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Linux Kernel 2.6.0-test6 Released

Posted by michael on from the lazy-sunday dept.

lamont116 writes "The latest in the series of beta kernels was just released by the fine folks who have given us Linux. Enjoy!" The Changelog has a hefty 240K of miscellaneous changes... LWN has an overview of the updates.

59 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. 2.6 and Longhorn by NeoGeo64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, since most likely some varation of the 2.6 kernel will be out when Longhorn is released, this puts Linux in a good position with 2.6's better memory management and IDE support and whatnot...

    1. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by technix4beos · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was thinking about this very thing a few days ago, the fact that Microsoft has basically provided a free gift to the alternative OS camps.

      Think about it. They've continually pushed back the release date of Longhorn, at least three times now, to my recollection. The screenshots they have leaked out, whether they are true or not haven't produced any vote of confidence from the various geeks I've seen comment about it online.

      I'm neither defending Microsoft or trying to put them down, but the fact remains that their competition has been given a lot of breathing room, which I think if used wisely, will show some very large rewards by the time Longhorn comes out in full force.

      One more thing. Let's assume for a moment that Longhorn starts selling on January 1st, 2005. We're being really optimistic, but for the sake of argument, I'll pick this date. Now... in typical Microsoft fashion, and from the history of the IT world, it won't be for at least 6 months before it even makes a significant market shift.

      Who will upgrade to an OS that curtails choices in the file system? Who will spend the money on an OS that hasn't proven itself yet? I'm not talking about Windows itself, but the new Longhorn. The Windows line of products has had varied levels of success, not just due to marketing guidance, but because it has solved some issues for joe user.

      As for Longhorn, the "early adopters" might give it a try, but it will still take quite some time before the mass market checks it out. I predict it will be at least 6 months time before Longhorn starts to make any real significant headway in the market.

      So, given that I'm being optimistic with a date of January 1st, 2005, I really believe that the alternative OS's will have at least two full years before being in any danger from the MS Marketing Machine.

      Just my two cents.

      --
      user@host$ diff /dev/urandom /dev/uspto
    2. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If I had to bet a dollar I'd bet that MS will fork the "golden build" in early Spring 2005, it'll go gold in Summer, and it'll be generally avaiable in Sept 2005.

      I worked there during the whole "Whistler" cycle -- I got a feel for the cycle.

    3. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by NeoGeo64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Agreed. Longhorn is just way too different from previous versions of Windows - and not a good different either.

      They're not rewriting the code, they're just adding flashy new eyecandy and DRM. If Microsoft wants a good version of Windows, they need to dump the entire NT garbage and rewrite Windows from scratch.

      Apple got a clue with OSX and came to the conslusion that the classic kernel just was never going to be stable, so they ditched it and now they have a *BSD core. Apple's happy, *NIX users are happy, and the open source community is happy.

      Now, Microsoft being the close source zealots that they are would never do such a thing. However - Microsoft has billions in the bank. With a few years of R&D they could rewrite Windows and make it better and more stable... you know... more like Linux! (or OpenBSD) Because, let's face it folks, the currently design is inherently insecure.

    4. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by cpeterso · · Score: 2, Insightful


      Think about it. They've continually pushed back the release date of Longhorn, at least three times now, to my recollection. The screenshots they have leaked out, whether they are true or not haven't produced any vote of confidence from the various geeks I've seen comment about it online.

      Even if many geeks don't like the "user centric" features in the leaked Longhorn screenshots, the screenshots still give GNOME and KDE developers a lot to think about. They are accused of simply stealing Apple's and Microsoft's GUI ideas. Maybe GNOME and KDE can now steal Microsoft's GUI ideas before Microsoft even releases them in a product!!! ;-)

      --
      cpeterso
    5. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by Jameth · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "So, given that I'm being optimistic with a date of January 1st, 2005, I really believe that the alternative OS's will have at least two full years before being in any danger from the MS Marketing Machine."

