Linux Kernel 2.4.20 Released

punkmac writes "It's that time again to do the thing we all love to do, compile your shiny new kernel. This time its 2.4.20. The changelog can be found at the usual places, and please use a mirror for all your downloads"

Comments

first compile...

[jaunty]

...already downloaded, and already compiled. With 2 minutes of testing, I can garantee that this is the best one ever...

Re:first compile...

[jaunty]

...its a twist on the "first post" theme, ya know...

Just thought I'd be different.

Re:first compile...

[dzym]

Because the first 19 releases of the 2.4 kernel panicked within the first minute and a half, I suppose. :)

Haiku

[bobtheprophet]

As snow is falling
A new kernel is released.
Truly, it is good.

A tree, bare of leaves.
A kernel, being released.
Note nature tie-in.

Re:Haiku

[Anonymous Coward]

a haiku poster
thinks he's cool as the fall wind
but he's a loser

Re:Haiku

[isorox]

Anonymous C
Bite my shiney metal ass
Another loser

Re:Haiku

[isorox]

Care to make it three?

No you stupid fool
You're an insensitve clod
I have no humor

Re:Haiku

[EvilAlien]

First haiku is suck
All I want for Christmas is
Kernel 2 point 6

The obligatory nature/seasonal reference is just too damn easy. Why can't /.ers post in iambic pentameter?

Re:Haiku

[bobtheprophet]

I'll try to take you up on that.

Re:Haiku

[gorjusborg]

I like the recursive joke :) You must work for the GNU project.

Re:Haiku

[fccf]

I imagine Linus staring at the snowflakes falling and with every one of them modifying version.h ... "2.4.666 and counting.. "

Be kind to kernel.org

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't just use a mirror, get the patch to update your 2.4.19 tree.

Re:Be kind to kernel.org

[packeteer]

In case you wanna see if you even need the nwe kernel. You can find the changelog here. Dont download it now if you dont need it. there are peopel waiting to use those servers.

Re: Be kind to kernel.org

[Black Parrot]

> Dont download it now if you dont need it. there are peopel waiting to use those servers.

No problem, we can listen to Beethoven's 9th Symphony a few times while we wait.

Re:Be kind to kernel.org

[Clue4All]

Why? ISC increased their bandwith from 100 Mbps to 250 Mbps. It rarely reached 90% usage, often during a new Red Hat release. The main site works just fine, and will continue to do so.

Re:Be kind to kernel.org

[KjetilK]

Hm, I read that they've got a 250 Mbits/s link now, and I was going to respond "hey, let's stress-test it!" But www.kernel.org was very slow to me, in spite of that

Current bandwidth utilization 57.87 Mbit/s

That's actually rather weird, because it is not that uncommon to have that load. If this number is correct, there has to be something wrong with the server. But probably, they are getting more traffic.

Well me? I went directly to a mirror after getting the announcement from the announcement list this morning and downloaded it from there before reading /.

The new kernel fixes the lcall DoS. While I have no untrusted users on my system, things like that is always good to have out of the way.

Re:Be kind to kernel.org

[LinuxHam]

Which brings me to this stupid question. Has anyone considered pushing patches out as GPG-signed binaries in usenet? I mean, jeez, what a way to bump up the "mirrors" list. It seems almost too easy to script up a batch job to harvest binaries from something like a c.o.l.binaries.patches and c.o.l.binaries.patches.kernel. When utwente burned and people were panicking b/c security.debian.org was down for a day or two, it made me think about how to really jack up the mirrors list. I would prefer p2p, but as that get blocked to oblivion, the last great large-scale distribution network is usenet. Imagine hundreds of thousands of people running cron-apt against their news server instead of pointing right at the distribution center.

Re:Be kind to kernel.org

[RennieScum]

Probly because that's their -total- bandwidth capacity, you still have to take into account what their server(s) can push. How often can you transmit a full 100MB/s from your ethernet card? And they've got hundreds of users at a time, which means that even if they've got the King of RAID, it's too busy to push a theoretical max.

I had some timeouts (over a day after the announcement). Just get the patch.

for all new users to linux...

[fredopalus]

This may be the latest you've been up on thanksgiving.

Decisions, Decisions...

[Dunkalis]

I'm compiling KDE 3.1RC3 right now, but I could take a break and compile a new kernel (at 2.4.19 right now), or just continue on my merry little way...

And I just submitted this, with almost the exact same text! Scary.

Re:Decisions, Decisions...

[The Pi-Guy]

What makes you think they won't post it?

*ducks*

*counts to 20, formkeys formkeys formkeeeys*

Re:Decisions, Decisions...

[BlackHawk-666]

Or open a new terminal and do it at the same time. Give that processor/disk a workout.

Note: I often get make to run two compilers at once, since there is a lot of downtime during compilation anyway - it helps to get max use of the processor.

Re:Decisions, Decisions...

[Johan Veenstra]

You must like compiling a lot. Coming to you soon: KDE 3.1 (release has been tagged in CVS).

While you wait you can try to get your hands on KDE 3.1 RC4 and compile it just for the heck of it.

Re:Decisions, Decisions...

[SpaceLifeForm]

Yep. I run two kernel compiles simultaneously to warm up the room.

Re:how long will it be...

[Dunkalis]

The kernel won't usually break your applications, unless you depend on something odd like QMAGIC support and don't compile it in.

The compiler will. Which is why I installed fresh with gcc-3.2.

As for service packs: We don't need them, as we have things like up2date, you, emerge, and apt. These can upgrade your entire system.

Apparently

[slycer9]

There are several significant changes and improvements, not the least is multithreading performance for us SMP users, not to mention the improved filesystem(s) performance/support. Admittedly, not many flashy, shiny new things, but a fair number of performance/real world improvements.

Re:Apparently

[mysticalreaper]

Uhm... are you SURE? You sure it's not the new 2.5 development kernel you're talking about? Cause i think if you looked into it, you'd realize that all these massive changes you mentioned, improving threading, I/O, VM and the rest are changes happening in the 2.5 kernel. They are major changes, and very significant. But they're happening in 2.5.

This release is just an incremental release. Bugfixes here, added support there... no major changes, just evolutionary changes.

Good to see the mods are looking for informative comments... however, it's sad when they mod up comments that don't reflect the facts.

Re:Apparently

[inode_buddha]

hrmmmm.... "ignore SYN with RST set."

I bet a few portscanners would have fun with that one. However, there are other ways to deal with that sort of thing, AFAIK.

I'm happy with my 2.4.19 on my SMP boxes, and I didn't notice any bugfixes that I just *have* to have. Well, I *did* add kernel-pre-empt and the (0)1 patches as soon as they came out....

*sigh* Looks like I'm gonna wait for 2.6, I bet that one really rocks!

Re:how long will it be...

[silvaran]

It's not a matter of "Linux" having service packs. I'm assuming you use a specific distribution. You have to trust that distribution to release updates for your system as necessary. You can't binary patch the Linux kernel, because no binaries are released, only source. Red Hat, for example, has binary releases of the kernel (included in their distribution), but doesn't bother releasing service packs, instead they release updates as they see fit (pretty much the same thing).

I don't quite understand the obsession with using the latest and greatest. I'm not going to grab this and compile it for my machine; a) 2.4.19 works fine and b) I skimmed through the changelog and didn't really see anything that affected my situation, and c) My roommate will scream at me if I take down the server just to update the kernel by a double-point revision.

You mentioned when you update the kernel/compiler it breaks a lot of applications. You'll have to be more specific. I can see problems when migrating from a 2.2 kernel to a 2.4 kernel, or from gcc 2.x to gcc 3.x, but if you use one of the major distributions, this is trivial. The thought of using "service packs" on an open source operating system indicates to me that you don't have a clear handle on the way things work in Linux.

