The Future Of The 2.0 Linux Kernel

An Anonymous Reader writes: "The first 2.0 stable kernel was released over six years ago, in June of 1996. It was followed by the 2.2 stable kernel two and a half years later, in January of 1999. The more recent 2.4 stable kernel followed by two years in January of 2001. And the upcoming 2.6 kernel is at least a year off. Through all these years, 2.0 has continued to be maintained, currently up to revision 2.0.39, also released in January of 2001. David Weinehall maintains this kernel, and says, "there _are_ people that still use 2.0 and wouldn't consider an upgrade the next few years, simply because they know that their software/hardware works with 2.0 and have documented all quirks. Upgrading to a newer kernel-series means going through this work again." Read the full story here."

Comments

old systems

[vstanescu]

I have a very old system, running redhat 4.2 on it, that does the billing for the X.25 part of my network. It runs a lot of scripts and binary programs that are reading accounting files generated by the X.25 switches, transforming them into text files and generating monthly reports for the billing department. It is so complex, that I would think more than twice even for upgrading the kernel from its current 2.0.32 to the new 2.0.39, and upgrading the operating system to a newer distribution will never be done, because it does not worth the effort. Its great to see that somebody still takes care of old software and if a bug will bother me someday, i will have the option to upgrade or at least to talk with somebody that still mantains the software.

Re:old systems

[skydude_20]

isn't this kind of attitude of "it works, leave it alone" that gave us that Y2K fiasco?

then again we have the "it doesn't work, lets make it better" attitude that gave us Windows, so its your choice of the lesser of two evils

Re:old systems

[vstanescu]

What Y2K fiasco? nothing bad happened in 2000, at least to me..

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

same here, i have a old workhorse with redhat7.1 & 2.4.2 kernel, it works great, faster than the newer 2.4.xx kernels since it works good why bother, (if it aint broke don't fix it)

Re:old systems

[Quixote]

isn't this kind of attitude of "it works, leave it alone" that gave us that Y2K fiasco?

No, you're thinking of the "640K of memory should be more than enough" attitude (as in "2 digits should be more than enough").

Re:old systems

[kasperd]

What Y2K fiasco?

I experienced one fiasco, my brother has a computer from 1995. The BIOS developers was "smart" they have been thinking: "Nobody is going to need any year before 94 in this RTC, so let's check for that and change the year to 94 to avoid some problems."

Guess what the clock displayed the first time it was switched on in the year 2000.

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the connections with Linux?

Re:old systems

[skydude_20]

the fiasco was the few years before Y2K when we found the problem and had to spend a ton of money to make sure we could make it through

Re:old systems

[MindStalker]

7.1/2.4.2 isn't "old" by any standard.

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell moderated this as flamebait? This guy is pretty much spot on IMO.

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL - old workhorse with redhat7.1??

With kernel 2.4.x no less? and you call that old?

Re:old systems

[XO]

Y2K was such a non-issue that it didn't really matter. Everyone thought "Hey, maybe all these programmers from long ago used 2-digits to hold the year.." well, programmers from LONG AGO would have used a SINGLE 4-bit or 8-bit byte, instead of -2- 8-bit bytes to hold the year.

This means, that potentially, if they used signed 8-bit ints, or unsigned 4-bit ints, the world could blow up January 1, 2028 (when the computers add one to "December 31, 127"). Or, January 1, 2156. (add one to "December 31, 255")... does this make sense?

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

There was old mainframe code written in Cobol, which stores numbers as characters, and you only specify field width. Back in the 70s where memory and disk was expensive, they usually used 2 digits to store years.

Re:old systems

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

I was in Poland at the time. In this "2nd world" former communist country and the prophets of gloom and doom, the worst that happpened is that the cabbie ripped me off for a cab ride on Jan 1st 2000. I wasn't that mad, considering he had to be working on a big holiday like that. ATMs worked. Oddly enough, half the ATMs in Paris were out for a few days.

Re:old systems

[XO]

You mean to tell me that Cobol was so braindead that it stored each digit of an integer as a 7 or 8-bit byte? That sounds absolutely ludicrous.. I would've much more expected in th 70's where memory and disk was expensive (and very LARGE.. i have a 1MB memory board from a VAX made in 1980.. and the board is roughly 1 foot by 1 foot square.. equivalent to a 1MB 30 pin DIMM.) thjat they would use 4-bit or 8-bit ints.

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, COBOL was that braindead. I've learned it in highschool in late '80s, wrote a few thousand lines of code, believe me.

Re:old systems

[XO]

Still not the entire world was written in COBOL. It still at least makes sense to -me- *lol* that there could be "y2k127" glitches, for systems at least somewhat more intelligent, but from the same era.

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in those days there was at least one reason to use 8-bit digits: math.

Binary math is great and easy -- unless you need to convert to decimal in the end. There may be rounding errors (mainly because numbers are sometimes exact in one base and not in the other).

So math was done with decimal algorithms using decimal-base numbers with digits coded in binary (the famous BCD, binary-coded decimal).

COBOL was intended for use in commercial systems -- precision was not that important and people *really* wanted to avoid losing cents due to above reasons.

On a side note, don't use feet when talking about old systems lest you'll be considered obsolete, too. Metric is advanced, foot is old.

Re:old systems

[some guy I know]

I have both MS-Win95 and Slackware Linux installed on one of my old machines.
Whenever I boot from MS-Win95 into Linux, the year gets set to 2094.
(The month, day, and time are fine.)
So I don't know whether there is a connection in the case of your parent poster, but there can be a connection.

Re:old systems

[Sabalon]

No...that was the "oh..c'mon, no one will still be using this code 20 years from now" that gave us the y2k paranoia.

Re:old systems

[smittyoneeach]

Cynic that I am, IMO the y2k paranoia was all about preying on the fears of the ignorant to either

Get them to loosen the purse strings and fund spurious projects

Use y2k as a foil to clean up a few old messes
The refreshing thing about the 2.0 kernel attituted is the unwillingness to twist someone's arm to make them upgrade.
There is a legitimate need to talk about upgrading, though.
The IIWDFWI (If it works...) attitude can have all the benefits of clinging to a bad habit,
and said habit can put you in extremis if you ignore it.
My company (and project) is as deep in the habit of !planning as anyone else. Recent firewall implementation is a running disaster.
Thus, keeping an old 2.0 box doing its thing is great. I'd be considering what a cheap drop-in 2.4 box might look like, even get it tested (in that spare time) so that we don't have an 'Ostrich moment'...

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell moderated this as flamebait? This guy is pretty much spot on IMO.

Amen, brother! Good humor is so hard to find these days. We are headed for dark times, indeed.

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

There are packed decimal numbers, but there are advantages when using text to store numbers in a dbms.

Re:old systems

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it wrong. Y2K problems were solved; had they not been solved, there would have been costly problems.

I can't say I stay all that on top of things

[Joe Tie.]

But was there any real reason to think support of 2.0 would suddenly be drying up?

Re:I can't say I stay all that on top of things

[Anonymous Coward]

>But was there any real reason to think support of 2.0 would suddenly
>be drying up?
>
No, but it's something the "Everything should be declared obsolete after 6 months" would like to see happen.

Re:I can't say I stay all that on top of things

[tao]

No, the discussion started because someone posted on the Linux-Kernel Mailing-List and suggested that the 2.0-kernel should be deprecated since 2.6 is imminent. He argued that maintenance of 2.0 diverted developer-resources from the newer kernel-series. I don't intend to give up anytime soon.

killer feature

[ghum]

The long time maintainance of an "old" kernel is a very important argument in favour of linux for serious industrial applications.

In our area we have the saying "you earn money with depreciated machines" - and to use them, you simple do need an "old" maintained operating system.

So the work of the "historic kernel"-maintainers is helping Linux to get good reputation.

Re:killer feature

[jsse]

Right you are. I know there aren't many such a case here, but my friend is working on refurbish old 486s for kids in third world. Since the requirement is to be able to surf web securely, I recommended to use stable Debian with 2.0.x kernel, which seems to work well with these old hardware, while has good security, and above all, no license fee incurred.

Now we know who we must thank. Thank you very much David Weinehall. :)

Only they'd have problem browsing pages which require mplayer plugin. Any expert out there would give me some hints? :)

Re:killer feature

[deepchasm]

In our area we have the saying "you earn money with depreciated machines" - and to use them, you simple do need an "old" maintained operating system.

This statement seems to be making the assumption that when talking about software, "newer" is synonymous with "bigger/bloated".

It is still more than possible to set up a small install, using a modern distribution, with the minimum number of functions compiled into the kernel for old machines.

A typical use of older machines, as a firewall/router, springs to mind. Here I doubt that the 2.4 firewall code is much more resource hungry than the 2.0 code, but the changes to the kernel make iptables much more flexible than ipfwadm.

Julian

Re:killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the statement is about learning curves and fiscal considerations. A new system, be it software or hardware, is an investment. You pay now to have an adequate and well understood system in the future, and only then will it earn money. There will be newer and better systems by then, but the old systems are profitable and the new ones aren't (yet).

Re:killer feature

[Alien Being]

And because it's GPL no company can ever end-of-life it.

Re:killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with deepchasm - only with *nix can you tune the kernel to work on older hardware without having to worry about bloat. There is no fiscal consideration because the software is free. The learning curve doesn't change due to kernel revisions.

Re:killer feature

[XO]

processor/network/ram hungry, probably not-- pure physical SIZE of the 2.2 and 2.4 kernels prevent them from being used adequately with single floppy based systems.

