Linux 2.6.0-test9 Released

keesh writes "Linux kernel 2.6.0-test9 is now out. Changes include SATA support and XFS and CIFS fixes. Because of the change freeze, this is a fairly minor update. In the announcement, Linus suggests that -test10 will be the final release before 2.6.0-final. Don't forget to use a mirror."

Comments

Whoa...

[Sp4c3 C4d3t]

So it's finally almost here. Is the framebuffer fixed yet?

Re:Whoa...

[Durin_Deathless]

Not according to the announcement. Just wait for the -mm patch. It is really great. The whole thing is snappy, and gives new life to a lot of machines.

Re:Whoa...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are still a lot of problems with fb in 2.6 and will be for several versions judging from the development. But there's some interesting conversations regarding graphics on the lkml.

Re:Whoa...

[nite_warrior]

So it's finally almost here

I hope so, then we could get offitial drivers from Nvidia to support the 2.6 family, I've been unable to get them to work from -test4 to -test8 even doing all the patching to their sources..

Re:Whoa...

[The Analog Kid]

I haven't noticed any problem with framebuffer, however I don't use XDirectFB or anything like that. I heard the test8-mm1 and test8-love1 was a mess because of the new fbdev patch that came out, causing problems mounting drives for some people. However, I didn't use mm1 this time, I used the plain vanilla, even the 2.4 patch to raise the vesafb refresh rate worked with a little editing of the locations of the directories.

torrent link

[Wakkow]

Although mirrors will probably be faster, if anyone wants the torrent, I set one up:

http://69.56.172.70/linux-2.6.0-test9.tar.bz2.torr ent

Re:torrent link

[Durin_Deathless]

The pgp signature on this verifies correctly. This is a valid copy, not some jerk.

Thanks Wakkow!

Re:torrent link

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, really helpful! :)
I'll just take your word for it and you just saved me the effort of actually checking the hash.
Your ideas on hash-check-optimizing might even revolutionize the whole industry.
Plus imaginary authentication feels so much safer!

Re:torrent link

[Wakkow]

I should have thought to include a link to the pgp sig.. It's true no one should blindly trust unofficial sources. Thanks DD.

Re:torrent link

[ca1v1n]

I was under the impression that kernel.org has more bandwidth than God. I suppose this might be relevant when 2.6.0-release comes out, but are that many people really running the test kernel of the day?

Re:torrent link

[BrokenHalo]

I was under the impression that kernel.org has more bandwidth than God

$ ping God
ping: unknown host God
$

Not too hard, apparently.

Re:torrent link

[r00zky]

Huh! what God are you pinging at?

$ ping God
PING God (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.090 ms
64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.082 ms

Remember, there's only one God and Mohammed is his prophet!
oh wait...

Re:torrent link

[Jetson]

I'll just take your word for it and you just saved me the effort of actually checking the hash.

Slashdot has been saying "use the mirrors" for every version of the kernel. Someone always posts a torrent link. Flamewars about the risk of using "unofficial" torrents ensues. This leads one to ask "why the heck doesn't kernel.org host a torrent of their own?" I'm sure it would save them enough bandwidth to cover the cost of introducing the feature.

Hot damn

[Limburgher]

I can't wait. I just hope RedHat 10 includes a 2.6 kernel, so I don't have to bother compiling it myself. I'd love to take advantage of the performance improvements, and I'd also like to use SATA drives in my new server.

Re:Hot damn

[Squeebee]

RedHat 10 (aka Fedora Linux, has a 2.6 kernel on their roadmap. Essentially they say that if 2.6 is officially released before they officially release RH10, and the switch will not cause delays, then they will ship 10 with 2.6, otherwise they will ship an updated version ASAP after the release of 2.6.

Re:Hot damn

[mslinux]

I can't wait. I just hope RedHat 10 includes a 2.6 kernel..."

There isn't going to be a RedHat 10. RH decided to fuck all of their loyal follwers and concentrate on their "corporate" customers. Go to redhat.com and read about Fedora. I miss Alan Cox, will he go back to work for the RH bastards after he finishes his Masters?

Re:Hot damn

[aled]

Is it posible to switch kernels just recompiling? Aren't dependencies between the rest of the system programs? Can I put a 2.6 kernel in a 2.4 distro?

Re:Hot damn

[gweihir]

Can I put a 2.6 kernel in a 2.4 distro?

Should not be a problem. I have a debian/testing installation with a self-compiled stock 2.6.0-test1 from www.kernel.org. It has been running crash free since end of July now.

For a complete list of minimal requirements, look into the Documentation/Changes file in the kernel sources. At least 2.6.0-test1 has no extreme requirements, as far as I can tell.