I'll wait for 2.4.20-ac1 or -ac2. :)

[draziw]

I always have better luck with the -ac kernels.

Re:I'll wait for 2.4.20-ac1 or -ac2. :)

[darketernal]

You do realize 2.4.20-rc4 was released as 2.4.20 without any changes. Hence, 2.4.20-rc4-ac1 is the -ac1 that you are looking for :)

Re:I'll wait for 2.4.20-ac1 or -ac2. :)

[draziw]

That was a fine guess you had - but you were wrong. I will wait for -ac2, which should be a bit more solid. :)

Linux 2.4.20-ac1
[+ indicates stuff that went to Marcelo, o stuff that has not, * indicates stuff that is merged in mainstream now, X stuff that proved bad and was dropped out, - indicates stuff not relevant to the main tree] This is the initial 2.4.20-ac merge up. This one may still have a few small funnies to shake out especially in the DRM updates. Linux 2.4.20-ac1 Merge with Marcelo 2.4.20 o Fix CIA revision 1 Alcor initialization (Bjoern Brauel)
o VIA KT400 AGP support (Nicolas Mailhot)
o ns83820 oops fix (Ruger Luethi)
o Fix bmac missing timer setup (Jeff Garzik)
o NUMAQ compile fixes (Adrian Bunk)
o Fix midi byte loss on fifo full (Clemens Ladisch)
o Fix mptlan compile (Adriank Bunk)
o Update ewrk3 to support setting MAC address (Adam Kropelin)
o Merge most of the parisc patch submission (Matthew Wilcox)
o Fixes for the drm updates (Arjan van de Ven)
o Fix AGP GART casting errors (me)

Re:I'll wait for 2.4.20-ac1 or -ac2. :)

[darketernal]

Yup, I was a tad wrong - when I had found out about it I forgot about this comment that I had posted. Sorry to everyone who was kinda fooled by this.

Re:how long will it be...

[delta407]

Although I am an avid supporter of linux, I have alot of trouble keeping up with the latest version of my principal programs as well as the ever-changing kernal.

Then you would be aware that Linux is the kernel and nothing more. In this instance, your service pack is patch-2.4.20.bz2, and that's it.

installing service packs in windows2000/XP, it updated the kernal and main programs like IE and media player all at once

Here's the thing: Linux doesn't have programs tied into the operating system that much. You could have a running Linux system without using a single GNU tool. As such, proposing service packs for Linux is nonsensical.

but I won't begin to start using [Linux] as my primary OS untill it has service packs.

Linux itself has service packs. Your distribution, on the other hand, is responsible for the rest of the pieces of software on your computer, and each distro has a different means of staying current. RedHat has up2date, Debian has 'apt-get update', and Gentoo has 'emerge -u'. Take your pick.

When's the duplicate show up?

[Flamesplash]

Hmm this isn't that interesting, I think I'll just wait around for the duplicate article post, maybe it'll be more interesting. ;)

great!

[ozzmosis]

I'll smoke a bowl for its release!

Re:great!

[E-Rock-23]

I'll second that notion, but it'll have to wait till my cousin from Jersey gets here. Oh well, at least I can compile while I wait to kill time.

Re:great!

[zumbojo]

"It's that time again to do the thing we all love to do, compile your shiny new kernel."

*takes long drag*

WHOOOOOOA. that kernel is shiny.

Re:great!

[JebusIsLord]

"why do they call them fingers? They don't really 'fing' ... oh ... wait - there they go!"

Re:great!

[nervous_twitch]

Strange, seeing as how it came from the "jamie-has-the-munchies dept."

Re:great!

[archen]

computer: neo... go BACK to sleep

Re:Some Tasteful n00dz

[Kipper the Llama]

It must be uncomfortable when your mom makes you live in a wrecked Aerostar because she doesn't have a basement.

Re:who cares?

[ActiveSX]

you can do what I'm about to do and change my /. settings to ignore kernel stuff.

Now, how exactly am I going to change your settings?

Re:how long will it be...

[Trane Francks]

I don't quite understand the obsession with using the latest and greatest. I'm not going to grab this and compile it for my machine; a) 2.4.19 works fine

I used to be latest/greatest, but I've discovered that I wind up with a lot more time to do other things when I go with a more basic approach: keep up-to-date with Slackware's security updates.

I'm still running 2.4.18 with a -- *gasp* -- default kernel. I don't even bother compiling 'em for my machine anymore. Too damn lazy. :lol:

Re:who cares?

[Doomrat]

Well, I won't need to change your settings, you've already done it.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a guy in the duplicate story saying THAT was a duplicate! And in the duplicate duplicate, there's ANOTHER guy saying it's a duplicate. That's a lot of duplicates!

Re:Wow!

[Ig0r]

It's duplicates all the way down!

Re:how long will it be...

[cranos]

You raise some good points but I have to say this. Microsoft has the benefit of actually owning the software that they release Service Packs for - from the Kernel to their Web Browser. The same cannot be said for OSS projects.

There is an equivelance to service packs in the Linux world, and that is the distro. If you think about it, each *.* distro is basically a service pack, bringing updated and more robust code in an easy to use package.

Re:how long will it be...

[Archie Steel]

Funny, last time I installed a Windows Service Pack it did not upgrade MS Office nor Photoshop...Upgrading a kernel won't break apps, though you might need to recompile/reinstall certain "module" drivers (NVIDA for example). For an "avid" supporter of Linux, you don't seem very balanced or accurate in your critique of the system. Odd. Of course, you could also be a MS plant trying to sow discord among the faithful...I'm sure there are quite a few around here. Hey, if I had billions to spare I'd sure hire a few people to spread FUD on the web sites associated with the "competition."

Secret l33t update hints

[Ost99]

#!/bin/sh
#
#####
#
# Linux Update
# *Almost* as dangerous as
# Windows update
#
sudo /usr/bin/apt-get -qq update
sudo /usr/bin/apt-get -qq -y upgrade

# Save file in /usr/local/bin
# chmod o+x filename
# Create link on desktop
# Name link Linux update
# You now have the ability to upgrade your system
# with *no* way of controlling what gets put
# there! Just as with windows!

Re:Secret l33t update hints

[BagOBones]

Strange Windows update currently gives me 3 levels of update options..
1. Download them my self and recieve only notifications.
2. Download updates and prompt for which ones to install.
3. Auto install all updates.
But Microsoft has indicated that in the furture that will be no choice and all updates will be pushed on you whether you like it or not.

Re:Secret l33t update hints

[Stonent1]

Damn, my points are all used up and I wish I could add a +1 funny to that.

But don't forget in order to REALLY make it like windows, make it run as a background process, do a sleep 60 at the end and make it start all over again.

Lather, rinse, repeat!

Anybody else remember...

[ActiveSX]

2.4.15-greased-turkey, with that nasty sync bug? Wow, quite a bit has changed in the last year.

small VM updates...

[kinko]

From the changelog....

<hch@lst.de>:
o dump_stack()
o backport yield() and conditional reschedule changes from
o small VM updates from -aa (1/5)
o small VM updates from -aa (2/5)
o small VM updates from -aa (4/5)
o small VM updates from -aa (5/5)

Is this using a Linus definition of small, or a normal definition of small?

Re:small VM updates...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this using a Linus definition of small, or a normal definition of small?

It's small because part (3/5) contains all the code.

Re:small VM updates...

[Blasphemy]

Just a quick reminder that Linus isn't manging the 2.4 tree anymore. He's moved on to the 2.5 tree.