My network router/web server/email server is all mounted off of a single floppy that is both the root filesystem and the boot disk. Can't do that with a 2.2 or 2.4, and still have all the drivers necessary to make all the hardware work, and have the software necessary to make all the rest of it work.

Re:killer feature

[MasterOfMagic]

A typical use of older machines, as a firewall/router, springs to mind. Here I doubt that the 2.4 firewall code is much more resource hungry than the 2.0 code, but the changes to the kernel make iptables much more flexible than ipfwadm.

What about machines that stared life with ipfwadm and have been firewall/routers for about 5 years now? Updating to the newest kernels pretty much means you have to rewrite all of the rules in ipchans/iptables, which takes time of an employee, which costs money, and decreases productivity. I'd rather just install an old 2.0 series kernel for the latest security patches than I would have to go through the pain of rewriting lots of firewall rules.

Re:killer feature

[Alan]

Not only floppy but other embedded devices. My old company was using 2.0.39 simply because otherwise we couldn't fit it onto the system, or get it to use a reasonable amount of ram. When you're trying to produce hundreds of thousands of units, the move from say, an 8 meg DOC or DIMM to a 16 meg one is a big expense. The 2.0 series was stable, time tested, and fit in a very small amount of space. We simply couldn't get the same results from 2.4.

Re:killer feature

[Alan]

Ah but there is fiscal consideration if the kernel requires say, more ram, or more space (even by a bit). While dealing with embedded devices we are talking about saving bytes, and for us, when we tried to move from 2.0 to 2.4 (for iptables) we found that a completely stripped kernel was still larger than our previous 2.0 kernel. So.... back to 2.0.39 it was! Sure we could have upgraded our devices with ram and larger DOCs, but that would have added cost to the board, and therefor our bottom line, and that is a fiscal cost.

Re:killer feature

[tao]

Thanks :-) But you should read the changelogs for the kernel to see that I'm just doing parts of the job; a lot of people have helped me with this, either by reporting bugs, or sending fixes, or simply by reporting that everything works.

Still, I must say it's nice to hear that my work is appreciated.

Re:killer feature

[Explo]

What about machines that stared life with ipfwadm and have been firewall/routers for about 5 years now? Updating to the newest kernels pretty much means you have to rewrite all of the rules in ipchans/iptables

Well, even the 2.4 series have support for using ipfwadm or ipchains - style syntax if desired. The options are available under Networking options -> IP: Netfilter configuration.

Re:killer feature

[ClosedSource]

Of course, using any desktop OS on an embedded system seems excessive to me, but I'm old fashioned.

Re:killer feature

[Yottabyte84]

Linux is not specificly a desktop OS. In fact that's really not even what it's best at. It's best at providing a very stable and secure operating system for whatever you want to run on top of it, be it a desktop enviorment, server, pda, router, industrial machine, or other embeded appilication. That's the beauty of total modularity, you can dump anything you don't need.

Re:killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Desktop OS? Hell there should be no OS at all.

Consider yourself warned

[flacco]

The 2.0 kernel is rapidly reaching end-of-life status. You are all warned that operating system updates (including security updates) will soon be discontinued. You are urged to contact your local software vendor, upgrade to the latest version of the Linux kernel, and sign up for Software Assurance ASAP.

Oh wait, this is open source.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[Erasmus Darwin]

"Oh wait, this is open source."

Which reduces the problem but doesn't negate it. Everyone loves pointing out that anyone can get their hands on the tools necessary to modify open-source software, but they tend to conveniently ignore the fact that not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so.

Sure there are a lot of people out there who can program, and even a decent number of people out there who can program well. But in this case, you'd need someone with at least some Linux kernel hacking skills and enough programming know-how to be able to close a bug (possibly even a security bug) that made it past all those people who've hacked on 2.0 so far. Now factor in that you'd want a programmer good enough to be trusted with mucking around with the kernel for Very Important Systems -- systems important enough, at least, that you aren't willing to even take the next big jump in kernel versions.

It all boils down to a dicey situation. Even certain Open Source projects/versions get end-of-lifed by the official maintainers. You aren't always guaranteed that someone else will pick it up.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[flacco]

Which reduces the problem but doesn't negate it. Everyone loves pointing out that anyone can get their hands on the tools necessary to modify open-source software, but they tend to conveniently ignore the fact that not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so.

The point is not that everyone should maintain their own source code; the point is that if there are enough people interested in keeping it around, it will stay around. You're not at the mercy of your monopolistic vendor's business plans.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[evalhalla]

not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so

This is true, but it also true that people who still need old kernels tend to have higher than average computer skills, so among them it is easier to find somebody who could fix bugs etc.

Anyway, when an open source piece of software is abandoned by official maintainers and is not picked up by anybody chances are that almost nobody is using it anymore, as all of the few who still did decided that an upgrade would have caused less problems than acquiring the skills needed to continue using it.

Yes, even open source software dies, but this happens when it really has no more reasons to be alive, not when some commercial department decides that they want to sell some new version.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[mjh]

Everyone loves pointing out that anyone can get their hands on the tools necessary to modify open-source software, but they tend to conveniently ignore the fact that not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so.

So what? If your business depends on a feature in the 2.0 series kernel, then it doesn't matter if you have the requisite kernel programming skills. You can buy those. I don't work for redhat, but I'll bet $.50 that they'd take on that support contract. If not them, maybe IBM. If not them, how about contracting with the guy who's doing it right now?

The fact that it's open source means that anyone who's willing to do the work of maintaining the code can. And if you're depending on it, you will always have options.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[Subcarrier]

Everyone loves pointing out that anyone can get their hands on the tools necessary to modify open-source software, but they tend to conveniently ignore the fact that not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so.

If I had to name one major downside to open source software, it would be that it has taught people to expect, nay demand, something for nothing. In the olden days you used to shut up, put up, and pay up.

Now factor in that you'd want a programmer good enough to be trusted with mucking around with the kernel for Very Important Systems -- systems important enough, at least, that you aren't willing to even take the next big jump in kernel versions.

Here's me still running Linux 0.13 on my beer cooler. I don't let anybody near it, *especially* Finnish kernel hackers.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[OneFix]

You aren't always guaranteed that someone else will pick it up.

Because we are talking about what would be refered to as a major version, I think in this case there is safety in numbers. Anyhow, does it really matter? Because, if it's not broke, don't fix it. You know I know some ppl that are still installing 1.0 kernels on certain systems...

Yes, at some point practically noone will be using any of the kernels that are out now. But, that is going to be a long time...

The main reason for all of this is that there are really 2 big ppl that use Linux...geeks (those most likely to spend time and effort to keep things working) and companies (those most likely to spend money to keep legacy systems working).

Re:Consider yourself warned

[vadim_t]

Well, you can always pay somebody to do it. That's how Namesys (the people who make ReiserFS) earn money.

Now, of course there are lots of programs out there that are useful, but broken in some way or not actively maintained. I'm sure everybody has found a nice project that just needs one little thing to be perfect but nobody touched it for a year.

I think what we need is a "Volunteer Hackers" site where users could post their requests for help, and programmers willing to help could see what is needed. I'm wondering if this could succeed. It would be very nice if it did, and probably would be yet another good reason to switch.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[jabberw0k]

But what happens when everyone deletes the old source versions off their mirrors "because it's just a copy of old stuff" ...?

This is just what happened with the plans for the Saturn V rocket -- there were three copies, each of which was destroyed "because it's just a copy."

Where do you go, then?

Re:Consider yourself warned

[GigsVT]

not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so.
The point is not that everyone should maintain their own source code;

And as an extension to that, you can always hire a consultant to fix up the software for you. That's not as expensive as it sounds, since once the software does what you want it to, it really doesn't need to be maintained much anymore.

At work we are running RPG code on a System/36 emulator from the 80s, and it rarely needs too much maintenence. The main concern is having the data in an accessible format, so that you have a migration path off the old software eventually. Flat EBCEDIC text files aren't quite the most portable, but it has output filters that let us synchronize the postgres database to it nightly. They will also eventually let us migrate off of it.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[Restil]

Lets say the worst case scenario is realized and they discontinue maintaining the 2.0 kernel and someone using it in a production environment is not in a position to upgrade, and a dangerous flaw is discovered, or a driver desparately needs to be backported.

The good news is, even though its no longer supported, you STILL have all the source available. You can if you're desparate enough, either fix the code yourself or hire someone to do so. Certainly, it would probably be easier to just upgrade, but if for some reason that choice is not feasible, there's no huge company in Redmond telling you to go fuck yourself.

-Restil

Re:Consider yourself warned

[AlephNot]

I think what we need is a "Volunteer Hackers" site where users could post their requests for help, and programmers willing to help could see what is needed.

I may be wrong, but wasn't this the exact idea behind SourceForge (or perhaps Mozilla's bug tracking system)?

Re:Consider yourself warned

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is "you might not be a good enough programmer to fix a bug that may or may not appear in the future" a flaw in the program?

Re:Consider yourself warned

[neuroxmurf]

You are encouraged to read http://www.urbanlegends.com/science/saturn_v_bluep rints.html before you continue spewing such pointless and incorrect "information".

Re:Consider yourself warned

[Anonymous Coward]

the point is that if there are enough people interested in keeping it around, it will stay around.
True. Where you talking about open or closed source though?

Re:Consider yourself warned

[vadim_t]

Hmm, that's not exactly what I mean. I'd like a site where you could point to any program, on sourceforge, savannah or the author's web site and ask if somebody would be so nice to add a feature to it or fix a bug.

As I understand it, sourceforge allows a developer to ask other developers to help, but what I'd like is where users of the program ask a volunteer developer to write a bit of the program for them

Re:Consider yourself warned

[Yottabyte84]

RPG == Report Program Generator?

