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Towards Linux 2.6

Posted by michael on from the baby-steps dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The impending release of a new stable kernel promises greater adoption for Linux, as it becomes more reliable and scalable over a larger variety of processors. This article highlights some of the changes, both big and small, with some code samples."

5 of 14 comments (clear)

  1. Interactive Performance by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Interactive performance With the new scheduler, the user should not see the system taking longer to respond to things like mouse clicks or key taps, even under very high loads.

    One of the biggest problems new users face expecting Linux to be "faster" than Windows, and booting up for the first time to a slow and klunky desktop with either Gnome or KDE. When things get real slow, having the mouse and keyboard unresponsive make the system feel really rough and unpolished. The more I think about this one the more I think 2.6 will start the next generation of distributions that are finally going to feel like an operating system as opposed to a midnight hack session.

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  2. Re:My first Linux install. Success! by slittle · · Score: 2, Funny
    baited breath
    Have you been stealing Tux's dinner again? Tsk tsk tsk.
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    Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
  3. Code samples by ThyTurkeyIsDone · · Score: 5, Funny
    This one caught my eye:
    int arr[NR_CPUS];

    arr[smp_processor_id()] = i;
    /* Chris, I'm gonna insert this bit from SVR4 here
    so we can sue these commie pinkos later, hehe */
    j = arr[smp_processor_id()]
    /* Darl, you're a freaking genius! ROFL Chris */
  4. No MMU? Finally! by grunthos · · Score: 3, Interesting
    including support for MMU-less systems that do not have a hardware-controlled memory management scheme

    Well, it's about time-- I've been waiting years to run this Linux thing directly on my original IBM AT. Now I can yank out that Intel Inboard/386 hack I had to add in to get it to work. That has always bugged me.

    At least it can just be unplugged with no regrets. Unlike cutting my other original IBM AT case with the Dremel to get that stupid ATX motherboard in there; no going back on that one. Stupid progress.

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  5. Serial ATA by Apreche · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How about some serial ATA support? I just built a new gentoo this weekend, and it does it all. Except for serial ata, which I need.

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