Marcelo Tosatti is managing the 2.4 tree.

Re:small VM updates...

[kinko]

Yes I do know that. But Linus was maintaining it when they made a "small" change to the VM sub-system that involved gutting the whole thing.

But you already knew that too...

Re:small VM updates...

[Shanep]

Is this using a Linus definition of small, or a normal definition of small?

I mostly used Linux (Debian) in the past with a little Free and OpenBSD.

After I read an interview with Linus where he was asked about the current Linux kernel versus new BSD and XP features, he said something to the effect of "I haven't really looked much at BSD or XP, but I don't see much of value there".

Which pretty much sounded to me like "I have not looked, I don't see any good".

This was during the times that the VM shamozzle was occuring and my Linux machine was becoming unstable.

This was the point where I decided that Linus was getting a bit arrogant. I am glad though, because my OpenBSD servers are very clean and stable and Theo not only sticks to his moral grounds but also has well thought out moral grounds.

Re:small VM updates...

[Turmio]

For 2.4 series it's not up to Linus what gets merged. Marcelo Tosatti is the maintainer of Linux kernel 2.4 and he's the dictator-for-life of the stable tree.

Re:small VM updates...

[pastie]

Is this using a Linus definition of small, or a normal definition of small?

wahey.

That is all.

Re:small VM updates...

[Blkdeath]

After I read an interview with Linus where he was asked about the current Linux kernel versus new BSD and XP features, he said something to the effect of "I haven't really looked much at BSD or XP, but I don't see much of value there".

Did you ever think it could be Linus not seeing anything in BSD or XP that he didn't already have under Linux? After all, he's the creator and the guy who came up with the framework.

If you build your own car to suit your needs; why would you want to drive the latest [Ford/GM] incarnation?

Besides that, with all the hub-bub about Billy Gee running his 'switch' campaign on FreeBSD servers, can you imagine if the father of Linux were caught running the OS of one of his "nemeses"?

Re:small VM updates...

[arkane1234]

Nemesis.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=nemesis

I'm normally not a spelling nazi, but that just was begging for it.
(when I don't know how to spell a word, and I know that I don't, I always check it out on dictionary.com...)

Re:small VM updates...

[Blkdeath]

Nemeses. Plural.

Please do pay attention.

Re:small VM updates...

[Wolfrider]

Marcelo needs to get off his butt and rev the kernel updates more often. 2.4.xx updates have taken MONTHS.

Re:small VM updates...

[Shanep]

Did you ever think it could be Linus not seeing anything in BSD or XP that he didn't already have under Linux?

He's certainly not going to see anything if he is NOT GOING TO LOOK!

That is the point.

Re:small VM updates...

[Blkdeath]

He's certainly not going to see anything if he is NOT GOING TO LOOK!

Why should he?

Re:small VM updates...

[Shanep]

Why should he?

If he is not going to LOOK at the operating systems in question, then he is in NO position to state that he DOES NOT SEE ANY WORTHWHILE FEATURES in those operating systems.

It's called arrogance.

Of course, if you want to take it absolutely literally, then you could say that he can not see that which he does not look at. But that was not the context. If that is what he meant, then he should have said something along the lines of, "I have not looked at those, so I can't really compare or comment".

This was, by the way, an interview that shortly followed the major VM changes that were occuring within a "stable" kernel branch.

I'm glad it happened though, because my focus has shifted almost completely towards BSD based OS' (Open, Free and OSX) and I am very happy to have done so.

Re:small VM updates...

[arkane1234]

Wow, touche.. I didn't expect there to be more than ONE!

Re:how long will it be...

[Sj0]

Every single major linux distribution I've tried in the last two years has had an update tool. Just use that.

Re:2.5.x

[yozzle]

Even for 2.5.50? It is apparently already there.

Repeat!

[Jucius Maximus]

Timothy, haven't you learned your lesson and started paying attention to what you're posting already? I mean, you've already done this today and--

Wait a sec...

Oh sorry, I guess I was developing a reflex action.

</humour>

Re:Repeat!

[Anonymous Coward]

American English is akin to Microsoft English. Take a published standard and alter it ever so slightly, but annoyingly, so that documents (applications) have to be rewritten.

I know, I know... Score -1 (Anti-US post)

Re:Repeat!

[rogueroo]

Moroun?

Re:Important changes?

[updog]

There was at least one very important change for me personally - support for KT-400 motherboards (by adding support for VIA8235 southbridge). I had gotten 2.4.20-rc3 for this support when I got my new motherboard, but now it's official.
Incedentally, 2.4.19 will sorta work on a KT-400 board, but disk access is really slow because it can't turn on DMA.

Its a dupe...

[ngkabra]

I don't know what the slashdot editors are on today. This has already been covered here and here and here.

Wait a minute. Do those funny little numbers after the name actually mean something? Oh well, nevermind.

Re:Its a dupe...

[sean23007]

Actually no, it's all pretty much the same. At least it might as well be, from the discussions...

Re:how long will it be...

[Sj0]

Just a point of interest, MS Service packs don't upgrade the media player, web browser, etc..., they update the base install. As a person who is forced to upgrade far too many Windows machines for my mental health, I know that even on windowsupdate.com, these are seperate updates from the service packs.

Re:how long will it be...

[jkeyes]

Actually the Windows XP SP1 upgraded your browser to SP1 also but I think that was one of the great exceptions since MS usually likes to keep it SP's to updates only.

Did they fix the new ptrace vulnerability?

[bigberk]

I haven't tried it myself yet, but I found no reference to this ptrace vulnerability in the changelog. I suspect this is still a problem (it was in 2.4.19).

Re:Did they fix the new ptrace vulnerability?

[Juergen Kreileder]

I haven't tried it myself yet, but I found no reference to this ptrace vulnerability [google.com] in the changelog. I suspect this is still a problem (it was in 2.4.19).

It was fixed in 2.4.20-rc2, see the "[PATCH] Fix lcall DoS" entry in the ChangeLog or this bk comment (and the corresponding patch).

Re:Did they fix the new ptrace vulnerability?

[bigberk]

It was fixed in 2.4.20-rc2, see the "[PATCH] Fix lcall DoS..."

That's excellent news, thanks! For those that don't know, this vulnerability allows any user to crash the kernel in an instant (no fork bomb necessary) -- system dead. Since they've fixed this, I can see that as a very good reason for upgrading.

Linux is truely impressing me now...

[jpt.d]

... not because of itself, I don't actually use it. Its that they now can release less than 1 kernel every few months.

When I used Linux for about a month a while back I remember when they would release a kernel and by the time it was compiled and installed, the next one was out.

Re:Linux is truely impressing me now...

[Webmonger]

Shakedown. All kernels take a while to mature. 2.4 took longer than most.

I can't find it!

[m00nun1t]

Where can I download the windows version?

Re:I can't find it!

[Annoyed Coward]

I haven't released it yet. :-D

Re:I can't find it!

[norm_z]

You can get it here.

Re:I can't find it!

[frozenray]

> Where can I download the windows version?

Google for the -billg branch.

Re:I can't find it!

[isorox]

'usual warez places of course

Re:I can't find it!

[Kashif Shaikh]

Oh you mean UML version, we'll check out UML page on sourceforge.

zlib in the kernel?

[hpavc]

anyone know where i can read about this zlib(compression|decompression) library support? there is some very interesting mentioning of it in ./inculde/linux/zlib.h and of course in menuconfig as well.

Re:zlib in the kernel?

[SystematicPsycho]

nothing in /usr/src/linux/Documentation where it ought to be.