Re:Consider yourself warned

[GigsVT]

I don't really know too much about the RPG stuff. I just know it has line numbers, and is pretty old fashioned.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[Anonymous Coward]

if there are enough people interested in keeping it around, it will stay around

And how exactly would businesses differ? People _vote_ on products they want to stick around by purchasing those products. If enough people wanted DOS to stick around, they would continue to purchase DOS, etc. etc. Keep in mind, the keyword is _enough_. This is the precise reason you are "at the mercy of [...] vendor's business plans." Because there simply is not enough people purchasing the product to keep it alive. Now if we look at the previous poster's comments we see that open source has no remedy whatsoever. If there aren't enough people to warrant keeping a product alive in the marketplace, then why should hackers continue to support their "product" when so few people use it?

The nature of open source does not make it so popular (back to the "enough users") software gets more hackers. The real nature, I would say, makes it so _easy_ software to write gets the most hackers. Easy software and software which scratches a hacker's personal itch. Occasionally you will get things like The GIMP and Linux, but look at the whole of open source software. Much of it is garbage, and I'm not talking about those kids who put 3k perl scripts on Freshmeat. Much of it was garbage before Freshmeat.. when it was sitting on sunsite's repository.

There is sort of a mythical maintenance belief going on in the open source crowd. Many seem to believe that just because software is still sitting on a web page or ftp that it is still maintained and updated (or even worthy of a download). Open source software has no greater value than proprietary, if the code is worthless to the user. This is the reason so much is rewritten and so many wheels recreated in open source camp. For example, it was much easier to create qmail than to fix sendmail. Therefore, sendmail source code was worthless to those who wanted a secure mail daemon. In this case, it didn't matter if sendmail was open source or not--it still sucked regardless.

My point of this is: outdated open source is not going to be maintained more than proprietary, and in most cases the source code will be worthless to whomever decides to use it. If only one organization decided to use say, Linux 1.x, then they _could_ maintain it by themselves since no one (I don't think..) maintains that version any longer. But they would have to learn the entire code base and train people to maintain it. In the end, they would have been better off rewritting from scratch--or simply going to the new version.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[flacco]

If enough people wanted DOS to stick around, they would continue to purchase DOS, etc. etc. Keep in mind, the keyword is _enough_. This is the precise reason you are "at the mercy of [...] vendor's business plans." Because there simply is not enough people purchasing the product to keep it alive.

That's not correct. You're assuming that a vendor's sole interest in a product is whether there is sufficient interest to continue to sell it. A proprietary vendor might want to force you to upgrade, even when your current software environment is exactly what you need.

Now, why would a vendor do something that is against their customer's interest? Easy: they are only interested in their customer's interest as long as that is in *their* interest. For example, let's say an OS vendor has struck a huge deal with entertainment industries to package and deliver their customers via a "secure operating system" that protects digital media. The vendor stands to gain for every customer they get on board, and they *lose* money for every customer who chooses to stay with their current OS.

In monopoly situations, the vendor's old product is actually a *competitor* to its new product. It has to kill off its own older software in order to generate new sales from the same customers.

And why would a customer go along with this coercion? Because they have a large investment in the vendor's platform and the cost to switch is prohibitive. Or, in a monopoly situation, the customer may simply have no other realistic choice.

How could the vendor actually leverage the customer to accede to their desires? By drying up supply; by refusing to burn more copies; witholding support; by fixing prices to make it prohibitive to resist; by no longer fixing security flaws as they're discovered; etc.

Now if we look at the previous poster's comments we see that open source has no remedy whatsoever. If there aren't enough people to warrant keeping a product alive in the marketplace, then why should hackers continue to support their "product" when so few people use it?

You still don't get it - with proprietary software, the vendor can kill a product even if (under normal conditions) there IS enough interest to keep it alive! And the fundamental fact remains: If the source code is available, you CAN actually pay someone to maintain the code. Regardless of whether you or anyone else thinks it's economically viable, any single person to whom it's worth it to do so, can keep the code alive.

There is sort of a mythical maintenance belief going on in the open source crowd. Many seem to believe that just because software is still sitting on a web page or ftp that it is still maintained and updated (or even worthy of a download).

I don't know anyone who believes that. There are scads of projects that are started, abandoned, die deserved deaths and are forgotten. That's certainly not unique to open source software. The difference is - even if you're the *only guy in the world* who wants a copy of that code, you can get it. Software houses with failed closed source projects just don't hand out their failures to the three or four people who might be mildly interested.

Open source software has no greater value than proprietary, if the code is worthless to the user. This is the reason so much is rewritten and so many wheels recreated in open source camp.

It's rewritten if the developer chooses to rewrite. If he wants to borrow someone else's code, he can.

My point of this is: outdated open source is not going to be maintained more than proprietary,

Maybe, maybe not, but with open source, it's the user who decides if it's outdated. Not the vendor.

and in most cases the source code will be worthless to whomever decides to use it.

Huh? If they use it, it's because they find it useful; and if it's useful and they use it, it's not outdated. There's some kind of circular illogic at work here :-)

If only one organization decided to use say, Linux 1.x, then they _could_ maintain it by themselves since no one (I don't think..) maintains that version any longer. But they would have to learn the entire code base and train people to maintain it. In the end, they would have been better off rewritting from scratch--or simply going to the new version.

Again - that may or may not be the case in each particular instance; the main thing is that this is UP TO THE USER.

Re:Consider yourself warned

[Anonymous Coward]

God fucking damn. What is it with stupid people thinking that something old is bad? The fact is that RPG is a simple way to write nice reports (although I do not buy into the newer interactive extentions). I can not think of a current "report writer" that is better.

[on by] More random crap at 0! Enjoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter
I've got a library
I've got a swimmimg pool
I drive the Lamborghini
Dad drives the Cadillac
Mom's got an MG
I don't have a job
I don't go to school
I just sit at home
I don't have to worry
They have lots of money
They won't let me starve
In 1967 things weren't this good
My daddy was a hippie
Now he's a head of state
I don't have no peers
I don't know no queers
It doesn't bother me
I don't get in fights
When I go out at night
Coz my chauffeur is a killer
I don't have to look
When i want a fuck
I just spend some money
I get more allowance
Than you fucking middle class bums will ever see
FDkcxrGTtm

my 0.2 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

hi,

well i can understand this fellow. 2.0.x is indeed stable as hell but you must also consider that maintaining old kernels prevent people to use and report bugs for new kernel versions.

to go forward people need to make decissions and steps. i really recommend saying that after 6-7 years that the kernel should maybe move to 2.0.40 and then stop. suggest people to switch over to to use new kernel and report bugs for the new kernels. also applications are improving, many tools require new kernel headerfiles etc. one day it's end for 2.0.x i doub't that people still have their applications supported for that old kernels. e.g. if you need new drivers or if you want to compile new tools because there are security holes reported for older versions.

this is a neverending wasted task to convert all the new applications to understand the old kernel headers etc.

simply end it. it's time for new kernels, it's time for people to use the new ones so we all can profit from bugreports, featurerequest, enchancements etc.

personally i think that the current kernels are getting confusing, there are 23894712047102347 versions out, -ac, -dj, -whatever, 2.0.x, 2.2.x, 2.4.x, ... ... ...

i think one clean roadmap would be necessary the kernel development is really starting to get out of control...

Re:my 0.2 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't read the article did you? This is not diverting resources from the newer kernels and people aren't using this for new apps. They have old applications that are stable and are doing their job perfectly. Upgrading to a new kernel would require more work on the maintainers of those systems than it's worth.

Hell, we still have a machine running Xenix that's been doing it's job for about 10 years and the only major concern about replacing it has to do with the hardware. New software on the market doesn't work nearly as well as this one does either.

[on by] More random crap at 0! Enjoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't stand their attitude for another day
They were trying to synchronize me so I blew them away
My daddy was a bitch he screwed around with my dog and cat
My mommy satisfied her thirst with a bag of urine

I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic

I kinda liked my sisters friends
Keep em fresh in the fridge
Murdered the bitch with a baseball bat
She was only five wadda ya think of that

I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic

I knocked her down the basement stairs
Then I burned off all her hair
Mutilated her virgin body
My mommy caught me and she tried to stop me

I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic
AsL8UkDYxG

Re:HI

[Anonymous Coward]

the girl

Re:2.1 kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is for Selfish, Overfed and Pampered Morons, who like the status quo because they can rip others off.

Oh, and socialism is for weak-minded, idiotic cretins who don't want to earn something themselves, but pull everyone down to their level.

Fuck both systems, Arselickers!

Um, HUH?

[Wakko Warner]

2.0, a kernel whose last revision was out in January of 2001, "continues to be maintained", according to you?

Something that hasn't been updated in a year and a half counts as "maintained" in your book?

2.0 is pretty much dead.

- A.P.

Re:Um, HUH?

[markhlfs]

Er. Not quite correct:

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.0/testing /

-rw-r--r-- 1 korg korg 131967 Jun 25 18:53 patch-2.0.40-rc6.bz2
-rw-r--r-- 1 korg korg 248 Jun 25 18:53 patch-2.0.40-rc6.bz2.sign
-rw-r--r-- 1 korg korg 157277 Jun 25 18:53 patch-2.0.40-rc6.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 korg korg 248 Jun 25 18:53 patch-2.0.40-rc6.gz.sign

So the latest release candidate for 2.0.40 was only released back in June. Doesn't look dead to me.

Re:Um, HUH?

[jsse]

Something that hasn't been updated in a year and a half counts as "maintained" in your book?