      The issue is equally much how strongly Microsoft can get Longhorn onto newly-bought boxes. That's always been where they used their monopoly and marketing sway.

      Also, the marketing machine goes into effect LONG before they have any products. Just look at the way Intel got everyone to benchmark the new Athlon64 against the P4 Extreme, even though that won't be out for over a month, then began leaking crap about some new God chip they'll have next year, even though it's total crap.

      Marketing and production are unrelated creatures.

    6. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Interesting
      True, but on the other hand. Say you bought that new Amd64. And then a month later you learned that the intel was coming out. Now you might then say Hey great, these tests show that for MY use the Amd64 is exactly the right one. Yippie I guessed right.

      Of course it might also turn the other way. Oops you bought the Amd64 cause it was better then the P4 you had. And now it just weeks later Intel got a chip out that performs better for YOUR use but you ain't got the money to do anoter upgrade.

      Sure marketing is evil. On the other hand we need it to tell us what A is available and B is going to be available if we got a little bit of patience.

      Personally my situation is that I am totally hooked on the power of dual PC's so neither one looks very intresting to me. So I am just waiting for either the opteron to mature a little (read come down to my price level)

      Morale we hate marketing but who else is going to tell us of the great new gadgets.

      --

      MMO Quests are like orgasms:

      You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    7. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by EvilAlien · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Hrmm... maybe Microsoft is using (read: bankrolling) the fiaSCO gambit to buy themselves time to finally get Longhorn out.

      However, this gives the rest of the world more time to improve their competing products, which may end up not being in Microsoft's favor given the rapid pace of development outside of Redmond's closed walls.

      Does this mean that Open Source projects could eventually have to send a thank you card to Microsoft?

      --
      perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
    8. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by dtfinch · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > vi VS emacs arguments are pointless and a waste of time.
      >
      > vi is the best.

      Old Stallman post:

      ---------
      FROM: Richard Stallman
      DATE: 12/30/1991 06:18:13
      SUBJECT: Should everone use vi?

      Once in a while a crank appears and says that Emacs is lousy and we should all switch to vi.

      I`m sure lots of you are ready to declaim at length why that isn`t so. But I`d like to suggest that it would be better not to bother. These days, few people are likely to believe such a claim, so there`s no need to refute it.

      (a couple hours go by)

      I`m rather dismayed that I have failed in my attempt to prevent a time-wasting discussion of whether Emacs is a good editor or not. It`s a subject not worth discussing, because the people who like it can use it, and others can use something else they prefer.

    9. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by Master+Bait · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If Longhorn (or whatever they call it) deems any file as being executable just because of its name -- .exe, .com, .bat, then it will continue to be a source of insecurity and will continue to lose out.

      --
      "Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
      --Tom Schulman
    10. Re:2.6 and Longhorn by GooberToo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's because there are a lot of MS haters here which hate that you may know or understand something about MS that they don't. Generally speaking, there are many, many, people that are unfit to manage their own lives and yet they see themselves fit enough to judge other's comments.

      Go figure.

  2. Slashdot THIS instead! by Zocalo · · Score: 4, Informative
    BitTorrent links here:

    It still seems wrong to improve performance through a Slashdotting, but the more the merrier!
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    1. Re:Slashdot THIS instead! by flatface · · Score: 5, Funny

      Erm.. kernel.org has more bandwidth than God. It's more likely that kernel.org will slashdot US instead.

    2. Re:Slashdot THIS instead! by arnoroefs2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

      These links are broken, working link

    3. Re:Slashdot THIS instead! by suwain_2 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not that BitTorrent isn't a good thing, but kernel.org has 250 Mbps for themselves, and have used it fully. They're currently under 100 Mbps. I'm yet to see them get very near 250 Mbps; maybe when 2.6 is released 'for real' as stable.

      I downloaded it before it made Slashdot, and got 300 KB/sec, which is right around where my cable modem is capped.

      --
      ________________________________________________
      suwain_2 :: quality slashdot p
    4. Re:Slashdot THIS instead! by arnoroefs2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With everyone using Torrent, kernel.org wouldnt need the bandwidth and could use the goodwill/money for better things.