Re:Hot damn

[hendridm]

I'm not sure I understand the FAQ. I can understand why they made this move ($$$), but what impact will it have on me as a RedHat-on-the-Desktop user who doesn't want to dish out $179 bones for the RHEL WS edition? Is Fedora still going to be fairly fresh, or will it turn into Debian?

*sigh*, Now I get to tell people I'm running "Fedora" Linux. Might be a good time to check out SuSe again.

(please excuse my ignorance on this matter)

Re:Hot damn

[Darmox]

Just to clear up a little thing about Debian, yea, stable is some pretty old packages/versions, but it is very well tested, and rock solid.

Debian unstable, however, is fairly close to bleeding edge... I mean, Mozilla 1.5 hit a day or two after it was released, Gnome 2.4 took oh, probably a few weeks... And really, the packages are quite stable, sometimes the upgrading/installing of them isn't, however. (but that's what happens when you're using bleeding edge stuff)

And, if you don't want to deal with uninstallable packages occasionally(haven't seen that in months) or your compiler being upgraded at weird times, testing is right between the two.

Re:Hot damn

[Neon Spiral Injector]

The most "extreme" change is the modutils to module-init-tools. But the module-init-tools provide wrapper support and call the old modutils when booting back to a 2.4 kernel.

Re:Hot damn

[yorgasor]

Um, I think you misread that. The Fedora Core 1 that is coming out in a couple weeks has no plans whatsoever for supporting kernel 2.6. The following Fedora Core (what you would call RH11) will come with kernel 2.6 if it's ready. If it seem stable enough, they'll hurry up and get the new release out there, but if not, they won't delay the release just to get the new kernel in.

No matter what, they won't be shipping a kernel unless they've been able to test it thoroughly. And it'll probably take several kernel releases before it's ready to be shipped with a distro.

Re:Hot damn

[bn557]

it's not necessarily obsolete, it's just been decided that it needs to be reworked as more of a userspace utility rather than kernel space for it to be effective. it's like rewriting a part of the kernel to add more efficient things to it, but never providing any way to take advantage of it. I know, I know, you'll mention devfsd, but all that does is handly making the device nodes that devfs tells it to make, it doesn't really do any device discovery.

P

ps, that may or may not be 100% accurate. I read LKML, in fact, a good 90% of the posts, so I can't remember every detail of every post.

Re:Hot damn

[southpolesammy]

So then what you're saying is that Red Hat has become a marketing organization rather than an OS distribution company? I mean, really, what did we really get since RH7.x that is truly significant? A few kernel patches? I've got up2date or yum to deal with that. An updated GUI? Bah.

Red Hat needs to get back to the open source basics of realizing that there's little to be gained from releasing early, and much to be gained by releasing when there's significant updates. They could easily have waited following the initial RH8 release until now to release RH8-Final, and then give kernel geeks the chance to pore through the 2.6 kernel before releasing RH-Fedora1 with 2.6 support, not without. Any other reason smacks of the Microsoft/Sun type of release strategy to gain market share, not to release because there's something worth releasing. And with the majority of installations probably occuring from copied/downloaded media rather than purchased media, what's their economic reason? Save the cost of packaging and support and release when it's ready and relevant, not before.

Re:Hot damn

[hendridm]

Thanks for the info. Generally, I like to run stable release builds of distros. Also, it's nice that the distros are up-to-date, but what about the packages in apt-get repository. It's been awhile since I last tried Debian (apt-get rocks, of course), but the version of Postgres in the repository at the time was 6.5 even though 7 had been out for quite some time. I noticed other updated versions that were absent from the repository also, but I can't remember them as it's been awhile.

I can usually get the latest RPM of insert-your-favorite-software-here, but rarely the .deb. Correct me if I'm wrong?

Re:Hot damn

[datan]

Red Hat isn't a marketing organization or even an OS distribution company. It is a support company. Its revenue mainly comes from its support contracts rather than from actually distributing various releases of linux. btw, I don't think you actually understand their distribution cycle. How long do you think it will be until 2.6 has been stress-tested? Companies need some kind of high level road map to plan their releases, not some unknown "3 months after Linus annouces 2.6 stable" date. wrt to market share -- Fedora isn't targetted at enterprises which is where their main revenue stream is coming, so your comment doesn't really make much sense does it?

Re:Hot damn

[datan]

Redhat is a company and has to actually make money to survive.

Re:Hot damn

[rgmoore]

The idea behind Fedora is that it will be more cutting edge than Redhat used to be. Before they were always pulled in two directions. Linux geeks wanted all the latest toys, but the high-value Enterprise customers wanted a stable system. That's why they split off a separate RHEL branch; it was supposed to be stable and more thoroughly tested for Enterprise customers. Now that they have a more stable Enterprise branch, they're free to be more experimental in their regular branch, which is what's now being called Fedora. They're hoping that it will be more up to date than the old Redhat distro was.

