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.)"

Comments

Re:this is an enterprise ready os?

[Archie Steel]

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...

Re:Version numbers.

[markj02]

Wow. Now that's professionalism, eh? Good thing that this whole Open Source badge makes it all okay.

No. What makes it OK is that the fix is out within 24 hours, that even 2.4.18-rc3 is very usable, and that people who run anything on Linux shouldn't be upgrading to a kernel that has just been released, even in the "stable" series.

Microsoft, just to pick one commercial example, releases a new version of Windows once every few years, and major service packs fairly infrequently. They also invest hundreds of millions of dollars in each release. And, you pay hundreds of dollars for Microsoft's software. That's what makes it not OK when Microsoft breaks a kernel release and users end up being stuck with it for months. And Microsoft releases packages with major flaws constantly, much bigger flaws than a forgotten rc4 patch.

Why can't they fix it now?

[irq]

Why can't they just rename the files?
I mean, these people make operating systems, right?

Support for announcing new kernels

[herk]

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.