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Linux Kernel 2.4.21 Released

Posted by michael on from the load-average-increasing dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After > 6 months of waiting, 2.4.21 is here. Lots of cleanups, and a patch which gives a MAJOR boost to the 'feel' of the system under heavy disk IO, especially on IDE systems. As usual, available from your local kernel.org mirror or ftp.COUNTRYCODE.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/! Tidbit: 'Current bandwidth utilization 131.72 Mbit/s '." See the Changelog for new stuff.

20 of 539 comments (clear)

  1. Be gentle to the mirrors by Spock+the+Vulcan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Instead of downloading the entire kernel, download just the patch file if you are running the previous version. Then patch your source tree using:

    cd /usr/src/linux
    bzcat /blah/patch-2.4.21.bz2|patch -p1
    make oldconfig

    1. Re:Be gentle to the mirrors by volkerdi · · Score: 3, Informative

      Instead of downloading the entire kernel, download just the patch file if you are running the previous version.

      But, is anyone actually running vanilla 2.4.20, or keeping it in /usr/src/linux? Odds are that most people are running vendor kernels (even in Slackware the usually virgin kernel has been slightly violated this time ;), or at least applied the ptrace hole fix. As that fix is implemented differently in 2.4.21 it would be enough to keep the patch from applying cleanly.

      Of course, you might still have the official linux-2.4.20.tar.bz2 tarball sitting around somewhere, and if you do you can use that and the patch-2.4.21.

  2. Re:BitTorrent by aliens · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bit torrent works best on large files. The source is only like 20megs. They could do it, but people should be only downloading the patch anyway.

    --
    -- taking over the world, we are.
  3. heres how to compile the kernel by net_bh · · Score: 3, Informative

    $ cd /path/to/kernel
    $ make menuconfig # Replace menuconfig with xconfig if you want
    -Select the options you need in your kernel and save it
    $ make dep bzImage
    -Look in arch//boot/ for the bzImage file
    -Install it for your favourite bootloader (grub/lilo) and reboot machine
    -gloat :)

    --
    There is no patch for stupidity

    Visit my blog

  4. Re:Quick Question by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 4, Informative

    $ cp linux-2.4.20/.config linux-2.4.21/
    $ cd linux-2.4.21
    $ make oldconfig

  5. Re:Just to get these out of the way... by shepd · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, it does.

    Sorry to burst your bubble... :)

    --
    If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
  6. Re:Admin Question by xanadu-xtroot.com · · Score: 3, Informative

    Im using a 2.4.20-rc7.

    Well, the 2.4.21 kernel was (in reality) the RC-8. Look at the changelog and see if any of that applies to you. If so then yes, it's would be wise to upgrade. If not, then it's your call. This is why the changlog exists...

    --
    I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
    I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
  7. Re:why not posting the http links instead of the f by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Informative
    1. because of the extra overhead in http transfers (the server's overloaded already - why put extra load on it)
    2. because of the ability to resume ftp transfers (w/o browser add-ins)
    3. because the people who are actually going to comile it are at ease with ftp (prevents wannabes from uselessly sucking up bandwidth and/or hosing their systems doing a fucked-up compile/install :-)
  8. Re:Admin Question by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 4, Informative

    Im in charge of keeping production servers up to date. Im using a 2.4.20-rc7.
    should I go up tp 2.4.21

    If stability is important to you, you should only use proven, stable kernels on a production server.

    Unless there is some new feature that you absolutely need RIGHT NOW and cannot wait, it is very bad to use 2.4.20-rc7 on a production server. The "rc" stands for "release candidate", which means that the kernel is almost ready to be used by the public, but needs people to test it first.

    If you care about system stability, you should not be testing the kernel on a production machine. If you do want to test the kernel, do so on a test machine that is not a mission critical machine.

    On several occasions in the past, a release-candidate kernel introduced new code which would crash or corrupt systems that used the kernel.

    However, if 2.4.20-rc7 is not crashing on you, you don't need to upgrade to 2.4.21 right away. Review the kernel changelog, and see if any of the changes apply to you. Wait a few days (or weeks), and upgrade to 2.4.21 when it's convenient to you.

    Personally, unless there is some urgent fix that I need in the new kernel, I always wait a few weeks or months before upgrading the kernel, just in case some wierd bug was introduced into the new kernel version. During those weeks or months, I usually test the new kernel on a test machine and see if anything wierd happens.

    --
    "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  9. Re:Started to think 2.4.x was dead by gunpowder · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't believe some still don't get this:

    As long as it's not available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org or http://www.kernel.org, there is no newer version of the linux kernel.