2.0 is pretty much dead.

Do you bother to read the article before trolling?

"The 2.0.40 kernel is due to be released soon."

Re:Um, HUH?

[redmoss]

The point of this article is that 2.0 is *not* dead, and someone is wondering why it hasn't died yet.

Dead in my book means "no more support". However, some people are still using 2.0 and will continue to do so for many years to come. Thus, there is still demand for bug fixes on 2.0. This being free software, noone could enforce a halt to development even if they wanted to.

Thus, it's still supported. Thus, it's not dead.

Re:Um, HUH?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a testament to have few bugs it has.

Re:Um, HUH?

[tao]

I've done 9 pre-releases since January 2001, and I'm probably going to release 2.0.40 any day now (I have one thing to do some research on first.) While the flow of releases isn't quite the same as that of the 2.4-series, it is maintained. Something would be really wrong if I had to release a new kernel every month, 6 years after the release of the first 2.0-kernel...

I open a new revision whenever I get a serious enough bug-report and/or fix, and release pre-patches/release-candidates until everything seems to have slowed down again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Releases every one and a half years or so, with interim releases every month or two seems to be a pretty decent pace for a really stable kernel-series. Most of my users aren't the kind that does regular kernel-upgrades anyway; they usually inspect a new 2.0-kernel very carefully before installing it on their hardware.

Regards: David Weinehall, maintainer of the 2.0-series

Re:Um, HUH?

[gurensan]

Moderators: Why is this only modded +2?

2.0 isn't that old

[Anonymous Coward]

The 2.0 kernel is still quite recent. I mean, it's still the basis of the release before last of Debian. It would be like dropping support for RedHat 7.2, or Mandrake 8.1, just because they're not the most recent releases.

Oh...hang on...even the current release of Debian is almost EOL. Wait!! I take it all back. Fuck the 2.0 kernel!!! And fuck Debian!

If it ain't broke

[Ubi_UK]

...don't fix it

A good example of this is that NASA still uses 8086 processors: You know exactly how they work.
New things mean new problems. If you're having a system which does its job, why upgrade to a higher level kernel that can support hardware and protocols you don't need, but brings in bugs you don't want.

Re:If it ain't broke

[guybarr]

A good example of this is that NASA still uses 8086 processors: You know exactly how they work.

I thought this was more due to radiation robustness , than due to plain conservatism (which I agree is an asset in critical-system engineering)

am I wrong ?

Re:If it ain't broke

[foniksonik]

I'd think mostly conservatism... custom programs with a very finite purpose running their tasks as efficiently as necessary without... and this seems most important: unnecessary POWER consumption.

That last part looks to be a clincher in a completely and utterly isolated and self sustaining environment... obviously us earth-bound electricity suckers are considerably spoiled.. barring more SoCal brown-outs this summer;-p

Re:If it ain't broke

[harkal]

Yes NASA uses 8086 and runs linux86 on them! Flight Linux

Re:If it ain't broke

[Arker]

So, we might as well have kept our 286's, because these 486's and "Pentiums" bring in too many hassles....

You're implying a false dilemma, it's not one or the other. There are in fact still 286s being used, that doesn't stop you from buying a P4 now does it?

Re:If it ain't broke

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still get radiation hardend cpu's from
Intel and motorola, the military uses them
form some of it's systems.

Re:If it ain't broke

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA uses all kinds of stuff. All their mission critical ground control operations run on Windows NT 4.x though. Linux would only be used for some remote experiment or something but the data is fed back to WinNT.

Re:If it ain't broke

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was more due to radiation robustness ,

I do not thing you are wrong. There are a very limited set of rad hard microprocessors. Intel "donated" and here the pentium to Sandia. Which I suspect is skewing the market even more so to x86 architectures.

There "conservatism" here is fiscal conservatism. Not technological. Although, there is debate as to the suitability of the bleeding edge submicron designs/implementations to rad hard work.

I think one of Darpa's projects used some non rad hard equipment and got away with it.

Re:If it ain't broke

[k8to]

Yup, it's radiation hardening that's the issue.

Making a chip radiation hardened is a big engineering undertaking, for a lot of reasons. The indivudual chips are very expensive, and thus the testing cycles are expensive. The testing process is long, and the skills to make it work is uncommon. Radition hardening a "simple" microprocessor like a 386 or a sparc might cost in the hundreds of millions, while a processor like a p4 would probably not even be considered.

Nasa may move to the original pentium as a control center chip in the near future, as Intel so graciously donated their pentium design for this purose (a small fraction of the cost of the actual radiation hardening design work!) Last I checked it was still rs6000 processors for system control with 8086's for simpler tasks.

Re:[klerck] Evolutionary Ladder

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot Janitors are far too high.

Plzfixkthxbye!

[on by] More random crap at 0! Enjoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trolling your way on the web today
Takes everything you've got;
Having a Bot to post your comments
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to join the frey?

Sometimes you want to go
And get a First Post in your name,
So much goatse that you came;
We know it's hard to get Eff Pee,
Our troubles are all the same;
Get that FP and everyone'll know your name.
ucoyagNoR7

Wise choice...

[pavos]

If something isn't broken and does what you want, why upgrade it? That's the beauty of free software, *you* decide what version you're running, not your vendor...

Re:Wise choice...

[Wudbaer]

When was the last time Bill Gates stood behind you pressing a gun to your neck and forcefully forcing you to upgrade something ? I know a lot of businesses that still run Office 97 and even Windows 95.

Ok, there always is the update thing, but there are also not that much updates for older versions of Open Source software. The kernel might be a notable exception, but try getting upgrades to KDE1 or an old XFree or the like.

Re:Wise choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Xfree, and, to an even greater extent, KDE1, are completely invalid comparisons. The old Xfrees and KDE1 simply don't do their jobs as well as their updated brethren. 2.0.x is still used because it does its job, and it does it well. None of the more recent kernels do the jobs that 2.0.x users need done any better than 2.0.x. The same case cannot be made with respect to XF86 and KDE1.

Re:Wise choice...

[n0-0p]

Well, I know for a fact that MS hasn't released patches for Office 97 in the last year. This leaves an Office installation open to a whole slew of vulnerabilities that could easily allow system compromise. They also don't provide support anymore for 97 or below. I can't say anything particular about Win 95 because from a security perspective I just assume it's compromised.
In general the pressure is never direct. It's just that if you run older versions of MS software you accept that you will remain unprotected against known vulnerabilities and you will get no support from Microsoft.

Re:Wise choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you be more subjective? For many people KDE1 or X 3.x series is all they will ever need.
"The old Xfrees and KDE1 simply don't do their jobs as well as their updated brethren"

Neither does the 2.0 kernel. Compare the latest 2.4 performance and feature wise to the latest 2.0. Its a joke. It "simply don't do *its* job as well as their updated brethren"

Your arguement makes no sense. What gives you the right to determine what software if functional enough and what software should be upgraded because YOU think so.
You have no right to determine the value a particiular piece of software has to anyone.

So in other words your argument is a completely invalid comparison.

[klerck] Letters to Wendy's

[Anonymous Coward]

November 27, 1996

The Virgin Mother appeared to me today. She was holding two baked potatoes with sour cream and chives. "They're delicious," she said, and she smiled, emanating a great white light. I took one from her. It was warm and inviting. I cut into it with my plastic fork and plastic knife and I took a bite. It was, as usual, very dry. She hould out the other potato to me. "You try it," I said, "it's dry as fuck."

DTABN

Not just old systems

[Ilgaz]

As I prefer Realplayer (when no choice except wmedia), I am kinda used to it.

Versions below "Realone" (in fact,9) had a real easily accessible option to check what is the server OS and realserver version.

As I remember myself, always interested in those huge servers which can handle thousands of clients on media platform, checked them...

Guess what? I don't know if its changed or not, speaking about year 2001, all of them were linux 2.0 kernel!

I guess, its not just "old" machines, people trust to that "old" kernel in fact.

It could be kinda preventing downtime too,as serving video/audio 24/7 (media) doesn'T like downtime because some guy found a simple glitch on latest 2.4 kernel and its propangated worldwide.

Re:Not just old systems

[Verizon Guy]

You prefer RP over WMP? Dude, I understand your dislike of MS, but still... RP is chock full of spyware. Plus, even if I disable it, I really don't like the fact of being told every time I go to exit the software that YOU ARE RUNNING AN OLD VERSION OF REALPLAYER... YOU NEED TO UPGRADE OR WE'LL CUT OFF YOUR BALLS" etc etc.

I hate Real, inc. I hope their stock plummets below Enron's. Those whores. They used to be cool, back at like version 2, but now they're just sellouts.

Re:Not just old systems

[Ilgaz]

only answer you deserve is...
-1 Clueless Flamebait
Get a life

[klerck] Letters to Wendy's 2

[Anonymous Coward]

December 15, 1996

I always feel like someone at Wendy's is going to help me change. It's so hard to really change--most of the time I don't even think of it as a possibility. At Wendy's, though, especially when I've ordered and I know that good people are working hard to bring me what I deserve, I know I can change. I can become something truly special, like an escaped death-row inmate or a twelve-year-old prostitute.

DTABN

[on by] More random crap at 0! Enjoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't stand their attitude for another day
They were trying to synchronize me so I blew them away
My daddy was a bitch he screwed around with my dog and cat
My mommy satisfied her thirst with a bag of urine

I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic

I kinda liked my sisters friends
Keep em fresh in the fridge
Murdered the bitch with a baseball bat
She was only five wadda ya think of that

I knocked her down the basement stairs
Then I burned off all her hair
Mutilated her virgin body
My mommy caught me and she tried to stop me

I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic

I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic
I killed mommy with my automatic
B1jngaUt8L

[on by] More random crap at 0! Enjoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

From: LittleTimmy
To: on by

Dear on by,

My name is Timmy but everyone calls me Little Timmy. I am 8 years old. I am writing to you hoping that you can help me.