    5. Re:Slashdot THIS instead! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Erm.. kernel.org has more bandwidth than God.

      It amused me to create kernel.org this way.
      And thank you for not posting the URL to my homepage.

      God.

    6. Re:Slashdot THIS instead! by E_elven · · Score: 5, Funny

      There's no point in posting AC if you're going to put your name on the end, God. But I suppose You knew that. Anyway, since You are around, I'd REALLY like one of those Mac G5's. I've been good since the spaghetti incident, and I said I was sorry.

      --
      Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
    7. Re:Slashdot THIS instead! by devphil · · Score: 4, Funny


      Not any more; God was complaining in #offtopic the other day that His local ISP had really started enforcing the bandwidth caps on cable users. We advised Him to switch the entire heaven.org hookup to DSL, but apparently Gabriel bitches about Q3 ping times whenever the subject comes up.

      --
      You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
    8. Re:Slashdot THIS instead! by Hatta · · Score: 4, Funny
      Erm.. kernel.org has more bandwidth than God. It's more likely that kernel.org will slashdot US instead.
      But only in Soviet Russia, right?
      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  3. Red Hat users by Plug · · Score: 4, Informative

    I expect Arjan to have updated Red Hat packages soon at http://people.redhat.com/arjanv/2.5/

    Remember though that some things have changed between 2.4 and 2.6 that can't just be worked around by installing new packages. (USB module names, some mount points, that kind of thing.) If you want a clean boot you will have to change some of the init scripts, and this will break booting 2.4. So it's a bit all or nothing at the moment, and I recommend people who aren't convinced it will do everything they need it to do (I couldn't get my network card working under 2.6) stay on 2.4 until it's released proper.

    Check out http://thomer.com/linux/migrate-to-2.6.html and http://www.fearthecow.net/index.pl?section=guest&p age=kernel for the information for making these kernels work on RHL.

    1. Re:Red Hat users by cpeterso · · Score: 2, Informative


      The only problem I had with Arjan's linux-2.6.0-test RPMs was that my touchpad stopped working on my Dell laptop. Apparently there is a new (not in Linus' tree) Synaptics device driver that fixes the problem, but the simpler workaround is simply to add the following kernel boot parameter: psmouse_noext=1

      --
      cpeterso
  4. Re:One more step... by MartinG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, while I can hardly wait for 2.6.x to stabalize for many reasons, desktop use is not one of them.

    2.6.x will being some very real improvements, but in the big picture of where gnu/linux is still lacking on the desktop, linux (the kernel) isn't really one of the problems.

    --
    -- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz .@adgimnoprstu
  5. To torrent or not to torrent by arnoroefs2000 · · Score: 3, Informative


    The torrent for the new kernel: click me!

  6. Re:Gave it a shot... by Ianoo · · Score: 2, Informative

    The only way bugs get fixed is if you report them. Maybe you should submit a bug describing your hardware and boot messages so the kernel dudes can get to fixing it for test7...

  7. Re:One more step... by gilesjuk · · Score: 4, Informative

    It does make Linux more responsive on the desktop too, although many of the performance improvements will be most noticeable to those running clusters.

  8. Re:Gave it a shot... by Karamchand · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Since you tried out a development kernel you seem to be a developer or at least part of quality assurance. Therefor you are not allowed to ignore bugs like that and go back to the working version. Instead you have to find out the source of the problem, write a nice bug report and file it. For sheer hard work supply a fix as well.

  9. did they remove the SCO code? by civilengineer · · Score: 4, Funny

    i.e. the unnecessary blank spaces and newline charaters.

    --

    New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
    1. Re:did they remove the SCO code? by neonstz · · Score: 4, Funny

      From the changelog:

      <mochel@osdl.org>
      [power] Whitespace fixes.
    2. Re:did they remove the SCO code? by trentfoley · · Score: 2, Funny

      It is now an option in menuconfig. Simply go in to "make menuconfig" and:

      1. Select "Networking support --->"
      2. Select "Bluetooth support --->"
      3. Select "SCO links support"

      From the help, "SCO link provides voice transport over Bluetooth, SCO support is required for voice applications like Headset and Audio."