    The same applies to the ftp://gcc.gnu.org and GCC (not the website, they are always a little bit lame updating it).

    So if you say

    'Mandrake has already put the "2.4.21" kernel in their 9.1 release'

    your are wrong! They didn't. They lied to you. Or you are mistaken. Or they used a prerelease and renamed it 2.4.21.

    And no, 2.4.21 it's not 'too late'. Look at the Changelog and what huge amount of bugfixing has been done. And all those updates to the drivers!

    True, 2.6 will feature a log of nice extra stuff, but I guess 99.9% of all linux users are happy with just the features 2.4 has. They simply don't need support for NUMA, 64bit dev_t or Zero-copy NFS.

  10. Re:RedHat kernels by mahdi13 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Red Hat 9 back-ported a disk scheduler which is a dog. either download this 2.4.21 vanilla kernel and compile it or recompile the default RH9 kerenl and remove the scheduler (I believe it is under General, been a while since I looked at this...the option right after the CPU info)

    --
    "Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
  11. This is a known problem, if: by WD · · Score: 4, Informative

    If the following are true, then the high CPU usage is expected:
    -You have an IDE CD burner
    -You are using IDE-SCSI emulation
    -You are burning a CD with a blocksize other than 2048 (such as redbook audio, or (S)VCD, etc..)

    If the above are all true, the ide-scsi emulation reverts to PIO mode. Supposedly this will be fixed for 2.6

  12. Re:excellent, we can switch to this (SCO) by nchip · · Score: 3, Informative

    From the Release notes:

    > o [Bluetooth] Use very short disconnect timeout for SCO connections.
    > o [Bluetooth] Kill incoming SCO connection when SCO socket is closed.
    > o [Bluetooth] Support for SCO (voice) over HCI USB

    Are these the lines SCO's bitching about?
    Nope. SCO in the bluetooth world means Synchronous Connection Oriented link.
    Used mostly with bluetooth wireless handsfree devices.

    --
    signatures pending - ansa@kos.to - (dont mail there)
  13. 2.4.21 by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yippie! 2.4.21 is finally here! :) (I got it about an hour before the /. story showed up.)

    They now have Opteron support in there.. I knew it was in the pre, I was just wondering if the new kernel or the rest of my hardware would show up first. I have everything for a dual Opteron system, except the processors and case. I'm so anxious, I'm going to burst. :)

    ( ) 386
    ( ) 486
    ( ) 586/K5/5x86/6x86/6x86MX
    ( ) Pentium-Classic
    ( ) Pentium-MMX
    ( ) Pentium-Pro/Celeron/Pentium-II
    ( ) Pentium-III/Celeron(Coppermine)
    ( ) Pentium-4
    ( ) K6/K6-II/K6-III
    ( ) Athlon/Duron/K7
    (X) Opteron/Athlon64/Hammer/K8
    ( ) Elan
    ( ) Crusoe
    ( ) Winchip-C6
    ( ) Winchip-2
    ( ) Winchip-2A/Winchip-3
    ( ) CyrixIII/VIA-C3
    ( ) VIA-C3-2

    I'm going to be a compiling fool when the rest of the parts show up. :) I'm going to try to get Slackware running on it. :)

    --
    Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  14. Re:BitTorrent by Wakkow · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've never done this before, but I thought I'd give it a shot:

    http://66.227.104.34/linux-2.4.21.tar.bz2.torren t

  15. Re:Started to think 2.4.x was dead by presroi · · Score: 4, Informative
    Far from dead...hell, the 2.2 kernel is still being maintained and patched (mostly by Alan Cox, but still...it's active)


    Even 2.0.X is still maintained. It currently stands at 2.0.40-rc6 (almost one year old).
  16. BitTorrent Download Link by Brian+Ristuccia · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/torrent/linux-2.4.21 .torrent

  17. Re:13th? by cperciva · · Score: 3, Informative

    What happened on thanksgiving?

    Thanksgiving 2002 saw the 2.4.20 data corruption on umount kernel released; thanksgiving 2001 saw the famous 2.4.15 "greased turkey" data corruption on umount kernel released.

    There have been other kernels with problems, but it seems that the data corruption bugs tend to arrive with thanksgiving.

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
  18. Re:13th? by cperciva · · Score: 4, Informative

    The past two thanksgivings have seen kernels released (2.4.15 and 2.4.20) with serious data-corruption-on-umount bugs.

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
  19. Re:Intel SATA Support by Alan+Cox · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you do then you should also get Jeff Garzik's new sata as scsi stack patch and use that.