Slashdot Mirror
Linux 2.4.18 Released
Kourino writes: "Marcelo
announced the release of 2.4.18 a couple hours ago after 4 release candidates, but the tree marked 2.4.18 on kernel.org is
missing the -rc4 patch that finally made the kernel releasable. Basically, what's marked as 2.4.18 is really -rc3, and what's marked as -rc4 is what should have become 2.4.18. According to Marcelo on #kernelnewbies, most users won't be affected, but people on SPARC systems should definitely grab 2.4.18-rc4. Your best bet is probably just to get 2.4.17 and patch to 2.4.18-rc4. Seems 2.4 is destined to be an "interesting" release branch ^_^; For the new release, head over to your favorite kernel.org mirror. (Marcelo will set things straight in 2.4.19-pre1.)"
Come on, it's been enterprise-ready for a while, now. Businesses don't need the "latest kernel available", they want the most stable. There are a couple of extremely stable kernels out there...
Reminder: find a new sig
It seems that Sun is now 20 years old. Happy Birthday Sun. So on its birtday it get a nice new Linux patch for its platform. Ok everyone Dig out your old Sparc 2's and install you Linux kernel.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Thanks, now that I've done that, I expect everyone else to show a little restraint and not clutter the board with your same old whiny bullshit. If you must post to get self-validation, try making up a story or something.
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
Basically, what's marked as 2.4.18 is really -rc3, and what's marked as -rc4 is what should have become 2.4.18. According to Marcelo on #kernelnewbies, most users won't be affected, but people on SPARC systems should definitely grab 2.4.18-rc4.
Wow. Now that's professionalism, eh? Good thing that this whole Open Source badge makes it all okay.
Would the fifteen second delay to rename a couple files before release really have killed anyone?
--saint
the tree marked 2.4.18 on kernel.org is missing the -rc4 patch that finally made the kernel releasable. Basically, what's marked as 2.4.18 is really -rc3, and what's marked as -rc4 is what should have become 2.4.18. According to Marcelo on #kernelnewbies, most users won't be affected, but people on SPARC systems should definitely grab 2.4.18-rc4. Your best bet is probably just to get 2.4.17 and patch to 2.4.18-rc4. Seems 2.4 is destined to be an "interesting" release branch ^_^;
I've had enough kernel problems in the past. The degree of uncertainty presented around this latest Kernel doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence.
Think I'll hold off for a while, thanks.
Redhat and Suse provide some damn good kernels. I've had no problems whatsoever. They really stress test those things.
Boy, everyone sure loves to jump on the "2.4.x sucks" bandwagon. Sure, there were some issues in the past, but I would like to know how many people reading slashdot right now are really seeing all of these problems.
90% of you who got burned and will "go back to 2.2.x" were probably being stupid and tried it on a production server and got properly burned.
Test your shit before you deploy, if you're not doing that then you're an idiot.
On the top right of the page a little box giving the current kernel version and the date/time of the change when you click on it you can get to its message board. That way you guys can get your Kernel Fix and read about your problems and us people who dont update the kernel in the main messages. I like getting news about Linux and Also Major Kernel versions. But all these little ones gets annoying. It seems like if anyone really want to post a story with there name on it they keep two browsers open and one refreshes kernel.org untill a version apears and then they post a message stating that. Say I can make a script to do that. (But I wont)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What is an ideal release frequency for one point in this space, is not at another.
At one point I worked at a DOS extender company (Rational Systems, not related to Rational of California), and we released the software every week. The system was small, the team was small, the customers were very sophisticated, and the value of adding new features was very high. We were praised for being responsive. Three years later, the software was much bigger, the release cycle was down to 2 times a year, and the value of not adding new bugs to the old features was very high. We still got good marks for technical support.
Unlike most commercial software, it's hard to point at revenue streams for Linux that justify the midlife software development expenses like full-time, paid-for, this-isn't-fun-but-it-has-to-get-done release engineering. Although there is a large virtual software team for this OS, I strongly suspect that there is less infrastructural support than you get with old fashioned, iron vendor supported systems like Solaris, HP-UX, et al. TANSTAAFL, folks.