My mommy told me that the doctors say I have head cancer. I have been in the hospital for ages. Mommy said that if I don't get cured I will have to leave and join Jesus in Heaven. I don't want to leave my mommy!

There is a doctor in Mexico that mommy says can cure head cancer but mommy is poor and we can't afford to pay him :(

The doctor told mommy there was a place on the internet called Slashdot. He said that if we can give him 50 karma from the Slashdot he will cure my head cancer. My mommy says she found you on the Slashdot and we hope that you will help us get the 50 karma we need for my operation.

Please help us!
Love,
Little Timmy
xxx

Please help poor Timmy by modding this comment up!

ffm9cSO8tp

Used since 1996!

[SeanTobin]

The first 2.0 stable kernel was released over six years ago, in June of 1996.

I wonder how many Windows 95 machines are still running and in actual use. Anyone here still running a variant of Win95?
...
How about in a server environment? [ducks]

Re:Used since 1996!

[Treeluvinhippy]

I wonder how many Windows 95 machines are still running and in actual use. Anyone here still running a variant of Win95?

If I was the head of a company that owned a few servers and I discovered that one of them was running Win95.

Well I'll make an exception to the saying "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft."

Re:Used since 1996!

[hazyshadeofwinter]

Me! Well, if by running it, you mean running it for a coupla hours till it crashes (the joys of beta, probably never gonna be updated sounddrivers), then nerve pinch into Linux, read a story like this and decide that my 2.4.17 kernel isn't quite antiquated yet :-)

Re:Used since 1996!

[garcia]

I deal w/fifty or more individuals daily for tech support.

40 are running Win98/ME, 5 are XP, 4 are Win95/etc, and 1 is MacOS.

that is an average.

Re:Used since 1996!

[Hadlock]

i run win95 on a backup router/spare net terminal for looking up FAQ's online when i fubar my main rig. i've gotten more PC's since that computer, but i don't ever change anything on it, and it's actually quite stable for what it does. as for a server, lol, it's my backup when my mac LC II(68020 processor! circa 1991!) goes down for repairs/upgrades, which is primarily a web/ftp/mail server. i have a sony viao w/tv tuner card (ati all in wonder rage 2-ish card) that serves as my roomate and i's tv/media center, it runs win 95 SE w/usb support(what came preinstalled on it 6 years ago or so). all the drivers for it were custom tailored for that hardware setup, and as a result, it's almost as stable as my OS X powerbook. all my other legacy windows machines, of course, run like ass. i know my school in plano (rich suburb of dallas) ran win 95 until this summer, they're switching to win 2k this fall.

Re:Used since 1996!

[Troed]

I switched from Win95 to Win2K 8-9 months ago.

Re:Used since 1996!

[redmoss]

Why? There may have been perfectly valid reasons for running some server software on Win95 at that time. Perhaps the software was not available for any other OS, management was most comfortable using it, etc.

Of course, there might also be very good reasons to upgrade to Linux or something else right now (security, easier to administratrate, etc).

BTW, the company I work at still has quite a few Win95 desktops in use for customer check-in. There are many problems with our existing setup. One of the big looming ones is that MS no longer supports Win95; I suppose it is expensive for them to do so, and would be a disincentive for people to keep upgrading their OS. Contrast this to the situation on Linux, where the old kernel verions will be supported as long as there is demand.

Re:Used since 1996!

[modicr]

Hi!

What about this network:

SERVER:
1 x Netware 4.2 small business

CLIENTS:
1 x Windows 98 SE / Win2K SP2 (dual boot)
19 x Windows 98 SE
1 x Windows 98
2 x Windows 95B
1 x Windows 95A
5 x Window 3.11 for Workgroups (& MS Word 6)

Ciao, Roman

Re:Used since 1996!

[lateral]

Until recently I worked for a very large (global) company and win95 was very much alive and kicking on the corporate desktop.

L

Re:Used since 1996!

[Anonymous Coward]

> > The first 2.0 stable kernel was released over six years ago, in June of 1996.

> I wonder how many Windows 95 machines are still running and in actual use. Anyone here still running a variant of Win95? ...

I still ave a NeXTstep 3.3 box running here:

"REDWOOD CITY, Calif.-December 7, 1994-NeXT Computer, Inc. today
announced that it is now shipping a new version of its object-oriented
operating system, NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 for Intel and Motorola
processors. The company also announced that it is in beta with
NEXTSTEP Developer Release 3.3."

Re:Used since 1996!

[bogie]

"I wonder how many Windows 95 machines are still running and in actual use"

A ton of win95 is out there. You seem to forget that >90% of businesses are small businesses and thus don't upgrade their machine very often. I even still come across plently of win 3.1 and DOS machines in law offices, doctor offices, accounting firms, and factory's.

There's nothing wrong with patting the linux kernel on the back, but lets not forget, there is also a bunch of Netware servers not to mention older Unix boxes that have been running since before linux even existed.

Re:Used since 1996!

[edesio]

I have a friend who still uses Windows 3.11! He has so many (old) softwares that he can afford to upgrade them.

Nowadays his most used software on this machine is an X11 emulator to his linux machine :)

Re:Used since 1996!

[Anonymous Coward]

Server? No. But I work for a (really large) bank that still uses 3.11 on some machines, DOS apps for wire transfers and yes, even that new fangled, splashy Windows 95 on a critical machine. It is 95'B' tho and it works fine.

Re:Used since 1996!

[ksheff]

My Windows machine at work still runs 95 as does the machines of a few co-workers. I have a machine at home that also runs 95. Someone gave it to me and the OS is on 13-14 floppies.

Re:Used since 1996!

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years ago I built a computer for my mom. I put Win95 OSr2 on it because I didn't want IE integrated in the shell. (It was a low-power box.) I suppose I could've given her NT 4.0, but I think the "press ctrl-alt-del to log in" thing would've confused her.

She still uses it. So there you have it. A Win95 box in actual use.

Re:Used since 1996!

[XO]

I just acquired a laptop from '97 that was still running Windows '95. I did ugprade it to Windows '98, but it took me quite a while to find all the components necessary to get all of it's neat stuff working ('98 was supposed to have made PCMCIA and Battery/APM/APIC issues a lot easier.. but it just made it a lot worse for me, since '95 had the software already installed, and '98 install blew it all away)

The Point of Sale system at work operates Windows '95. It's used primarily as (a) a mostly dumb terminal [it runs screensavers on it's own, and displays graphics locally, but all information/screen placement is determined by the server in the backroom, which runs Xenix] (b) internet device [has ie 5.5 installed]

Re:Used since 1996!

[Mr. Piddle]

Many still have Windows 95. I do, my parents do, some of my co-workers do. The simple fact is that, in spite of its terrible flakiness, Windows 95 reached an important threshold of usefulness. The only reasons to upgrade were based on hardware support or some sort of must-have software. It just turned out that I never needed to upgrade, and, now that I better understand Microsoft, I will never have a reason to upgrade. Eventually, I hope that my Win 95 partition will die off, and I will have an all Free desktop.

Re:Used since 1996!

[billx78]

According to Google, 5% of their hits come from machines claiming to run Win95. Check the Zeitgeist for more info.

Re:Used since 1996!

[Erik Hensema]

I wonder how many Windows 95 machines are still running and in actual use. Anyone here still running a variant of Win95?

The company I'm currently working for mainly uses Winows 95 and NT 4.0 on ~ 1000 desktops.

Re:Used since 1996!

[Reziac]

Since you ask, yes (tho not on a server :) and they will do well to illustrate the value of older versions:

My everyday-workhorse machine runs Win95 OSR2.0b, and will probably do so for its entire lifespan. W95 is suitable for a lowly P233, and once beaten into submission, it's nearly 100% stable. It has all my critical can't-live-without apps already trained to play nice together. Changing the OS (or anything else) would be counterproductive. This machine is expected to do daily work without making me hunt down and fix today's complication. Why rock the boat?

I have an old P75 that I use as a test rig, that runs Win95 first edition (cuz that's what came with it, whaddya want for free). It's stable (it has NEVER crashed since I've had it despite serious abuse) and already has all the weird obscure drivers it needs. While there's probably no compelling reason (other than said drivers) to keep W95 on it, there's no pressing reason to switch or upgrade the OS, either.

I have several clients still running Win95 too, because "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And in some cases because that's all their hardware will support, and they can't justify replacing it.

I agree with a post somewhere upstream -- if what you're using works for you, and if an upgrade doesn't address a need YOU have (be that a feature or a bugfix) you're probably better off NOT upgrading. We all know how often patches break more than they fix -- well, upgrades are much the same.

Personally, I only mess with upgrades and such on machines whose mission in life is to test whatever so I can get familiar with it. Never on a production machine unless the upgrade is needed, and then only after it's proven sound.

So in my view, there is much to be said for older versions, and for the people who maintain them.

[BTW the oldest utility I still use is dated 1983.]

Re:Used since 1996!

[Treeluvinhippy]

There may have been perfectly valid reasons for running some server software on Win95 at that time.

Ah the key words 'at that time' the context of the article was about Linux software 'of that time' still being a viable solution for modern servers.

Sorry man Win9x isn't for todays servers.

Re:Used since 1996!

[redmoss]

Yep, I'd agree with you on that one. Any sysadmin who proposed a win9x solution as a server today would not be one who I'd want working for me.

Re:HI

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you!

You're one of those Teenage Sand Niggers who goes around the streets of Sydney pack raping girls!

Well, we all know that since the Lebanese worship Muhammaed and Allah, both well known pedo's, in only makes sense that they will start finding young toddlers.

Therefore i propose a new unwritten law. Any person, interested in protecting the streets of their town from the teenage muslim filth, immediately shoots, decapitates and disembowels a teenage lebanese male on sight.

{Script Kiddie l33t!!} Donation!

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww poor timmy!

I will give you a write in moderation +15 Subliminal!

HTH KTHXBYE!!!

Not everyone needs cutting edge!

[xt]

There are a lot of specialized applications running on legacy systems, such as many mechanical corridors that connect to aircrafts (Win 3.11) or handheld barcode scanners (DOS), or even a lot of ATMs (OS/2 1.x).

The basic advantage is the understanding someone comes to have by working a number of years with something specific. Most bugs, and for certain all the serious ones, are known and documented. Design limitations are known also. There are field proven designs and in many cases known tweaks to extend functionality, even beyond the original capabilities.

This stands true for pretty much everything; another poster pointed out that NASA still uses 8086 hardware!

The need for maintenance is also something relative; if you have something that constantly works reliably, the maintenance required to keep it that way is minimal.

I believe that even if 2.0.39 was the last kernel of the 2.0.x series, people who use 2.0.x won't really care. I know, since I have a 2.0.36 based home router that runs for the past year and a half with zero maintenance. I don't even plan to upgrade to another 2.0.x kernel, let alone 2.2 or 2.4, as long as it just works (tm). :)

Re:Not everyone needs cutting edge!

[Descartes]

This brings up an intersting point. How many 2.0.x users will actually be affected by this? I've read several posts by people who say they don't use the newest version of 2.0 anyway so if you never get past 2.0.36 what difference does it make how many more versions they come out with.

I'd be interested to see what version other users of 2.0.x use. I'll bet most are in your boat.

Re:[klerck] Help!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Use your fingers.

HMMMMMMMMMM

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Well Well

It looks like, with only 30 +1 comments out of 100 overall comments, the Slashdot Janitors half-brained idea didn't work. What a surprise!!!

You miss the point.

[Arker]

No one expects non-technical users to teach themselves to be kernel hackers. That's just a silly straw man.

The point is that you can hire a kernel hacker to do the work. Linus and the rest of the gang doing the volunteer work don't want to support the stuff that's running your business anymore? Hire someone else to do it. It's an option, and in some cases it can be a very good one.

Whereas with unfree software, whether from MS or Sun or whoever, that option just doesn't exist.

Re:You miss the point.

[nuggz]

Exactly, but then most people complain it is just to o expensive.

Re:You miss the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Exactly, but then most people complain it is just to o expensive.

But most people won't be running that ooolder kernel, and won't complain about a reasonable bill for maintenance work if no one else will do it.

The people running those older kernels already know its value to them, and would be willing to pay for maintenance if necessary. Sure, they'd rather have it maintained as it is now, but that doesn't mean they'd complain about having to pay for maintenance if the price was reasonable.

Still running 2.0 here

[Anonymous Coward]

My firewall/router is still running 2.0.38. Since the firewall stuff changed in 2.2, I'd have to rewrite the ruleset. The machine works fine as is, so I don't want to mess with it. It hasn't even been rebooted in over six months.

Re:Still running 2.0 here

[tao]

Both 2.0.39 and 2.0.40 (-rc6 at the moment, but I intend to release 2.0.40 any day now) contain network related fixes, so if you are scheduling any downtime anytime soon, I'd recommend a newer 2.0-kernel, at least.

Regards: David Weinehall

Open source is a more perfect "marketplace"

[dpbsmith]

One advantage of open source is that the continuation of older versions is _truly_ market-based. That is, an old version that is genuinely valuable to a small coterie of users can remain in existence. In particular, low-benefit-low-cost products--products that appeal to a small base but cost little to maintain--can thrive as long as the benefit/cost ratio is good (even if numerator and denominator are both small).

IMHO one of the big problems with proprietary software--which I once saw personally from within a then-Fortune-500 company--is that career advancement depends on working on big projects and thinking big. One one occasion I was told that something wasn't pursuing because "on your own showing it can't bring in more than $2,000,000." I said, "yes, but the costs are trivial so it will be very good business." It was explained to me that projects of that size were just too insignificant to be considered. I believe that just the cost of translating the manuals into the fifteen languages supported by this global company was enough to sink the project (and of course ALL the company's product HAD to be translated into ALL languages because that was their procedure). On another occasion, when wondering whether we should be developing projects for a certain market sector, I was told, "Naaaah, we already had a consultant look into that, it's not worth it, it's just another $100 million market."

And of course with proprietary commercial software is you usually have the vendor "pushing" newer versions because selling new versions provides more profit to the vendor than maintaining old ones. The commercial software marketplace is a very imperfect, high-friction "market." And one place where the vendor has a lot of asymmetrical power is with respect to versions and releases. It is usually easy to keep customers on the "version treadmill." What if you don't like Microsoft discontinuing Windows NT 4.0? Where's the customer leverage? "If you do that I'll just buy Windows NT 4.0 from one of your competitors?"

Re:Open source is a more perfect "marketplace"

[Mr. McGibby]

Business is about profit. If you aren't making a profit, then there really isn't much of a point. When a company brings in $200,000,000 at a time, what is the point of spending time on a project that will only bring in $10? While it may be profitable, it doesn't justify the effort put into it. Yea, so they keep a bunch of people employed for awhile, but why employ them to make a $10 profit, when they could be working to make a $200,000,000 profit?

maintain it indefinetly

[Anonymous Coward]

To be realistic, even 386s will be suitable for some computing tasks in 10 years time. There needs to be software like 2.0 around to run on it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Of course

[Arker]

I wonder how many Windows 95 machines are still running and in actual use. Anyone here still running a variant of Win95?

Absolutely. The machine I'm typing on now is running 98SE, customised with 98lite using the explorer.exe from 95. Runs every win32 program I need on a desktop, and does it noticeably faster than machines with significantly more powerful hardware running later versions. Reasonably stable, considering it is windows after all - it gets uptime close to the Win2k boxes they have at work actually.

If you had any doubt that the answer to your question would be yes, this will really blow your mind - I've also got DOS 6.22 and WfW on a CD on a shelf across the room, I haven't actually used it in months (haven't used WfW in years, but DOS 6 really does come in very handy at times.)

Re:Of course

[Ozric]

I have a boxed set of ms-dos 5.0 on the shelf. It's the last version with the big book.

linux 2.0 stability

[FeatureBug]

The 2.0 series had real stability. In 6 years I had just one or two 2.0 kernel crash mainly when using X or the sparse superblock patch. The 2.4 series has more features but I've much less stability. I've lost count of how many crashes I've had even without using X, or beta quality optional kernel code, or devfsd. The most annoying ones are the module load/unload lockups still present in 2.4.19 and up:

# lsmod
Module Size Used by
isa-pnp 21381 0 (unused)

# insmod etherpro
# lsmod
Module Size Used by
etherpro100 13413 0

# rmmod epic100
Jun 27 11:32:03 koyuki kernel: unregister_netdevice: waiting for eth0 to become free. Usage count = 4

At this point, the kernel module code is unsalvageable. A reboot is required.

Re:linux 2.0 stability

[tao]

If you're seeing trouble with spare superblocks, I'd really like to get a useful bugreport on this, since support for sparse superblocks is in the 2.0-tree from 2.0.39 and onward.

Regards: David Weinehall, 2.0 maintainer

where is the future?

[axxackall]

I see the history. All article is about the past. Where is future?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought about the future of 2.0 in terms of design and features of the version greater than 2.5 and, maybe, of 3.0. What is planned in future releases?

As for 2.0 itself - who cares about the dead meat. We must use 2.4 or 2.5. Period

Re:where is the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

> As for 2.0 itself - who cares about the dead meat. We must use 2.4 or 2.5. Period

Why do you care what other people choose for a kernel? You'd like to mandate forced upgrades - why? The maintainers of all the kernel series are different teams of people, so keeping an old one viable doesn't impact the ones after it.

Really - you want to start a Microsoft-like forced-upgrade schedule in the Linux kernel?!?!?..

Thats great... that is exactly my problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I have problems with the kernel unloading/loading
modules too!! It doesn't happen frequently fortunately (and I don't have to load/unload modules frequently) but I still get a crash about 1x a month because of modules.

I wish that bug were fixed, it is killing my uptime. (Kernel 2.4.18).

Re:Thats great... that is exactly my problem

[tao]

Care to send me a proper bug-report on this one?

David Weinehall, 2.0 maintainer .

Re:Thats great... that is exactly my problem

[tao]

Ehrm, forget this. A brainfart on my behalf; I intended to reply to the parent.

Same for Linux distros

[Wudbaer]

SuSE announced recently that they stopped supporting SuSE 6.4, that also means no security patches etc any more. Sure, SuSE 6.4 is semi-antique and you can still try to patch everything manually from source (which admittedly is a strong point for open source), but the same principle applies.

The point I am trying to make is that the soft pressure to update is inherent to software, be it open or closed source. On one hand a software vendor, even a monster like MS, is only able to properly support a subset of the products it ever made, on the other hand everyone living from selling stuff, be it MS or your favorite Linux packager live from you buying more from them, so they certainly try to create incentives to buy their latest toys. If you won't fall for the shiny new stuff, well, maybe the lack of easily applicable fixes will convince you. The only way around this are 100% open source distros like Debian, but they are not everyone's piece of cake either for various reasons.

