it easy, than I'm a 17 tongued goat.

Yeah yeah, parts of it are merges of old fixes, but even with that in consideration, he is definitely superhuman

my thanks

The new kernel maintainer is doing a great job too. I can't believe he stepped in and had so much momentum immediately! Rather amazing. He's definitely living up to the very high expectations

thanks.

Marcelo's true merge plans

[matusa]

the pic says it all:

Here's a picture of marcelo wearing FreeBSD horns

I'm fireproof so don't bother with flames. I'm just having a good time, you know.

Yes. The fix for the KT266 and KT133a is

[Anonymous Coward]

downgrade to a better-supported 486SX, with no more than 4 MB of RAM. Buy any good ISA/VLB motherboard because they all work well for linux. Judging on Linux' history on hardware support, the older the part, the more stable it is. You can't say that for the World Trade Center, but you can obviously say that for a 486.

Kernel

[Genghis Troll]

Hey, is this like when I eat corn, and then take a shit, and then there are kernels of corn in the shit? Because that's really cool when that happens.

Preempt patch and 3rd party modules

[loftwyr]

I installed the patch, recompiled and both ALSA 5.12a and nvidia's kernel module were broken. I got unresolved symbols.

It would be nice if there was some way to exempt these two from the optimization or there was a doc explaining what I would need to change

Re:Preempt patch and 3rd party modules

[dossen]

Have you tried to rebuild the modules, this used to fix similar problems for me. I know the modules are binary, but there is still some linking to be done before they load on a given kernel. I usually just make modules modules_install and rebuild any seperate modules (nvidia!) every time I mess with the kernel (not that often)...

Could be pnpbios related

[Sits]

You don't mention which distribution you are using... I noticed that on one of the Mandrake forums someone had found that setting nobiospnp fixed the problem on their KT266A system.

BIRTH OF A TROLL

[Anonymous Coward]

Born to annoy the self righteous slashdot community!

All hail... Birth of a new Troll!

What happened to...

[Anonymous Coward]

... CONFIG_NETLINK and CONFIG_RTNETLINK ? Both are now included and can't be removed because Red Hat users complained about problems (Red Hat uses iproute at boot time, so guess...) ?

My username

[Corporate Troll]

Don't always judge people by theire names. This is indeed my troll account, you are right. I stopped trolling by the way because it's not as fun as I thought it would be. Why did I use this account to ask such a question? Right, just because I didn't want to spoil my karma on the regular account. I actually thought I'd be modded as a troll or offtopic, but instead nice people tried to help. Now, isn't that what one should call "a community"? Of course it could just be the Christmas spirit :-)

2.4.17 with pre-emptive patch works great

[supaphinn]

looks good, my first time with the preemptive patch, as far as responsiveness i dont feel a difference, maybe slight but that might be psychologic.

anyway, it seems to work great. Looks like its worth using if it does what it says

not to mention the l33tn3ss of using it ;)

Numbering scheme - is it just me?

[simetra]

At first glance, it seems like 2.4.9 is bigger than 2.4.17. Obviously, 17 is greater than 9, but maybe the numbers should start with a zero for the 1 digit numbers... like instead of 2.4.9, 2.4.09
My 2 cents.

Re:3DNow!

[jrockway]

Eh... my 233MHz iMac plays DiVX fine (MPlayer screws up the sound, but Xine is great)

rsync would be quite alot better

[Anonymous Coward]

using rsync would reduce the bandwidth quite alot...
but the guys running things dont really care
about the bandwidth. it is 'more headache' , something
else that can break, and im sure they find it boring
to worry about these things (why doesnt everyone
just get cable/dsl/whatever , they think , before
heading off to make sure SMP on a 16 processor
alpha ghz box works properly when monkeys are jammed
into the HD spindle.)

Bastille Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I compile my kernels on an old 200MHz PPro cause thats all I have. I'd rather make sure my son has cloths and food on the table instead of runing out and plopping down 2K for a new system just so I can compile Kernels. Not everyone is rolling in dough, and able to run out and buy the latest tech. You remind me of that Mare Antinette, "Let them eat cake."

Re:Bastille Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap this makes no sense. If all you can afford is a PPro 200MHz then you certainly can't afford broadband internet access which means you ought to be downloading the bzip version because it's smaller.

Plus, I don't care if your kids are naked and eating cake. Duh

And then, which 2k are you talking about? US? No way. If you pay 2k for a new machine in the US you are poor and stupid.

486 kernel compiles

[Anonymous Coward]

i did this quite a while. the things that pissed me off
most were :

idiotic 'make' system that takes 20 minutes to
figure out its dependencies via some kludged up
'makedep-fast' script (nice name btw).

recursive 'make' takes like 30 minutes to do nothing.
try it!.

all of this could be solved with a new make system
but its not a priority for 'linux hackers' as they mostly
dont care about people compiling on a 486.

however alot of them do seem to test things on
486 alot so... at least you arent totally screwed.
esp since you already have a faster box, jesus.
just use CPU=486, then scp or whatever
over to the 486.

Security

[Sloppy]

I use my office and home server on 2.4 kernels without trouble. I got over upgrading to the latest kernel a long time ago. I only upgrade if I need functionality or encounter a serious problem.

While this does seem wise at first, be careful. You can have a serious problem even if you don't encounter one -- What I'm getting at is security. You gotta keep an eye on the bugfixes. It wasn't that long ago that a local root exploit was found, in both the 2.2 (!) and 2.4 trees. Your 2.4.9 (or whatever old one you have) might not be safe, even if seems to be running fine.

Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll