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Linux v2.6 Begins Testing
xose quotes Linus from the kernel list: "the naming should be familiar - it's the same deal as with 2.4.0.
One difference is that while 2.4.0 took about 7 months from the pre1 to
the final release, I hope (and believe) that we have fewer issues facing
us in the current 2.6.0. But very obviously there are going to be a
few test-releases before the real thing.
The point of the test versions is to make more people realize that they
need testing and get some straggling developers realizing that it's too
late to worry about the next big feature. I'm hoping that Linux vendors
will start offering the test kernels as installation alternatives, and
do things like make upgrade internal machines, so that when the real
2.6.0 does happen, we're all set." You all know what to do ;) Update: 07/14 17:49 GMT by S : OverNeith writes "Joe Pranevich has done it again! He's written another summary document on what to expect in the new and upcoming 2.6 Kernel!"
And ive just compiled it. I was quite surprised I managed to get it to boot without it panicing. I'm even typing from the new kernel now. But there is a word of warning though. The layout of the /dev folder has been rearranged. As a result some of my programs have broke.
/dev/hda, /dev/hdb/, /dev/hdc now become /dev/discs/disc0, /dev/discs/disc1, /dev/discs/disc2. So you will need to edit /etc/fstab to reflect the changes.
For example.
Downloaded, compiled and installed. Working since 4 hours on a Slackware-9.0-current, asus L8460K notebook (p3/1000, 256mb ram, i440bx, S3 savage/MX, ess allegro) and quite standard compilation options (acpi, alsa, pcmcia, usb, netfilter, no ipv6, preemptible kernel). Applied patch as seen on LKML (see here) for vfsmount.
Happy testing!
I'm fat, you're ugly. I can get slimmer, and you?
LINUX 2.6 KEY CHANGES
Faster, more predictable performance and new APIs are on tap
[Yay]
Desktop improvements
[Whatever that means]
Universal Serial Bus 2.0 and production Bluetooth support
[Yay]
Pre-emptible kernel with low-latency kernel patches for more user responsiveness and better multimedia performance, even under heavy loads
[Like Windows XP!]
Server improvements
[Whatever that means]
Updated I/O and memory subsystem for faster throughput and scalability
[Yeah, like blast processing]
Faster, more scalable process scheduler
[Pfft]
User-mode Linux to allow multiple system images running on the same box to aid server consolidation and application separation
[Sounds like the minutes of a business meeting]
Asynchronous I/O and completion events--a big improvement for Web servers and databases
[I'll take your word for it]
Support for disks larger than 2 terabytes and for SGI's XFS enterprise file system
[OK]
Faster, POSIX-compliant threading library
[Redundant]
The new anticipatory scheduler seems to make a much bigger difference than the preempt patch did in 2.4.
/. in Opera :)
My test box is a Duron 750 with 384M of RAM, running Apache 1.3, Tomcat 4.0 (with Sun 1.4 JVM), MySQL 4.0, X11 + Windowmaker, usually running Opera and Mozilla.
With 2.6.0-test1, I can run the load average up to 3.6 or so, and Mozilla is more responsive than it ever was on 2.4, even with a completely idle system. In fact, it's almost as responsive as the ancient Netscape 4.7 on this same system (compare Netscape 4.7 with any Mozilla 1.x release, if you don't know what I mean).
I'm doing all this junk at once:
- Recompiling the kernel in a `while true' loop
- Recompiling a 100,000 Java project in a `while true' loop
- Playing mp3s with mpg123
- Untarring a kernel tarball, then deleting it, in another loop
- Using Mozilla to hit locally-hosted Tomcat servlets, which make heavy use of the local MySQL server, which has pretty large tables (biggest 2 tables are 1.6G and 400M)
- Reading
I can't make the mp3s skip, and virtual desktop switching is instant. In 2.4, even with the preempt and lowlatency patches, either Mozilla or mpg123 will freeze up, and/or Tomcat/mysql will lag badly (of course, preempt/lowlat isn't supposed to help much with background server daemon processes anyway). 2.6.0-test1's performance under load also beats the 2.5.6x and 2.5.7x kernels I tried on this machine, though most of the 2.5's were an improvement over 2.4.
It helps that all this activity doesn't cause much swap usage (hovering right around 200Kb of swap used).
BTW, if you're already able to run recent 2.5 kernels, you should be able to just throw 2.6.0-test1 in and have it work (no need to upgrade anything you haven't already, to support 2.5).
Executive summary: I'm a happy camper... If you're able to do so, you should try out this kernel on a spare box & see how you like it.