Also try to get a bug-fix for an older release of some major open source product applied. It hasn't has to be something really outdated like KDE1. In one thread of the recent days (don't remember which, but I think it was the "10 things wrong with Linux" one) a lot of people complained that it is often difficult to get bugs, that are no extremely critical security bugs fixed even in current stable releases. You will often be told to upgrade to the most recent version or even a cvs version. No monetary costs involved, but still the same principle, and still the upgrade to the latest version can mean to upgrade whole toolchains, especially in Linux.

Re:Same for Linux distros

[Anonymous Coward]

> If you won't fall for the shiny new stuff, well, maybe the lack of easily applicable fixes will convince you. The only way around this are 100% open source distros like Debian, but they are not everyone's piece of cake either for various reasons.

Consider that Debian archives, but does not maintain, the obsolete "stable" releases, and you realize that Debian has the same upgrade policy - after a period of time, a given stable release become officially unsupported.

old hardware != old Linux

[Jacek Poplawski]

What's bad in using Linux-2.4 on 486?

Re:old hardware != old Linux

[ksheff]

Memory usage is up compared to the 2.0 kernels. That might not make a difference on newer machines, but it does if you only have 4M. It's better than the 2.2 kernels though. I have a 486 machine that I've tried 2.0, 2.2, and 2.4 kernels on. The 2.0 kernel gives me about 3M for userland stuff, the 2.4 about 2M and the 2.2 will boot, but fails to run any of the standard initialization scripts.

Re:old hardware != old Linux

[adolf]

I have no numbers to back this up, but in my experience, 2.4 -feels- slower on older hardware than 2.0.

'Sides, unless it's a router box and you need the latest, greatest QoS tools and security fixes on your 486, there's very little reason to upgrade.

Most people seem to get new kernels when they need support for new hardware, and that's just not much of an issue for a 486. ;)

I did upgrade the kernel on my 386SL/25 laptop recently, from 2.0.37 to 2.2.18, but only because I wanted to play with the swsusp patches and didn't feel like learning how to backport them to 2.0.

The temptation to move to a 2.4-AC kernel with swsusp built-in was very easy to resist.

Multiple suplliers

[Per Abrahamsen]

Everyone loves pointing out that anyone can get their hands on the tools necessary to modify open-source software, but they tend to conveniently ignore the fact that not everyone has the programming skills necessary to do so.

True, which is why I believe that is poor advocacy. Most users will not find the argument impressive, as they know they can't change the code themselves.

The real advantage (from the non-programmers point of view) is that free software gives you the a much larger choice of suppliers. As long as the market exists, someone will be their to support it. With non-free software, you are depending on a single supplier, who may at any time refocus their interrest away from you.

Of course, even with free software the market can become so small that the cost of finding supplier becomes too large. But at least it is your wallet, and not the strategic geniuses in some board room, that decides when that point has been reached.

Win 95 - only this morning

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, for my sins I am seeking to add a Windows box to my (so-far) 'nix only network. It's for the kids and they get fed up with all the shockwave sites that don't run on Linux based systems.

Re:Win 95 - only this morning

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yep, for my sins I am seeking to add a Windows box to my (so-far) 'nix only network. It's for the kids and they get fed up with all the shockwave sites that don't run on Linux based systems.

Please don't. The web is big. Don't give up freedom for such a little reward.

Re:Win 95 - only this morning

[kylegordon]

'apt-get install flashplugin' should solve your problems ;-)

Re:Win 95 - only this morning

[Anonymous Coward]

flash != shockwave

good problems

[ironfroggy]

Although I do see the need for keeping old kernels maintained (I even have some old systems lying around I want to install 2.0.x on), I see this as one of the problems with Linux.

Why do we have to have so many kernels maintained at the same time? Even just the current "stable" and "unstable" release system is a little strange to me. I mean, why spread the work among two kernels when we could be doing twice the work on just one?

I would propose things differently. A single kernel, the latest release, is the only one maintained (officially. anyone can maintain old kernels if they wish). the patches would, however, be marked stable and unstable. Test patches and work on them until they are stable enough for what would be a stable release, then merge them permanently into the main source. Until the patch is stable, it remains just a patch, being tested and worked upon.

I admit, I'm no kernel hacker (yet) but I do think this would be a much better solution. Linux would advance much faster with all the effort focusing on one kernel, no more.

Re:good problems

[DrQu xum]

Why have 4 active kernel lines?

2.0: Legacy systems & embedded. It's tiny!
2.2: Middle-aged systems or wherever stability is a must. RH6.x and other 2.2-based distros are still in widespread use.
2.4: New systems with new hardware that requires new drivers.
2.5: Development. Don't use in a production environment, lest you fall down and go boom.

Besides, each line has a different head maintainer.

Re:good problems

[Papineau]

A few points to consider:

• More difficult to change big parts of the kernel, or entire subsystems, without a development kernel for which it is "normal" to be broken at times. For something in maintenance mode, the system you propose is quite fine (witness what's happening for 2.0, 2.2 and event 2.4 kernels). But for the bleeding edge, it's just not possible to do it that way, because patch A (which improves on the VM) affects patch B (VFS) and patch C (scheduler). So if you merge patch A (because it's deemed "stable") in the next official kernel release, then patch B and C must be reworked not beacuse of themselves, but because what they build upon has changed. Next, when patch C goes in, it's patch B's time to be adapted (again). It's more efficient to have all 3 develop at the same time in an unstable kernel, and have all the quirks sorted out. Of course, don't run those kernels on production machines...
• The goal of the two kernel branches are different. One strives to be usable right now (bugfixes), the other one strives to be easier to work with in the future (more features, cleanup, performances ameliorations, etc.). If you merge those two together, you'll more than likely end up with something absolutely unstable, or a nightmare to manage (and merge different patches).
• The goal of kernel development is not only to develop new features (aka advance). There's also a big part of it which goal is to keep running systems, well, running. It's for them that 2.0.40 is being prepared, as well as 2.2.22. And even 2.4.19 enters that category, which is quite different than the goal of 2.5.
• As for the officiality of updates of older releases, it's only so that the development isn't split between a few groups with the same goals. I don't think a lot of the people currently working on the different subsystems of 2.5 also work a lot on 2.0.40, especially since the differences between the latest RCs are one or two fixes each time. OTOH, driver maintainers are more likely to follw it's development (although bugfixes only).

So in the end, it's not the double of the work to maintain (which implies "no new development", hence "not a huge workload") older kernels. And if nobody would need it, nobody would do it.

Re:good problems

[ironfroggy]

The merging of Patch A into the stable kernel would not affect Patch B or Patch C because if they are dependant on Patch A, then the developers are already using the most up-to-date kernel patched with Patch A. Of course, something like this would work alot better with a really good file revision system. Not CVS or any of those, but something where each patch can have its own repository, easily updating from the current stable kernel. developers of Patch B would update from two repositories, stable and Patch A. Patch C devs would also update from B. When A is merged, the code the other developers work from is unchanged.

Re:good problems

[Papineau]

The merging of Patch A into the stable kernel would not affect Patch B or Patch C

They're not dependant on it, they're intermangled with it. They touch the same subsystems (same source files), although they can be orthogonal (in theory) to each other (applied in whatever combination you want). But still, you'll need to adapt each of those to the current kernel (and for each new kernel before your patch is adopted). That takes some efforts.

I agree that a very very very good revision system could maybe do the trick, although it'll need help from a (more likely, more than one) human.

Another thing is applications and libraries. Yes, normally they're independant from the kernel (to a certain point). But if your development and stable kernel are the same, you'll need to update some of those a lot more often if you upgrade your kernel. By contrast, a stable kernel series should be compatible with the same libs and apps from beginning to end. If there are some changes in API or new features, get the newer kernel series, along with updated apps and libs. It's called modularity. A new kernel series is effectively another module, even if it replaces a previous one and fulfils the same task.

Last thing (somewhat linked to the last point): up until now, I've mostly talked about the POV of a user (either server or desktop). Now I'll take the POV of a developer (distributor, or a company designing a new product using this technology). Field upgrades are a PITA. There are some ways to do them, but they're difficult (witness the number of unpatched IIS installation trying to propagate Code Red). When you need to do one, you (normally) prefer to change the minimum of things. So no jump from 2.0.32 to 2.4.19, but ideally 2.0.32 to 2.0.32+patches, or 2.0.40 if really needed. Now, if that 2.0.40 had diverged on a number of fronts from your 2.0.32, because features and major changes creep in in minor releases, your PITA has just grown again. It would be like basing your new product development on 2.5.0, and then trying to keep on top of new changes with every new releases. Good luck.

Re:good problems

[ironfroggy]

Well, in that case, maybe we should also work towards keeping the developement of one part of the kernel (or any project for that matter) to not affect the developement of another.

For example, look at DirectX, although I doubt many heavy Linux Kernel developers know much about DirectX. When a function, method, class, etc is changed in a way to be incompatible with the old version, the new form is added a number allowing it to be accessed seperately from the old version. This could be helpful.

Example:
void Function(int, char); // old version
int Function2(char, int); // new version

Many times, the old version would just take its arguments and pass them to the new one in a different way. Of course, you are saying, bloat bloat bloat... Of course. thats why these backward compatibility libraries would be patches of their own, automatically applied for patches which need them, and ditched when not needed.

Of course, this would take alot of work, a very very very advanced file revision system with probably a good amount of user help (until the system matures more), and lots more headaches i could name.

