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Linux Kernel 2.2.23 Released
sekra writes "Alan Cox has released a new version of the 2.2 kernel. 2.2.23-rc2 was renamed to 2.2.23 without any changes. You can find the ChangeLog in his announcement and download the patch from your local mirror."
There seems to be a flurry of releases this weekend.
It has USB support, and it can be patched for most FSs.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
2.2.x it's the best for old computers, besides not everyone have AMD,Inetll - 2_GHz on VIA_Kt-400 with DDR ;-)
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Indeed. Those of us with *old* machines that still serve some function (and I'm talking about 486) are delighted to know that older, less demanding kernel versions are still maintained.
No sig
Most everyone who is making critical systems and embedded systems.
the world is a lot larger than your house.
My router uses a floppy-based distro and that has the 2.2 kernel, and I really see no reason why I would want 2.4 on that old box. It isn't broken, so it doesn't need an upgrade to 2.4. You could say that it isn't very vulnerable to the mentioned problem either, because if someone got access to it, I would have a far bigger problem than them crashing my router. Others may have other uses for 2.2, so a fix of the mentioned problem is definately a Good Thing[tm] and nice news.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Embedded developers. When you're running on a low-power CPU and 4MB (or less) RAM and no swap you tend to value small footprint over kewl features. No reason my microwave oven needs USB, low latency, ReiserFS, etc. But what it DOES need is to be cheap to produce and reliable as all hell. Old kerels are MUCH more predictable too, they've got a lot longer to shake out the major bugs. I wouldn't want my hot-water heater running 2.4.11 now would I?
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Not enough to make it worth the hassle.
Yes, actually. We found that there are some VPNing tools that don't work correctly (or at all) under the 2.4.x kernel, but work just fune under 2.2.x.
binary compatibility with any drivers
There is no garantee about binary compatibility for kernel code between any versions. Not even same source compiled with different options are garanteed to be binary compatible. You can however expect most driver sources to be compatible between the 2.2.x kernels.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Just start kernel 'bf24' at the lilo prompt before the install, and you're off and running on 2.4
Very few programs actually require 2.4. IceWM will do just fine on 2.2, and I think Opera will as well (but don't quote me on Opera). A while back, I installed Slackware 8's 'zipslack' (based on a 2.2.2x kernel) on a EXT2 partition on my 486 laptop and added X and IceWM, and it ran moderately well. However, I would really recommend getting at least 32 mb of RAM if you want to run things on X.
I would slap as much RAM into the thing as possible and build gentoo on it from stage 1. Building will take several days but gentoo is a 'ground-up' rather than a 'kitchen sink' philosophy. make sure to pick your optimization flags well, this will be very important. afterwards 'emerge' (install from source) Xfree86, WindowMaker, and Phoenix (a leaner mozilla derivative). I don't know if that will be decent, but it seems to work on my 200MHz machine alright. Another option would be to build it with Xfree and then run the windowmanager + applications on a faster machine and have the output go to the slow machine (that's what I do from my old machines). Only make it an X terminal if you have decent network and graphics cards, as those will be key to snappy performance.
Alan Cox being alien should not come as a surprise on anyone, but what's that part about 'intelligence' ??