      So, this is obviously what SCO has been talking about. After all, there name is right in there, in caps and everything.

      I have no idea what this means, and really don't care, and won't be looking it up until I have some bluetooth hardware to play with. I was just kind of suprised to see it there.

      FWIW, my sound card (CS42xx) disappeared from menuconfig with this release. Granted, I had not installed 2.6.0-test5, so that might have been where it changed.

      I had to enable the game port under input devices and enable the Crystal Sound Fusion gameport support before my card would show up under the ALSA pci options.

      Everything is just peachy now.

  10. ATA-Raid anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is there someone except me who is missing ataraid? Yes, i know those are crap etc. but i am using one with my Abit KT7A-Raid (HPT370). I guess it got lost somwhere in the 2.5 kernel tree, but it looks like noone feels responsible for that.
    I mean 2.4 is not bad at all but i also want to test the new features / performance of the 2.6 kernel series.

    BTW.: Is Someone with experiences in original Highpoint drivers in here? If, could you tell me sth. about performance and stability?

    1. Re:ATA-Raid anyone? by antiMStroll · · Score: 2, Informative
      I have a 2x120 gig Maxtor mirror on an Abit KT7 as a server. It's unbelievable fast serving NFS shares, movies and videos Start Right Now when accessed across the network from a second Gentroo box. It's so fast I used to check the server for drive activity, thinking the media may have been on a local cache. It's running on the standard 2.4.x kernel modules as a Linux RAID.

      Prior to that W2k was installed on my second Abit, a KT7A, on a HP stripe. The Gentoo second boot never spawned errors reading from the stripe, though writing was off limits of course.

      Are you running the very latest Abit MB+HP BIOS? That board was a pig until they straightened this out.

  11. love-sources by flatface · · Score: 4, Informative
    It's a version behind, but love-sources improves desktop speed by a LOT in 2.6.x kernels. If that's what you want, go here: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=88999

    No, you don't need to be using Gentoo.

  12. Re:Gave it a shot... by josh253 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I had that problem with -test1. Got around it by turning off ACPI support.

  13. Re:Gave it a shot... by dinivin · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since you tried out a development kernel you seem to be a developer or at least part of quality assurance. Therefor you are not allowed to ignore bugs like that and go back to the working version. Instead you have to find out the source of the problem, write a nice bug report and file it.

    If I had the time at the moment to find the source of the problem, I would... However, that's not an option today. I have, however, sent along a nice bug report describing the problem and my system configuration.

    Dinivin

  14. Re:One more step... by quantaman · · Score: 3, Informative

    On the contrary one of my biggest complaints with the desktop currently is the complete lack of responsiveness when doing any CPU intensive processes and choppy media because I'm doing something else at the same time and it takes too long for the CPU to get back to noatun. The 2.6 kernel will be a significant boost to linux usability on the desktop.

    --
    I stole this Sig
  15. Yay... for most people. by Leffe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yet another beta lacking the UMSDOS module rewrite... does anyone know when it will be finished, I can't even remember who maintains it.

    I guess I'll have to stick with 2.4.23-pre5 for the time being - I don't really feel like hacking away trying to repartition my 8 Gb HD... buying a new one would be a good idea though... *adds to TODO*

  16. Re:Lockups by inode_buddha · · Score: 4, Informative

    the newer -mm patches (for -test4 and -5) are supposed to fix this. These are the Andrew Morton kernels, you can find them under /pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm IIRC. They also claim to fix the "make RPM" target (haven't tried that one myself yet tho).

    Might want to have a look at those, since he's the next "stable" maintainer.

    Also (In reply to a previous post) I had similar probs with /dev/hda losing its interrupt. I switched off ACPI and all power management since I default to 24x7 SMP use.