Re:zlib in the kernel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you need to read about that ? Its just a library, for things in the kernel needing zlib (de)compression, like ppp. At this point I actually dont know anything else than ppp which uses it. It's been there all time, now its just placed in another directory.

Re:zlib in the kernel?

[Random Frequency]

its used by PPP for packet compression, as well as initial kernel decompression with the zImage target.

Re:zlib in the kernel?

[fstanchina]

zisofs maybe?

Re:zlib in the kernel?

[TeknoHog]

There is also zisofs -- read-only support of compressed ISO CDs. In read-only systems the compression actually makes sense, because the size does not change, and decompression is much faster than compression. To use these, you need additional tools, probably called mkzisofs.

Unfortunately, many CDs are used to store mp3/ogg/divx and the like, which don't really compress much. So zisofs is not necessarily very useful.

Re:zlib in the kernel?

[(startx)]

Ahh, but it is useful for things such as the various distributions LiveCD's, which contain lots of documentation and plain text files along with the increasing number of binaries. for example, the slackware 8.1 live cd squeezes 1.3GB+ of data onto a 650MB cd using zisofs.

Re:zlib in the kernel?

[hpavc]

umm, because the documentation i refered to said that the STDIO could now handle gzip encoding which is pretty fucking cool.

sure lots of things in the kernel use zlib functions and they might hvae been unified (i woule hope) but this seems quite a larger scope.

That's all well and good, but is this really news?

[essdodson]

I continue to wonder why every kernel release is considered news. Those who follow Linux development no doubt are well aware of the status of the kernel.

Of course they did...

[RennieScum]

I knew it would happen this week since I just finished reinstalling after a laptop hard drive crash.

I guess I'll hold off, only thing I'm interested in is ACPI (sleep!) and this is one of few mentions in the changelog:

Alan Cox :
[snip]
o document an acpi bogon

Re:Of course they did...

[RennieScum]

Thanks, I see that now. Works better for some (most?) ppl, and some can't boot. Standard crapshoot scenario, I suppose I'll try it and see, coz I really want software suspend, which I had working when the dead HD was alive. More so than sonypi.

Link for posterity

For anyone using reiserfs

[Xpilot]

There is a significant patch that speeds up write operations for large files on IDE drives by up to 15%. This made it in v2.4.20-pre6.

Re:For anyone using reiserfs

[ViXX0r]

You wanna tell us where you saw that?

2.4.20 only went to rc4 before release.

Re:For anyone using reiserfs

[kinri]

2.4.20-pre6 came out before 2.4.20-rc4
===
2.4.19 was released

2.4.20-pre1 to 2.4.20-pre11 were released

2.4.20-rc1 to 2.4.20-rc4 were released

2.4.20-rc4 became 2.4.20

Pre's come before rc's (release candidates)

Re:That's all well and good, but is this really ne

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft, Sun, HP or any other (not linux) OS Development company/corpotation announced a new version of thier product, it would also be news. (here on Slashdot)

start thinking, stop whining, and the wonders will part.

Re:how long will it be...

[jon787]

I tend to use the prebuild debian kernel images too. I do occasionally compile a 2.5 kernel but it really isn't worth it that much. When the 2.4.20 kernel enters SID my computer will automatically download and install it during an update.

I have a self compiled 2.5.44 kernel, but... you're right it really isn't worth the time it takes to configure, compile, and possibly try again.

usb fixes?

[Dionysus]

I couldn't find any notes about USB. I usually have problems when I try to mount a memory stick on my Sony Clie on Linux (system freezes... nothing can be done except hard reboot, can't even ssh/telnet into the box). Anyone had any similar problems?

Re:usb fixes?

[Cytlid]

I don't know but my Wireless USB NIC Drivers don't seem to be working. :o/ Already posted it to the mailing list...

Re:usb fixes?

[WWWWolf]

In .19, I had severe problems with mouse and keyboard - simply put, they just didn't work, kept spewing timeouts. =/ There appears to be an UHCI "timeout fixes" an something about cancelling HID device changes that didn't work, maybe I should try this...

Re:usb fixes?

[Lemuel]

It works fine for me, but I can tell you how I'm set up if you want to compare.

Re:usb fixes?

[LinuxHam]

do you have a *pure* USB box? I have one of those 7-USB port PCs with not ONE other type of I/O connector on it, and at boot, I get slammed with kbd timeouts for about two minutes before it settles down and takes me to a login.

Re:usb fixes?

[Lemuel]

No, a mix. I have 2 builtin USB ports, and the old fashioned serial, parallel, keyboard, and mouse ports. My mouse is using USB but my keyboard is using the keyboard port.

Re:usb fixes? -- see here

[jki]

I couldn't find any notes about USB. I usually have problems when I try to mount a memory stick on my Sony Clie on Linux (system freezes... nothing can be done except hard reboot, can't even ssh/telnet into the box). Anyone had any similar problems?

Reading and installing the patch from the pointers from here changed everything for me. Re-compiled the kernel just 2 days ago. Also generally, if you want to get the latest out of your usb in Linux, I have noticed that linux-usb.org has it first (or atleast soon).

Re:how long will it be...

[Trane Francks]

I have a self compiled 2.5.44 kernel, but... you're right it really isn't worth the time it takes to configure, compile, and possibly try again.

It's all relative. Back when I was running Slack on a 486/32-meg system, optimization was everything. With careful attention to trimming off the fat, the system was undeniably fast for a 486-class machine.

Now on a celery 700 with 256 megs and 4 wickedly fast hard disks, bloat is the order of the day. My PC has become the equivalent of a couch potato. ;)

What about Athlon prefetch bug?

[Anonymous Coward]

Revert 2.4.19's AMD Athlon prefetch workaround

What does this mean?

No! Don't do it

[The Tyro]

Don't you remember that "reefer madness" video?

How will you type with your hands shaking like that?

Unable to hit the enter key and start compiling... The horror... the horror.

These changelogs are getting too long...

[7-Vodka]

They need to be put in a database so you can click on a hardware device and get a list of patches applied with other query parameters for example.

just my $2*10^-2.00

Re:These changelogs are getting too long...

[packeteer]

Unfortunatly most of the time its not taht simple. Drivers are a tricky issue and they dont always work 100% or not at all.

Re:These changelogs are getting too long...

[nadaou]

These changelogs are getting too long... They need to be put in a database so you can click on a hardware device and get a list of patches applied with other query parameters for example.

Or a simple script to match against your old .config and only report relevant changes.

Re:These changelogs are getting too long...

[Abnormal Coward]

just copy over your old config and do 'make oldconfig'

i.e.

$ cp ../kernel-2.4.19/.config .
$ make oldconfig

this will let you see what new options there is in the kernel.

Re:These changelogs are getting too long...

[oliverthered]

And maybe a list of waiting/compatable patches too, so if you have hardware that isn't supported by the stock kernel you can find the patch.

No more printers on fire?

[xercist]

just reading through the changelog...


Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk):
...

* replace end user confusing "on fire" joke with real info
...


We've just lost the best part of our kernel!

Re:No more printers on fire?

[Jugalator]

Gaah! Hmm... But what was the actual, "real", error then?

Re:No more printers on fire?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not think it was originally a joke. Older printers used to give that error message when they got a paper jam. The paper would then get hot enough from the friction of whatever was trying to roll it through would cause a fire, and thus by the time the user got the error message the printer would be on fire.

Eh, I guess it still in a way was a joke, but a joke based more on reality. Of course now, that is just preposterious, but eh whatever.

Re:No more printers on fire?

[famazza]

All work and no fun makes John a dumb boy.

Re:No more printers on fire?