Don't get me wrong, I use Linux daily, my servers run on it, and I depend on a variety of other open source software (particularly Python!). I even buy RedHat/KRUD releases just so that some value flows back into the release process from a happy recipient. But I sometimes feel like holding my breath while installing that next kernel release!
TANSTAAFL -- There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Thanks, RAH, wherever you are!
Why can't they just rename the files?
I mean, these people make operating systems, right?
nope, it needs this:
// printk(KERN_WARNING "ELF: Ambiguous type, using ELF\n"); /* Executables without an interpreter also need a personality */
/* OK, we are done with that, now set up the arg stuff,
--- linux-2.4.18/fs/binfmt_elf.c.orig Mon Feb 25 14:56:59 2002
+++ linux-2.4.18/fs/binfmt_elf.c Mon Feb 25 14:57:17 2002
@@ -564,6 +564,9 @@
interpreter_type = INTERPRETER_ELF;
}
+ } else {
+
+ SET_PERSONALITY(elf_ex, ibcs2_interpreter);
}
If you have a Cyrix III 1Ghz and a VIA southbridge controller, you must have the -rc4 .
IT'S CALLED KNOWLEDGE. It's nice to be able to read a quick reply that tells me w/o going to an archive whether or not I am going to use the kernel on the servers. Especially when the following link is omitted from the article.
Kernel 2.4.18 Changlog
right, and then brace for the zillion emails coming from all over the world of people complaining about how the md5sum suddenly changed on a kernel image they already downloaded AND verified...
Don't forget it is a -pre. Marcelo was keeping a lot of patches out of the late 18-pres because he wanted to get the damn thing stable.
.18 or the most current release candidate. Before that it was running for at least a month on .17.
We should also note the time that has gone past between 2.4.17 and 2.4.18 - more than two whole months. This is Marcelo's first real own kernel in my opinion. 2.4.16 was a bug fix for 2.4.15 - 2.4.17 came out only a few weeks afterwards, but this baby really had time to mature.
This is also why I don't mind reading this (commenting on all the "This is not freshmeat" discussions) on slashdot. This is a stable kernel, the first for a long time. It is not like in the times when a new "stable" kernel came out like every other day and people got annoyed.
I have 2.4.18-rc4 running for almost 9 hours now (basically since it came out) with setiathome, dnetc, tftpd, nfs, smbd, cups, pppoe, bind9, dhcpd3, tftpd (for remote booting clients) using huge reiserfs partitions and I like what I see. It is just my busybox DSL router, firewall and file server, so not really a production system, but it is in a server case, running a dual pentium II so hardware that while not fully up to date resembles that of production servers in medium sized companies. I don't normally pull a new kernel everytime one comes out, but I suddenly needed NFS support which I didn't have compiled in before, so I decided to upgrade to either
Or you could simply use the current stable kernel that's running on your machine right now.
My production machines are all still on 2.4.5, perhaps the most stable of the 2.4 series. (In my experience.)
I belive this was fixed with 2.4.18-pre1, which was the first patch in.
But I'm still scared over 2.4.18 missing the -rc4 patch, and both 2.4.18 and 2.4.19-pre1 are fresh. I'm not going to compile it even on my own system until 2.4.19 is released.
Oh Alan, where are you...
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Yeah that's right, I said it. I LIKE having Slashdot announce new kernels. This is where I always hear about new releases. I don't want to check a kernel site every day of the year, I'd rather see it on a site I'm reading anyhow.
Too many people bitching about such pointless dribble; 2.4 sucks, BSD owns Linux, stop posting these kernel releases.(Despite the fact that it's clearly geek news, and being posted on a geek news site) And then we add capability to exclude topics from your slashdot homepage, and people still bitch.
This is a tech news site, Linux kernels are a perfectly viable news item. 2.4 does not suck. If you think it does, move on to something else. Ignore the topics. Stop ripping up people doing a perfectly good job.
I like ice cream.
Halt isn't supposed to power down your machine. Try calling 'poweroff' of using halt -p.