    Yes, some rc script hacking is required.

    Overall: this stuff blows my mind, I thought just SMP was fast when it came out, but this is in another league. FWIW, my base system is RH9 with updates from RH.

    --
    C|N>K
  17. Jump it to 3.0 ? by ltjohhed · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When will we ever see LVM-support out-of-the-box in the default kernel ?

    They're fast to adress common problems of today, like SMP, hence they don't seem to find the use for LVM that UN*X's did 10 years ago...

    --
    All generalizations are false
    1. Re:Jump it to 3.0 ? by tupshin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      LVM2 works on top of device mapper which is part of the stock 2.6-test kernels. Enable CONFIG_BLK_DEV_DM when building the kernel.

      -Tushi

  18. Mirror! by idiot900 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Time for me to plug the mirror I'm affiliated with...

    Wuarchive's kernel.org mirror

  19. Re:One more step... by rsmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've just switched from -test5 to -test6, and the difference is remarkable.

    Xmms doesn't skip, Mozilla doesn't snag, even during a kernel compile and SETI@Home running in the background.

    Looks like Con Kolivas's interactivity patches are definitely something.

    --
    Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
  20. er by dolson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You could install a newer kernel... apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.22-1-386 apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.0-test4-1-386 etc...

  21. 2.6 switching howto by YellowSubRoutine · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm preparing an end-user 2.6 switching howto here Pass the word.

  22. Simple question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Two weeks ago I paid SCO compliance fee for the 2.4 kernel. If I download and use the new edition, would that entail another $699, would it be free, or is there some upgrade fee somewhere in the middle?

  23. My only problem... by Dimensio · · Score: 3, Informative

    I decided to play around with the 2.6.0 tests after the last release (test5). After a bit of effort, I got nearly everything working except for wavetable MIDI support with my SB Live! card. Rather irritating, since it can't seem to create /dev/sequencer properly (and I had it working just fine with the alsa driver module in 2.4.x).

    Otheriwse, things run smoothly with occasional bugs (the bttv driver sometimes flakes out under heavy load if I'm not using 'overlay').

    --
    STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
  24. Re:Full text from the changelog by devphil · · Score: 3, Interesting
    When these bugs are fixed, hopefully before the official 2.6.0 release, FIFO support will be readded.

    Um, yeah, see... I don't doubt that's exactly what's going through the minds of the kernel developers. /Hopefully/ before the official /stable/ release, a major facet of Unix filesystems will be working again. If not, well, nobody would dare criticize the Holy Linux Empire.

    This is why the wise man continued to use 2.2 while the "stable" 2.4 was corrupting IDE partitions, until 2.4.2x finally calmed things down. This is why the wise man will continue to use 2.4.2x until 2.6.2x gets all of the killer bugs out -- the ones that should have gotten out before a "stable" release was even rolled.

    Don't mind me, this is just my regularly scheduled rant about the spectacularly shitty quality of "get it out the door fast" software, OSS included. Flame on, my reading threshold is set to hard-ignore ACs.

    --
    You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
  25. ARM Support by riptalon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Until recently this would all have been fine but now I have my new Sharp Zaurus SL-C760 I am actually concerned about other architectures appart from x86 ;-) At the moment for just generic ARM support in 2.4 you need a large patch from Russell King and then more patches for the Zaurus specific stuff. The last rmk patch was a month and a half ago for 2.6.0-test2 and as far as I know, no one is even working on porting the Zaurus specific stuff to 2.6.

    I don't really know what the arguements are for the present development model where most of the non-x86 architectures are kept separate from the mainline development but I really don't see how it can be a good idea. I guess I don't see what the difference is between individual subsystems, for instance, and support for different architectures. In both cases individuals or teams work on their own but in the subsystem case everything gets merged back in, by the time the kernel it declared stable, whereas for non-x86 architectures this never happens.