[Andrewkov]

Of course now, that is just preposterious, but eh whatever

You've obviously never had a user "accidentally" pour lighter fluid into a running HP 4500 Colour Laserjet.

Re:No more printers on fire?

[Jarl]

Ah, but notice: it's the end user that has been replaced.

Re:No more printers on fire?

[giantsfan89]

Hey, I just got that error today for the first time (running 2.4.19). I replaced a ink cartridge, and it said my printer was on fire. Odd. :-)

How is this impressive?

[7-Vodka]

I've released a total of 0 kernels so far and I intend to release a total of 0 more kernels for the next many many months to come. By your rating Linus' got nothin on me :)

Re:That's all well and good, but is this really ne

[Moloch666]

I continue to wonder why every kernel release some one must complain why it isn't news or express how they don't care. Slashdot does not revolve around you, although by tweaking some of your preferences you can get it close.

Informative?

[SystematicPsycho]

How is this Informative? This is common sense.

use the mirrors to download the changelog

[mansoft]

With changes such as "fixed typo in whatever.c" or "It didn't compile because a semicolon was missing, so I added it", we'll soon need to create ISO images for the changelogs...

Re:use the mirrors to download the changelog

[suwain_2]

What I've always wondered is this -- don't they notice that their program doesn't compile, and fix it before releasing it? It's easy to forget a semicolon on the end of a line, but I can't say I've ever released a program that had fatal compile errors. Is there something behind the scenes I'm missing?

It works!

[chrysalis]

This kernel perfectly works. I just installed it and it didn't cra

Re:It works!

[supergiovane]

Next time try OpenBSD, it's the most sta

Re:It works!

[Sri Lumpa]

".Duh!!! IF YOUr computer crashed, then how did u POST this comment! Lame attempt at a joke."

Hi, ComicBook Guy, how are you?

Broken USB mouse support fixed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody know if this version fixes USB optical mouse support which seems to have been broken for some users with 2.4.19? (Yes, I've checked groups.google.com and know about enabling CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT but this does NOT help). It seems Red Hat 7.3 users were affected, as well as Mandrake (although I know only what broke for me -- RH 7.3).
Thank god my optical usb mouse had a usb->psmouse converter plug which I'm using as a temporary workaround.

Re:Broken USB mouse support fixed?

[benc]

when I upgraded to 2.4.19 my USB mouse stopped working.. I fiddled with my module loading order in /etc/modules.autoload and got it to work again. try loading them in this order:

input
mousedev
usbmouse
hid
uhci

and see if that doesn't help. (you might be using ohci instead of uhci) This is a total shot in the dark for you, of course, but it helped me so maybe it'll help you too.

(I wish I understood why module ordering mattered so much in this case -- it was always my understanding that modules would load other modules they depended on, so the ordering wasn't important. am I wrong?)

Did they fix these showstopper bugs in 2.4.20?

[linefeed0]

There is at least one nasty VM-related bug which has been reported in Linux 2.4.19 and possibly earlier revisions. Rumors of more abound; this is the one that's personally happened to me.

Kernel BUG at page_alloc.c:91! (kills kswapd)
Google groups for "page_alloc.c:91". Usually blamed on NVidia drivers but notable cases have occurred without them. It's not clear whether the kernel team has made a notable effort to debug them, but they are real and occur on a variety of systems. When this happens kswapd stops working, which causes more bugs later on, and eventually a system reboot is required.

There are other period reports of BUGs being flagged with an otherwise normal kernel on the linux-kernel list.

Re:Did they fix these showstopper bugs in 2.4.20?

[linefeed0]

Er, that should read, "There are other PERODIC reports..."

Damn.

Re:Did they fix these showstopper bugs in 2.4.20?

[SpaceLifeForm]

Periodic.

The description of this problem sure sounds like Windows behaviour.

Re:Did they fix these showstopper bugs in 2.4.20?

[linefeed0]

Unfortunately, that's exactly the point.

For instance, Microsoft knows internally that after the train wreck that was NT 4, most 2000/XP crashes are caused by bad drivers (my source: an unnamed microsoft engineer; so there!).

What's unfortunate is that the Linux people also know this, but can only find blame as a method of resolving this problem. The incessant chirp of "unload your NVidia driver" or "like, your kernel is tainted! and there are these weird LETTERS after 'tainted'!" only serves to throw away what may (or may not) be perfectly good problem reports. It's great that the linux people have tools (the tainting flags, etc.) to help determine the source of the problem. It's really not great that they don't have the rules to make sense of these other than to throw out reports that aren't to their standards. Because, really, in the real world of linux, people use proprietary drivers, and throwing out problem reports with them means throwing out problem reports from a whole segment of the user community. (Also, they should have better debugging methods to figure out whether a problem is their fault or not.)

A case in point: who other than people who use fancy graphics drivers, particularly the nvidia proprietary drivers, really stress some of the MTRR code? AGP? Chipset-specific PCI weirdness?

If Linux keeps this up it'll get hard to distinguish this kind of problem from a Microsoft like problem, and then where did all that much ballyhooed stability go?

Re:Did they fix these showstopper bugs in 2.4.20?

[Repugnant_Shit]

This is probably waaay to late to get read, but check out www.minion.de/nvidia.html for some info and patches that might help fix the bug.

Re:Did they fix these showstopper bugs in 2.4.20?

[linefeed0]

Out of curiosity, where did you find that info? Google seems to indicate that the minion nvidia pages have only ever been linked from blogs.

Right now my opinion of Linux, NVidia, and the linux kernel mailing list for their handling of this issue isn't very high on any side.

Re:Did they fix these showstopper bugs in 2.4.20?

[Repugnant_Shit]

Saw it on the gentoo forums, which in was linked to from a newsgroup.

The great thing about open source:

[achurch]

Here's a patch to put it back.

Re:who cares?

[anshil]

Gimme your password and I will do for you :o)

Can't resist...

[BrokenHalo]

Who is this Colonel Panic, and what's he doing on my computer?

Re:Can't resist...

[Walterk]

Probably visiting his friends General Fault and Major Error.

Re:Can't resist...

[malkavian]

I think he's there for a meeting with Major Cockup.

Re:Can't resist...

[jemoody]

...and who's this General Failure, and why is he reading my disk? (from the MS-DOS days...)

Re:Can't resist...

[dmaxwell]

He's trying to get a promotion by causing more freezes than General Protection Fault.

Re:Important changes?

[thesadmac]

I beleive the reiserfs write_file function was added to the reiserfs filesystem. This speeds up writing large files on a reiserfs formatted volume. Which on my boxes is every partition except /boot and swap.

Tips on testing your new kernel

[goingware]

You should thoroughly test your new kernel before putting it into production. Even if the kernel works well for everyone else, you could personally discover a new bug. You could save yourself a lot of pain by testing first, as well as help the kernel developers.

A while back I wrote a couple articles on Linux kernel testing:

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

The Open Source Development Lab kindly provides Japanese translations here.

(The articles are under the GNU Free Documentation License. I would be quite stoked if you copied or translated them. There are articles on other quality topics here.)

Re:Tips on testing your new kernel

[inode_buddha]

Actually, your site may be one of the most intelligent things I've read all week... I bookmarked it for later, after I get done reading slashdot

Re:how long will it be...

[d^2b]

Absolutely and with debian if you stick apt-get update apt-get upgrade as a weekly.... or daily.... cron-job

Argh. Don't do that. Really. You know those annoying questions that the upgrade process asks you? That is because the user is supposed to be smarter than... Oh. Nevermind. Sorry I brought it up :-)

How to get patches accepted?