But, sometimes, isn't a little headache worth the results?

please read this linux app developers

[Anonymous Coward]

this is EXACTLY why you should not depend on the latest and greatest simply for your app to work. Try building with multiple libs (different versions) and for older versions of the kernel and environment. Many do NOT want to upgrade the kernel just in order to have our video cards, sound cards, and such work. I have often noticed a rather alarming trend that a very vital addition to the linux suite of apps that people have been eagerly waiting for and contributing to, ends up being released in formats that require libs and binaries that are only weeks to a month or two old... this is odd considering that the app was worked on (and the features/support promised) long before these binaries and libs were put together in even an unstable format.

If there is not an absolute requirement for the latest and greatest, then please do not require them for the build. Additions are great, but they should be optional and 'extra' not the bare minimum. Otherwise this is like Linux binaries only being released for the latest instruction code of AMD (or Intel) chips, but not for any other chips. (this is a loose and probably poor example not to be overanalyzed to the point it looses its underlying meaning and reason for being said)

Driver updates still support 2.0 kernels

[becker]

The netdriver update package at ftp://ftp.scyld.com/pub/network supports the 2.0 kernels. The 1.2 kernel support was dropped about a year ago.

Secure browsing for third world kids.

[glrotate]

my friend is working on refurbish old 486s for kids in third world. Since the requirement is to be able to surf web securely

Why in the world would secure browsing be a requirement for third world kids on old PCs?

Re:Secure browsing for third world kids.

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Why in the world would secure browsing be a requirement for third world kids on old PCs?

What, poor kids don't deserve to have Hotmail? Or Yahoo mail?

There are a lot of people in the "Third World". They want services too. My ex-gf was Brazilian. She just got a Pentium 4, and needs secure browsing to do her online banking. You can do things with ATMs there that they're just designing here. Check out www.lavrasnovas.com.br. This is a small town, maybe 100 people (but at least 10 bars, woohoo!), but it's got a web site, with Shockwave.

"The Third World" is a pretty complex, diverse place. I personally hate the term, it has too many connotations of arrogance. But if you do use it, don't lump people all together. Middle class there is a much better life than middle class here.

Re:Secure browsing for third world kids.

[orthogonal]

Middle class there [in "third-world" countries] is a much better life than middle class here [in the USA or Western Europe presumably].

Sure, middle class life is better in the third-world. Because lower class life is so much worse.

A far smaller middle class has far greater economic power over a larger and very badly off lower class. So otherwise un-affluent memebers of the middle class can easily afford servants, or other products of unskilled manual labor.

On the other hand, to afford a servant in the US means paying at least minimum wage plus health care, and even at that, the employee can get about as much working at McDonalds, or more at a unionized grocery store. So only the very rich (and high ranking "civil servants") have servants in the US.

Re:Secure browsing for third world kids.

[jsse]

Right you are.

Talking about online banking. I might have to use Windows if I had to let them communicating with commericals, as most companies there are Windows-centric. I'm glad that we work for kids, that gives us greater flexibility in choosing platform

Read this first

[Anonymous Coward]

It's got some good info about suicide.

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

Driven by users, though!

[alienmole]

With open source, the existence of a user community for a particular version is far more likely to produce people who are willing to maintain that version than in the commercial case. Companies will drop products even when there's a thriving user community, if the sales of the product in question are no longer commercially viable. (I've done this myself, with a software package I used to sell.) All products eventually become the responsibility of their user communities, but with open source, at least you have some options, up to and including paying someone to make enhancements and fix bugs for you. If all you have are binaries, you're SOL.

If anybody is making money off 2.0.x

[iamacat]

Then they should hire programmers to fix it for them. Just because people gave you a mug of free beer doesn't mean you don't have to buy another one later or brew your own.

1.0 kernel series

[quigonn]

Weren't there patches against the 1.0 patchlevel 9 kernel to make it compile with gcc 2.7.2? Who continues to maintain this one? :-)

upgrade ?

[zrodney]

I noticed most of the people chiming in that
'if it aint broke, dont fix it' are probably
not concerned about 2.0 patches and releases
since they won't install them anyway.

Consider this...

[shr3k]

With the way the early 2.4.x kernels went, I'm sure that when 2.6 is first released, we'll consider 2.6 the development series and 2.4 the stable series. Forget the odd numbers. :-)

My Unv...

[macdaddy]

...is using RH 5.x with 2.0.36 on their DNS servers. Of course we're also using Bind 4.9.7. Apparently they have (well, had) no ambition to upgrade. My network project requires a new DHCP setup and dynamic DNS. Now they have to upgrade. If it wasn't for that though, I wouldn't see them upgrading either system until a security problem cropped up and bit them on the ass. I keep all of my systems current to within a couple RH releases and my kernels are always to within a couple versions on a stable major release.

Sometimes you just have to let go

[Descartes]

This reminds me of a system I worked on while I was a tech at university. They had a special system set up for students with impaired vision which stopped working one day and I spent several hours trying to make sense of the full size isa card with mono sound output (coincidentally the computer had been upgraded since it was built so it also had a regular sound card) that interfaced directly with the huge scanner of the same vintage. This was operated by some proprietary software that was designed to work in Win3.1. The proprietary hardware had actually been upgraded into newer machines several times since it's purchase so it was currently on a fairly decent win95 machine.

I'm not going to say that this system didn't work (at least after I finally fixed it) but after about the third hour I started thinking to myself how easy it would be to write new software that would work with any scanner/soundcard windows supported.

I think 2.0 has a long way to go before it gets to this point but people who are still using it should take a look at the improved features of the new versions and see if it might be worth checking out. Personally I would like to see 2.0 maintained until 3.0 comes out so people have plenty of time to start replacing systems one by one.

Re:Sometimes you just have to let go

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think 2.0 has a long way to go before it gets to this point but people who are still using it should take a look at the improved features of the new versions and see if it might be worth checking out.

What makes you believe they haven't already been doing so? What makes you believe they haven't made this analysis, and concluded that leaving things alone is the best path for their particular system?

New is not always better.

> Personally I would like to see 2.0 maintained until 3.0 comes out so people have plenty of time to start replacing systems one by one.

Why not have 2.0 maintained for as long as someone wants to do so, for so long as people find it useful and use it? Why do you want there be *any* predetermined EOL for something that you don't even use - how does the continued existence and use of 2.0, forever, go against your interests?..

Re:Sometimes you just have to let go

[Descartes]

>how does the continued existence and use of 2.0, forever, go against your interests?..

That was kindof my point. If people worked at the same company forever this wouldn't be a problem. Imagine that 2.0 doesn't stop being updated when 3.0 comes out, or 4.0, or 5.0, get it. If ten years from now (or whatever) I have to work on a 2.0 it's going to be really annoying.

Ever try to set up a network card in dos? It's friggin hard. You know why? Because windows has a better way of setting up hardware and because everyone's forgotten how to use dos.

Now imagine that kind of difference with a real operating system.

Reason to use old kernels

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux Kernel version before 2.1.x were tiny and stable! These kernels are more appropriate for small embedded systems that require lots of uptime and little maintenance. In fact, I was going to volunteer to maintain the Linux 1.2.x branch until my employer made GPL'ed software a terminal offense.

Any openings out there for a hardware hacker that occasionally dabbles in code?

2.0.x and IPv6

[LucoZade]

Just wondering if IPv6 will be backported into 2.0.x. Since it will most likely become standard within a few years, lack of IPv6 support would render 2.0.x useless for connection to the internet. It's likely that many proprietry software vendors would use this as a perfect opportunity to kill off old OS releases. Will there be official IPv6 support for 2.0?

Linux Kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux kernel love you LONG time.

The 2.0 kernel is more popular than 2.5

[hta]

According to the Linux Counter, about 1.6% of the Linux users use the 2.0 kernel.
That's more than the number of people using 2.5.
(Don't like the numbers? Get counted!)

Doesn't sound very complicated to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it doesn't. It just sounds like any other normal system. I'd be very POd if a change to the OS affected anything I wrote. I'd say 99% of systems shouldn't care if they're written properly.

P.S.

Informative??? You're haveing a laugh.

Your question...

[Anonymous Coward]

doesn't make sense.

The very idea is open stays while there are enough people interested.

Closed software stays while its maker has interest, not any people.

Pay more attention.

KernelTrap Inaccessible? Not really.

[sindian]

I was wondering why every time I tried to access kerneltrap, the request would time out. Apparently, their ISP's router has problems with Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN). This is a known problem with older routers. To get around this, either compile your kernel without ECN or:

# echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn

I can't take the credit for this discovery. I learned about it while sifting through the comments to this very article. Also, check this link for more info on ECN.

I've heard worse than win95...

[Kaneda]

My brother recently started a new job with a large international publisher. One of his colleagues walked over and said they were having trouble with their print setup. So he wandered over there, only to find that they were still using win 3.1 !!!
unbelievable

t

Servers running 2.0

[yakfacts]

I still run some servers on 2.0. They have been up for years, only failing after hardware fries or a power outage.

Why should I mess with them? I have software on another machine that requires an old verson of gcc (due the changes in the String library) and I don't want to rewrite it. Everything works. Everything is stable.

I also run old distros, even with the 2.2 kernel. I upgraded one machine to Slackware 4.0 when that was the New Thing and it took me a while to get it stable. Now I don't want to mess with it; just upgrade the kernel for security issues. It just runs apache and WordPerfect, it is a PPro200 with 128Mb RAM and is solid as can be. If I upgrade it, my old copy of WordPerfect won't work anymore and I don't like the new one.

Many friends who came from the Windoze world always have the need to be upgrading. As long as the old software still works, why change it?