    It seems to me that given the large size of these architecture patches, their maintainers must spend most of their time just updating them to keep them in sync with the new kernel versions, rather than actually fixing bug or adding new features. Also the fact that ARM users cannot test the latest kernels because there are no rmk patches for them can only lead to a "negative feedback" situation which will hurt kernel development. In general anything that unnecessarily fragments kernel development cannot be a positive thing.

    1. Re:ARM Support by yarbo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      maybe 2.6-test2 didn't get enough feedback for the developers to work on porting test 3-5?

    2. Re:ARM Support by Chops · · Score: 3, Informative
      FWIW, the discussion of (lack of) ARM merging in 2.6 can be found (in summarized form) here. Linus is quoted therein:


      I don't think it's a failure. Why _should_ one tree have to try to make everybody happy? We want to try to make it easier to keep the couplings in place by striving for portable infrastructure etc, but we would only be hampered by a philosophy that says "everything has to work in tree X", since that just means that you can't afford to break things.

      I'd much rather keep the freedom to break stuff, and have many separate trees that break _different_ things, and let them all co-exist in a friendly rivalry.

      And my tree is just one tree in that forest.

      So it's not a bug - it's a FEATURE!
  26. Linux 2.6 maintainer at SCALE by irabinovitch · · Score: 2, Informative

    Andrew Morton, who will be maintaining the Linux 2.6 kernel, will be speaking at SCALE 2x Other 2.6 developers include William Irwin, and Patrick Mochel.

  27. Evolution... by SharpFang · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's no real sense to make 10 years plans, when you have no idea what hardware will be available then, what will people need, what do they require. Most of GNU software follows the evolution system. Submit a "bug" to Mozilla, submit a patch, get it revieved and it will be included only if people won't decide it's generally a Bad Idea and ditch it. Similar with kernel - think of a wise feature, create a module, submit it, and maybe in a month after you first thought of it, people will be downloading it from ftp.kernel.org - if your idea was really good. Nobody knows the future and there are no specific plans... except to make things better - more stable, more compilant, more effective, more whatever... Maybe in 20 years ix86 will be completely abandonned and Linux mainstream will move to some new hardware (quantum computers?), maybe in 10 years Linux will become the leading platform in graphics and Kernel will require better gfx handling procedures, maybe someone gets enough balls and brains to integrate X with Kernel in some intelligent way. And maybe Linux will get forgotten, like nowadays VAXen are, replaced by something better? Maybe Microsoft will abandon its old kernels and build its new OS on top of Linux kernel? Nobody knows. What we know is, that as long as at least one nerd on this planet breathes, Linux will be developed and made better :)

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  28. Re:+1, SOMEBODY ACTUALLY USES UMSDOS by SharpFang · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I use it.

    I got tired of seeing "changing permissions of (somefile): Operation not permitted" and installed it for all 'doze partitions.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  29. No Wonder "They" Are Afraid by EzInKy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    IBM, SGI, INTEL, HP, Navy, Redhat, SUSE, Debian, and boatloads of other patches contributed by other companies, educational institutions, and independent devolopers working together for the profit of all.

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
  30. Knoppix with 2.6.0-testX?? by bstadil · · Score: 4, Insightful
    We need Knoppix or a derivative with the latest test kernel,

    That way we can get a whole lot more testing done with very little disruption on nornal system?

    I tried to make one but I couldn't get it to boot, so maybe someone better qualified can try and if successful post Torrent file.

    --
    Help fight continental drift.
  31. Re:2.6 (correctly formatted, ignore previous) by technix4beos · · Score: 4, Informative
    I'll go through your questions one by one...

    >> They've never even announced a date for Longhorn. What on earth are you talking about?

    I quote from one of their Press Pass documents they have online at microsoft.com:

    "Over the course of 2004 you'll see a couple of releases in the betas for "Longhorn" and we'll see that coming to market in 2005.