[caluml]

[PATCH] : sock_writable not appropriate for TCP sockets

hi marcelo-

[ i sent this patch August 30 against 20-pre5, and it appears to have been dropped. this is an important performance fix that should be included in 2.4.20. i apologize for not tracking this more closely. ]

sock_writeable determines whether there is space in a socket's output buffer. socket write_space callbacks use it to determine whether to wake up those that are waiting for more output buffer space.

however, sock_writeable is not appropriate for TCP sockets. because the RPC client's write_space callback uses it for TCP sockets, the RPC layer hammers on sock_sendmsg with dozens of write requests that are only a few hundred bytes long when it is trying to send a large write RPC request. this patch adds logic to the RPC layer's write_space callback that properly handles TCP sockets.

patch reviewed by Trond, Alexey, and DaveM, and already accepted in 2.5.

I wonder if I can get the name changed from Linux to Evilix by sending a patch to Marcelo and just mentioning that Trond, Alexey and DaveM have reviewed it and it's already in 2.5... ;)

DMCA Violations

[12dec0de]

As some people here on slashdot (an article IIRC) hinted at patches in 2.4.20 being in possible violation with the DMCA, and hence waiting to release .20, I guess these are all either cleaned up by now or not in the patch at all.

Can somebody give me a pointer to information on the actual problems and the resolution as well?

Re:DMCA Violations

[hazyshadeofwinter]

IIRC, it wasn't so much the patch itself that was in violation of the DMCA (Dilbertized Merkin Copyright Anomaly) as the description of the problem. So I can't describe it to you, but if you *aren't* American, you can safely click on this link, which will tell you. (Read & click-through the licence/disclaimer, then pick it off the drop-down menu thingy. Yeah, it sucks, but so does a copyright law that prevents people from fully documenting software bugs. Sorta like the evening news in some places--"Scientists think this common household substance could kill you! We'll tell you more on Channel 11's News at Eleven!")

Re:DMCA Violations

[pair-a-noyd]

Screw the DMCA, RIAA and MPAA.
And to hell with all the OTHER alphabet soup folks too.

Is VIA KT400 (8377+8235) finally supported?

[Anonymous Coward]

2.4.19 needs a patch to recognize that chipset and enable dma transfers on IDE devices. It somewhat worked, but still runs awfully (crashes and data corruption).
I found no mention in the changelog about this chipset, dug the kernel ml archives for weeks and found about nothing. Forgive me if I ask in the wrong place, but a month has passed since I purchased a KT400 motherboard (Soltek SL75FRV) and still cannot figure how to make it work properly.

Re:Is VIA KT400 (8377+8235) finally supported?

[Brissie_lad]

8235 support is in,

vojtech_suse.cz
[PATCH] Add vt8235 support
Hi!
This patch adds support for the vt8235. Marcelo, please apply it to current 2.4.20 rc. It doesn't break anything, basically adds an entry to the table of supported devices.
Thanks.

If you do a search of the changelog for 8235 you'll find it.

In Soviet Russia

[richie2000]

Slashdot editors post the dupes first, then the original stories!

Re:Seriously - 486-33

[Brissie_lad]

i386 support is still there, those i586/i686 distro's are just that, distro's.
I've got an old (circa 1991) 486-DX25 machine here that I'm going to play around with as soon as I can dig up an old ISA NIC.

Windows compatible now...

[Anonymous Coward]

o drivers/net/eepro100.c: simplify wait_for_cmd_done(), better errors

Sorry, no can do

[goingware]

I like the name goingware.

I'm very proud of my business. I've been consulting full time since April '98. GoingWare was incorporated in March 2000.

Besides, GoingWare has built up a reputation for quality software development.

And lots of links to its page from people grateful for all the articles I have written.

So anwer me this:

Why do all you trolls have it in for me so much? I only try to be helpful, but you post the most vile stuff.

I've only ever posted anonymously here a couple times. I always use my real name. Why don't you?

Re:how long will it be...

[fucksl4shd0t]

" -- Smoke Me A Kipper I'll Be Back For Breakfast - Ace Rimmer " Hey, uh, I just finished watching this episode, and I could SWEAR that guy said "STOKE me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast." Of course, there's also an episode called "stoke me a kipper", so I could be biased.

Ah, Linux Newbies...

[mraymer]

In an IRC room...

linuxd00d: w00t, i got a new linux kernel to compile!
n00b: oh i've heard about that. can i do that in mandrake?
linuxd00d: umm, well, yeah... just make sure you have the kernel header files for your distro.
n00b: great. so what's this new version?
linuxd00d: it's the 2.4.20 kernel...
n00b: LOL ur a newb, that's OLD... I got Mandrake 9.0!
linuxd00d: *sigh*

Re:Ah, Linux Newbies...

[Tribbin]

Once again; what are we naggin' about wether we call the next 'generation' 2.6 or 3.0? ;-)

Re:Ah, Linux Newbies...

[applejacks]

In another totally unrelated chatroom..

egghead hey i'm so full of myself today man I really freaking despise freebsd...
mathew hey I'm having a problem with my symbolic links can someone help?
digusted egghead: why is it you hate bsd, for god sakes please tell us we know you are anyway you fuq head!
egghead well the packaged and ports just don't cut it as what I determine as
maintainablility...
shitmonkey wtf???? N00B hey I use BSD for years maybe your just ignorant you penis...
egghead well have you ever tired maintaining 1500 independant servers at once I think not so shut da fuq up biotch..
disgusted oh god why me....
*** egghead kicked shitmonkey, " get a real os "
*** egghead Quit( connection reset by peer )
disgusted thank you god.

Re:Ah, Linux Newbies...

[mraymer]

Strange, strange times. Makes me wonder how smart I must be to actually be able to understand how software version numbers actually matter.

By using complete sentences, you've proved that you're smarter than ~99.99% of the slashdot userbase... heh, which probably includes me! :(

Use Slackware

[MichaelCrawford]

It's compiled for 386. It is also much easier to install on machines with limited resources.

You should recompile your kernel to be optimized for 486 though. I'm not sure, but I think it could make a difference.

Here's where you get slackware.

It's a scary thing to do, but you would also benefit from recompiling glibc for the 486. The scary part is when you replace the old one, if you screw up your box stops working.

You should boot of a CD and mount your root volumne in /mnt on the ramdisk you're running when you do this - if you replace glibc on a running system and you break it, then you can't issue any commands anymore!

I have an old 486 laptop that I plan to install on sometime soon. I had originally intended to install Debian Woody, but Debian's minimum disk space after you've run dselect the first time is bigger than this thing's whole hard drive. Slackware doesn't have that problem.

Re:Use Slackware

[inode_buddha]

Actually I have a 486/25 in the corner here... I bet it would be good for a LFS (linux from scratch) install, since the whole thing would only be maybe 150Mb... Hrmmm, excuse me, I've got to log off and try that one out.

Well thank you

[MichaelCrawford]

After reading a few too many comments like this one it is nice to hear someone say they like what I write.

I work hard to write good articles. Some are very difficult to write, and take a lot of time. But I believe in doing well by doing good.

PS. I meant to post the LinuxQuality links as MichaelCrawford, but I used a different computer that still had a cookie that logged me in as goingware. I want to be known online by my own name now.

Re:Well thank you

[inode_buddha]

No problem... writing isn't easy, most of my friends and family do it, some for a living.

The slashdot crowd is interesting and harsh in its own way; thousands of people and thousands of viewpoints view and judge what you say. Even in this admittedly non-objective forum, it took me 6 months of effort to get my first story posted, and there were plenty of "flames" in response to it.

