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.

Comments

Excellent.

[Anonymous Coward]

I picked up a SparcServer1000E recently for nothing. 2.2.x series kernels are the only choice for me since sun4d architecture isn't supported under the 2.4.x kernels...

Such a pity since I'd like to use LVM etc...

Still.. I'm too dumb to fix it myself...

Re:Slow news day eh?

[Isle]

Surprise: The 2.0 kernels are also still being maintained.

At least one OS will maintain compatibility

[hillct]

With the end-of-life nearing for DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows95, leaving only Win2K and WinXP, from that other vendor, you'd think everyone would be happy to see that older hardware is still usable under Linuux using kernels that are inherently less resource-intensive.

You can't have it both ways folks...

--CTH

Then what about 1.2?

[mangu]

My first Linux installation was an Yggdrasil distro with kernel 1.2.13. However, since I never got any good documentation for Yggdrasil I soon moved to Slackware, same kernel. The hardware was a 386/33MHz, 8Mb RAM, two IDE disks, one 80 Mb and another 120 Mb. I still have that hardware somewhere, except that the Mitsumi CD-ROM has died.

Well, that was a nice kernel, worked fine, even with X, on a hardware that win95 had made obsolete. The motherboard had seven ISA slots, four free after the multi-IO, network, and CD-ROM went in. I did some hardware development on ISA cards. Too bad, no more. These days only industrial hardware, in the $5000+ range, have ISA slots, and PCI development can't be done by hobbyists.

Still using 2.0..

[robbo]

I work in a robotics lab and several of our robots are running 2.0. Why? The company that built them wrote drivers that run in 2.0 and they've since gone out of business. As long as the kernel is stable, which it is, it's not worth the development effort for us to write new 2.2 or 2.4 drivers. Given that the robot cost about $60K, we're also not eager to run out and buy a new one.

What can I still use with 2.2?

[eggstasy]

I would like to see if I can set up a lighter system on my 486, so my mom can use the web and email. A GUI, compatibility with modern webpages and ease of use are a requirement.
Presently I have windows 3.11 + Calmira (a very lightweight program that gives you a win95 interface under 3.x). I can run the 16-bit version of IE5 there just fine, though it takes a few seconds to boot.
Can I do this with an older Linux kernel? I remember that 2 year ago your average distro ran very slowly on my recently deceased MMX pentium so I definitely cant use anything standar like that on my 486.
I was thinking that given its infinite customizability an LFS setup could breathe new life into the ole bugger. Is it worth it to move to an older kernel and lose compatibility with modern apps?
Wouldnt the apps be more resource-intensive than the kernel? I shudder at the thought of how slow mozilla would be on that box. Does opera require a 2.4 kernel? Does IceWM? Is there anything lighter than IceWM with a win95 look? Any general advice?

Re:Is it possible to downgrade your kernel?

[Ed Avis]

I don't think that the 2.4 kernel is noticeably more resource-intensive than 2.2. In fact, it is quite a bit faster for typical users.

Now a typical Linux distribution using the 2.4 kernel may be slower than one based on 2.2, but that is due to other factors like the C library, perhaps a newer version of KDE or whatever.