    Now, I'm sure that many of you have heard about or wonder about the possibility of whether we're going to do something before "Longhorn," is there an interim release, and that's something that I don't expect us to do. Currently we have some additional releases that are coming out as follow-ons to the XP Media Center Edition and the Tablet PC Edition so we've got some great advances and fit and finish and addressing additional international marketplaces with new handwriting recognition, new guide data for Europe for the Media Center and so on.

    So you'll see some good incremental moves there but really the weight of the company, the weight of all the people in the Windows client division and across the platform's division, the weight of that effort that we're doing is around "Longhorn" and that's what we're focused on and we hope to get you all really pulling the same way so we can come out with a huge wave of excitement for the industry when "Longhorn" ships in 2005."

    (quotes and italics mine.)

    Several online sources have credited varying target dates for Longhorn, but all generally agree that 2005 will be the earliest that it will be available to the mass market:
    Longhorn Betas in 2004, GA in 2005 (ENT News)
    Analyst Pegs Longhorn Release at 2006 (ENT News)
    Microsoft Pushes Back 'Longhorn' Release (Open Tech Support)
    A Longhorn Delay? Not Quite (WinInfo)
    Microsoft announces Longhorn release date (CNet News.com)
    (I have no affiliation with these sources.)

    Microsoft themselves show that 2005 is the target date of Longhorn in a slide picture. (png image)

    >> As if that matters. Those are early, early alpha shots, as we all know. All the cool builds with the 3D acceleration are in a different Microsoft lab anyway that hasn't had one of their builds leaked.

    First, can you prove there are "cool builds" that will have 100% of the suggested features in a shipping version of Longhorn? Secondly, the history of Microsoft's software release stategy has been plainly made clear numerous times. Hype, Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, Buzzwords-o'-the-day, Gross Appropriation (oh sorry, I mean Innovation), and just downright unfullfilled expectations litter the computer timescape.

    For a company that has been in the software business of well over 25 years, one would think that with their talk of innovation and "exciting new time-saving" features, we would all have an operating system on our machines that used voice controlled openGL hyper speed interfaces, smart enough to do your work for you while you browsed sites like slashdot. Isn't the entire point of using a computer to save time and be more productive? This sadly is not the case today .

    >> I'm not really sure what breathing room you're talking about. The developer preview of Longhorn is coming out later this year. The list of features Longhorn already boasts is staggering, and I doubt within two years that ANY Linux projects will come close. We'll still be stucking using X11 with a hacked on desktop simulator, business as usual.

    --
    user@host$ diff /dev/urandom /dev/uspto
  32. Boring SCO References by dryan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hmm i think i have counted an average of 2419 SCO jokes per story. Everyone is so incredibly original.

  33. A more responsive desktop by Goonie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The one thing desktop users will notice is that 2.6 makes for a noticeably snappier, more responsive desktop.

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  34. Re:2.6 (correctly formatted, ignore previous) by Narchie+Troll · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh, for fuck's sake.

    Every Windows release has been grossly overhyped and called "revolutionary." Before WinXP came out, I heard people saying the same goddamn thing: "WinXP will be as big a change as Win95 was from 3.1!" It wasn't. It simply wasn't a major improvement or change from currently existing software.

    I don't blame Microsoft for this. All successful companies overhype their products; look what happened to OS/2 when IBM basically sat on it.

    I don't see any point in being polite here. You're swallowing the entire load. You're a fucking cockchoker, just as bad as the "l00nix!!! penguin power" fucknuts and the frothing Apple zealots.

    OS zealotry is refusing to see limitations. Linux zealots say "WITH WINEX YOU CAN NOW ALMOST PLAY MORROWWIND AND IT ONLY CRASHES EVERY 2 MINUTES!!!" Apple zealots say "OS X IS UNIX BASED AND THE MOST POWERFUL OS EVER AND THE G5 IS THE FASTEST COMPUTER EVER AND STEVE JOBS IS HUNG LIKE A HORSE!!!" And Microsoft zealots say "THE NEW WINDOWS RELEASE WILL IMPROVE EVERYONE'S LIFE AND CURE CANCER!!! JUST LIKE .NET!!" Fucking morons, every one.