So, carry on, and I wish you good luck!

ps: my own site is embarrassingly out-of date and soon to be updated (next 72 hours) but here's a link to it: http://steigenlinux.org
I'm especially proud of the "Documentation" page

Re:Well thank you

[MichaelCrawford]

I'm sorry, but you'll have to find someone else to act out your fantasies with.

Athlon MP/XP prefetch bug.

[MROD]

Having read both the changelog and searched the kernel archives it's interesting to note that way back in 2.4.20-pre3 the Athlon MP/XP prefetch bug work around was pulled out of the kernel.

Subsiquently, Alan Cox in the kernel mailing list archives responds to someone asking about this and says that he thinks some of the VM changes have fixed at least the AGP problems but not the mmap ones, to quote:-

-ac has it removed. I didn't know Marcelo had it removed. Andi Kleen has a patch for doing most of the right things without trashing performance. That may be what Marcelo merged. It fixed AGP but not O_SYNC mmap I believe

this was posted on the 17th August and there's no further mention of the problem as far as I can see.

If this hasn't been fixed in the full 2.4.20 release then there is no way I can install this kernel on our three dual processor Athlon MP boxes we use for mathematical simulations as the machines need to be able to run for many weeks on the problems and hence have to be rock-solid stable.

Does anyone know if the new VM fixes fully fix the Athlon MP/XP problems?

Re:Athlon MP/XP prefetch bug.

[DaCool42]

why would you use the very latest kernel version on machines that need to be rock-solid anyway?

Re:Athlon MP/XP prefetch bug.

[MROD]

Well, firstly, the 2.4.x kernels are supposed to be stable (Hmm...)

Secondly, there are some issues with speed *IF* the Athlon prefetch code has been fixed.

Thirdly, from whay I can remember, there are a few possible security issues with 2.4.19.

Re:New beta too, plus obligatory reference

[mark_lybarger]

when the kernel obtains the uber 4.20 status as the recent xfree managed to do, then it'll truely be a rejoycefull moment. it would be extra kewl if they would use a : instead of a . just for that release, i'm sure RMS could probably start an insightfull thread on kernel.org to kick off the efforts.

as it stands, that leading 2 out there obfuscates the hidden national burn time and quite frankly i'm not buying it. it's 4:20 or the highway baby.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[arazor]

It was a joke and a bad one at that... I was under the influence at the time... I guess the soviet russia thing isnt cool anymore or i just suck oh well

Why I write

[MichaelCrawford]

I've been programming for a long time. I'm good at it, and I suppose if I really put some time into coding for a Free Software project, I could do a lot of good.

But most of my contribution to Free Software has really been in the form of writing. I have also written a lot of stuff which is not copylefted, but posted publicly on the web. here some more as well as this.

I have contributed some to zoolib, but that's mostly in the form of qa, project management (for the initial open source release) and marketing.

One reason I prefer to contribute by writing is that my normal programming work is so hard, that when I get time to take a break from it, it's difficult to work up much enthusiasm to write more code, no matter how fun the project might be. I imagine that's a common problem.

Another reason is that I feel that any contribution I could make to Free Software, at least in the limited time I have, would be small. I could fix some bugs, add some features, do some testing. But how many people would benefit from my personal contribution? I don't think that many would, at least not until I had the time to develop a really serious package, and I just don't have the energy for that. I have lots of ideas, but no time.

But I feel that passing on my experience by writing can benefit others far out of proportion to the effort I put in. That is because I aim my writing to enable others to do better. By writing well, I enable many other developers to code a little better, and many users to do better testing and bug reporting.

I could lead by example by writing good code, but how many people would learn by reading it? When's the last time you studied the source for some package you weren't really actively involved with? Prose is much more accessible.

This is all the more important because so few engineers of any sort are good writers. When my father was a civilian electrical engineer for the Navy, the shipyard sent him to a writing class so he could write better test plans! The man has a master's degree! But the Navy put lots of people through that class because so many of their engineers didn't know how to write.

What is funny is that I find writing much more difficult than programming. With software, you know when you're wrong. It's not always so clear with writing. The main reason I write so well is because most of my effort is put into editing - and I still find lots of mistakes later.

Even more ironic is that I used to hate writing with a passion. One major reason is that I have terrible handwriting - I can't read my own handwriting, and can't imagine how anyone else could. But the schools always used to require handwritten essays. They used to send me to remedial handwriting classes, which I really hated because they made my hand hurt. It's painful for me to write much by hand.

What did it for me was two things - a composition class I took at the community college during the summer when I was sixteen, that was just really well taught, and being able to type. I type really fast now, and there's no pain.

My senior year Advanced Placement English Teacher asked me to drop the class because of my poor handwriting. He was quite taken aback when I started screaming at him. I'd had enough of teachers criticizing my handwriting, I didn't need to hear it again when I was seventeen years old.

He was concerned that I couldn't pass the exam (which could get me college credit) because the judges wouldn't be able to read my essays.

He proposed a compromise. He suggested that I block print.

I had no problem with that. And at the exam at the end of the year, I turned in my exam neatly block-printed in all capital letters. I just used bigger capitals for where a capital was really required.

I was the only student in my school that year to get a 5 on the english AP exam (a perfect score).

mirrors and P2P

[silence535]

..can be found at the usual places, and please use a mirror for all your downloads"

Apologies if this has been discussed before and I missed it. (If so, ignore and silently send me the link to the discussion please.)

Why don't the kernel guys distribute the kernel sources over the well established P2P networks to reduce load on their servers and to speed up downloads for everyone?

I mean, why not put it into the donkey and publish the e2k link on the official kernel.org web page and also submit it to the sharereactor?

MD5 or other hashing can guarantee that the official release has not been tampered with.

Am I missing something here?

silence

Linux and Mirrors

[Antity]

Happily (running a 2.4.19pre) I tried our local official mirror "ftp.de.kernel.org". Nope, no 2.4.20 there. :-( So at least I fetched the .19 patch.

This is just sad. I don't want to hit the master "ftp.kernel.org" over and over again and won't do it, but can't they wait at least with the announcement until most of the official mirrors have caught up?

10000 people hitting "ftp.kernel.org" now - this doesn't have to happen but it is on nearly every kernel release. This leads the whole mirror concept ad absurdum on every release.

Disclaimer: I don't need 2.4.20 "within the next days", but as many others I like to hack around with new stuff, so if it is announced, I want to fiddle with it. :-)

See you all in #waitingforftpconnect .

Re:Linux and Mirrors

[Papineau]

Since it has just released, not all mirrors have it yet. The country's mirrors are in a round-robbin DNS, so just keep trying with the same DNS name, you'll end up on another mirror which could have it.

Re:Linux and Mirrors

[Antity]

Thanks for the "country mirrors are round-robin" trick. This was neither obvious nor documented.

This is against what you'd expect connecting to an FTP server, though (if you connect to an FTP server by-name, you shouldn't have to care about it being different hosts with different content, IMHO).

However, I fetched my .19-.20 patch from "ftp.kernel.org" now. I really isn't worth the hassle with obscured country mirrors, sorry. And the server seemed to handle the load today quite nice (I won't start speculating about traffic costs.) ("ftp.kernel.org" was FAST, even for those ~4MB.)

It still seems to me that the current FTP kernel distribution system isn't well-organized. (Official) announcements should go out after all official mirrors got the file (this or "servers got 6 hours to catch up, now we publish").

This won't help against Slashdot announcing it, but it's The Right Thing To Do anyway.

And I'd strongly suggest to stay away from DNS round-robin for country-level FTP load-balancing. This is prone to cause trouble.

How do you extract..

[Akoma The Immortal]

How do you extract the compilation settings of your [favorite_distro_name_here]?

I am trying to compile the new kernel with Suse 7.1 and I can't seem how they have set the modules.

Or I am stupid. :)

Re:How do you extract..

[Brissie_lad]

Have a look in /boot for a Config* file, or if you have the source that came with the stock Suse kernel have a look for a .config file, if you find one or the other copy it to /usr/src/linux-2.4.20 as .config and do "make oldconfig" instead of "make menuconfig".

EXT3 may be broken

[Xua]

Here is a link with some info about it. Now much though...

But here where I work one guy tried 2.4.20 on his Mandrake 9.0 (I cannot confirm that he did everything right though), but his / partition got completely corrupted. Same thing after fresh install and new kernel install.

New Wireless Extension API - part2

[Secure42]

For wireless users, 2.4.20 bring a the new wireless extension aand couple fix into airo drivers.
And future kernel 2.6 will bring hostap driver into the kernel, hopefully.

Re:That's all well and good, but is this really ne

[Fragmented_Datagram]

...so more people will test the kernel and report problems back to the maintainers. Then we all benefit with a more stable kernel.

Well thank you

[MichaelCrawford]

It's good to know that someone too ashamed to post under his real name thinks so highly of me.

Why don't you come out and say who you really are?

Re:how long will it be...

[Archie Steel]

Are you sure it's not the compiler? I have had the same problem with VMWare, but I have a feeling it's not the kernel that's at fault, but rather gcc 3.X (which they say is not supported). Not that I really care, now that Codeweaver's Crossover runs Office and Quicken, I don't use VMWare anymore.

P.S. Ferme ta gueule de merde, sale enculé.

If this isn't a bad characterization of slashdot:

[Junks Jerzey]

It's that time again to do the thing we all love to do, compile your shiny new kernel. This time its 2.4.20.

then I don't know what is.

It's a bug in the slashcode

[MichaelCrawford]

I always post in HTML. But sometimes the little menu below the text entry box that allows me to select "HTML formatted" is set to "plain old text" and I don't notice.

The bug is partially that slashdot doesn't seem to always remember the way I like to post, and partially that it doesn't notice I have already entered <p> tags and it goes ahead and enters its own markup anyway.

You would think that if a post contained markup, that "plain old text" would either strip out the markup, escape it as entities, or flip the selection to "HTML formatted" and not add markup of its own, but it doesn't do any of that. Instead, it enters paragraph breaks on top of the ones I already have, and so you get the widely spaced posts.

Lots of other people get this problem too, not just me.

VESA Local Bus

[Zymurgy]

Reading the changelog, I was just happy to see they updated the drivers for the Adaptec AHA-2840 VLB SCSI controller and the SMC 91C92 Ethernet chip, which is found on my VESA Local Bus Ethernet cards. Ah, I'm thrilled because I just so happen to be building a file server right now that uses both.

Hey, you can't tell me I'm the only person in here who uses the VESA Local Bus on his servers!!!

Re:VESA Local Bus

[base3]

Holy crap! I have an AHA-2842 that used to reside in a 486 back in the day. Of course, for file serving, fast disks and a 486 should work fine.

Re:That's all well and good, but is this really ne

[danamania]

*pats you on the head*

you're drunk. go sleep it off.

a grrl & her server

Re:Read The Manual!

[nonweasel]

the changelog plainly states that a few of the 2.5 improvments have been added to 2.4

ok, so what did I screw up?...

[fudgefactor7]

After comple and install modules.dep is missing in /lib/modules/2.4.20 (for that matter /lib/modules/2.4.20 is missing entirely.) Everything works (so far), so I'm not too worried about it, but can I just copy the dep file from 2.4.18 to 2.4.20? Or is that a really bad idea? In other words, what's up with that?

Re:No! Don't do it

[Hard_Code]

Wait...didn't that reefer madness video promise "loose women" though?...

MOD Parent up, this is a good idea

[devmike]

Yeah...yeah read the subject. Doing a usenet push helps out ISPs as well, since more users would be pestering a local server instead of bugging the internet.

VServer patch for 2.4.20

[Laven]

http://www.13thfloor.at/VServer/

For those of you looking for the vserver with security contexts patch for 2.4.20.

Re:Seriously - 486-33

[fferreres]

Usually they are usually optimized for i686, but they don't (again usually) drop i386 support. It's just not optimized for i386.

do I REALLY need to do this??

[pair-a-noyd]

I don't know if my balls are HUGE enough to try this! I'm only going on my 3rd month now and this sounds pretty freaky to me.

Can't I like screw the pooch or something worse if I fart the wrong way on this??

Someone give me a sign. I need some encouragement to try this, or at least a can of fix-a-flat so my balls will be big enough to try this!!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!! (i'm scared!)

lol!

Living amongst the Lusers

[MarcQuadra]

I have to deal with that kind of crap all the time. I work as a technician at an IT service company and some of the engineers consider themselves linux pros because they can install and use RedHat. I ask if they compile their own kernels and they give me dumb blank stares. I hate when people treat Linux like 'just another Windows clone'

Yes, you're right I suppose

[MichaelCrawford]

Sometimes I forget myself.

Re: Usenet as p2p tool...

[Abreu]

Nope, bad idea... not everyone has access to usenet included in their isp package.

For instance, I havent been able to find an isp in my area that would give me usenet... And im definetely not paying an additional 10usd+ a month just to get 3 times more spam along with the occasionaly interesting discussion thread.

I fear we will just have to wait for p2p networks to evolve a bit more... and for bandwith to cheapen a lot more...

Re: Usenet as p2p tool...

[LinuxHam]

newzbot.com - lets you search for open NNTP servers by various criteria including newsgroup name. Everyone does indeed have usenet access, provided 119 outbound isn't blocked by the ISP.

Besides, my proposal wasn't to read the newsgroups and cut and paste the kernel patches like what you see today.. just develop a standard way to post binaries to some new comp.os.linux.binaries.patches[.kernel] groups and harvest them. If apt (or rpm, or buildkernel) was to get a standard way to harvest usenet binaries and cryptographically verify them, then kernel patches could be distributed by someone on a 56k modem instead of a 250Mbit pipe.

Comcast (at least in my area, and I'm 20 miles from corporate hq) blocks all my outbound p2p connections at their routers. And that's the biggest fish in the pond. It's going to get a lot worse from here for everyone. Easy-to-use p2p is on the way out, but Usenet isn't going anywhere.

Re:The Free World (Re:DMCA Violations)

[hazyshadeofwinter]

Hmmm, you're right. So either the Freeworld.net stuff got taken offline thanks to a DMCA takedown notice[1] or the folks who called the whole Linux bugfix/DMCA thing a publicity stunt on Alan Cox's part were right.

[1] thefreeworld.net also once hosted a copy of decss, and some other copy-protection-workaround type stuff, any of which might have been in violation of the DMCA as I understand it (and of course, IANALIAJA/.W [2])
[2] I Am Not A Lawyer, I Am Just Another Slashdot Weenie.

Re:New beta too, plus obligatory reference

[Stinson]

Try going around asking people where you can score some tetrahydrocannabinol, and see what happens. . . Actually, most pot smokers know what THC standsfor, although not all can pronounce it correctly, but they know (just as a small comment from the underground)

Re: Usenet as p2p tool...

[Abreu]

Thanks for the tip... I'll check that one out.

About Comcast, sorry to hear that, but if it makes you feel better let me tell you that there's also a disadvantage on having an isp that has all ports open... Mine is 'prodigy.net.mx' an infamous spammer haven.

Last Post!

[alpg]

Good morning. This is the telephone company. Due to repairs, we're
giving you advance notice that your service will be cut off indefinitely
at ten o'clock. That's two minutes from now.

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