Re:Hot damn

[hendridm]

> Now that they have a more stable Enterprise branch, they're free to be more experimental in their regular branch, which is what's now being called Fedora.

It's unfortunate they're moving away from stability with their community version. :( Too bad SuSe costs so much, otherwise I'd consider that. However, if I'm going to dish out $80 for an OS, it better last me more than a year and it better have free updates. Recommendations? I never liked Mandrake (weird setup and can't get it to work with my Promise RAID for the life of me), and it sounds like the latest version is an absolute disaster. What's happening!

Re:Hot damn

[minion]

Um, I think you misread that. The Fedora Core 1 that is coming out in a couple weeks has no plans whatsoever for supporting kernel 2.6.

Which is a good reason to try Slackware again. 9.1 was just released, with 2.4.22, and support for 2.6. Which means they already did the dirty work of making sure mod-init-tools was on the machine, along with other necessities. Not to mention it comes with Gnome 2.4 and KDE 3.1.4

I've tried 2.6.0-test4 on Slackware 9, and it made a difference in desktop usability and responsiveness.

Re:Hot damn

[morgajel]

I moved from redhat to slackware to debian, and have just recently made the move to gentoo. As a former debian user, I don't want to come off as one of the gentoo jackasses, but I gotta say it is a pretty decent system. everything seems to be stable, no package conflicts (as of yet), and emerge and been pretty kick ass.

On the downside, install takes forever, and emerging packages yourself can take forever(depending on the machine). I had a 2100+xp with 512 of ram and the install took a week before I got a comfortable system.

Something that I've found helps soften the blow is Distcc- I've been converting my debian boxes to gentoo, and as I go, I add them to the distcc collective... now when my pentium 2 400 compiles, it takes less time than my 2100+ did (because it parallel compiling on the 2100+, an athlon 1200 and a duron 1200, a P3 900, and a P3 600).

As you can imagine, that cuts down compilation time :)
anyways, if you have the patience, give gentoo a try, but make sure you save it till you get a few days in a row where you're not busy.
Few words of wisdon:

• don't go crazy with optimization flags. name your processor line and that's it.
  
• get familiar with emerge.
  
• checkout the package ufed. it's a nice little listing of cool flags you can use.
  
• install vim|emacs, openssh, and fluxbox right off the bat. it will help make the install a little less painless.
  
• follow the install directions CLOSELY. you'll save a lot of pain.
  
• emerge can install a program several different ways- by name (apache), by version (apache-1.28.3), by tar file (apache-2.0.37.tbz), or my meta package(kde installs many smaller packages)
  
• get familiar with the system and world meta packages. they're your friends, so understand what they are.
  
• even if it takes a lot of time, don't get frustrated. you probably won't get gentoo installed correctly on your first try anyways. It's just the way things are... it's a learning process.
  

Re:Hot damn

[lgftsa]

The "latest RPM" is, by definition, not stable. It has not had the testing period that a "stable" package has.

If you want a more recent version than is available in stable, pin your machine at stable and install the "testing" package(which satisfies dependancies), or run testing itself.

You can also find a third-party debian source(eg http://marillat.free.fr), or compile it yourself, though that also defeats the testing period.

Check out http://www.apt-get.org/ for all your unofficial debian source needs.

Re:Hot damn

[Alphix]

Actually you have 4 distros (well kind of) to choose between with Debian. Last time I checked, Debian has more than 10.000 packages in unstable, making it quite likely that your favourite software is there (and if it's not, theres always unofficial sources). As for PostgreSQL, you have the following choices:

Release..........Version
stable...........7.2.1
testing..........7.3.2r1-5
unstable.........7.3.4-8
experimental.....7.3.99.7.4beta5-1

You can always go to:
http://packages.debian.org/<package-name>
for the latest info.

Re:Hot damn

[golgotha007]

I just hope RedHat 10 includes a 2.6 kernel, so I don't have to bother compiling it myself.

man, i thought the very same thing for the last month or two. but the other day, i downloaded test8 and i've been a happy camper ever since.

actually, compiling the 2.6 kernel is a lot easier than the 2.4 one. there's less commands to deal with and there doesn't seem to be any compile breakage.

for redhat users, check out this page and this page.

Re:Hot damn

[yarbo]

"install vim|emacs, openssh, and fluxbox right off the bat. it will help make the install a little less painless." I agree with the vim|emacs point. I don't care for nano much, and I think that they can fit a few more editors onto the install CDs. I'd greatly appreciate it. Btw, OpenSSH is on the install CD. Run "/etc/init.d/sshd start" I like to start ssh and do the majority of the work from my laptop.

Re:Hot damn

[pauldv]

Gentoo will use udev as soon as it is ready. Currenlty however devfs is still more functional than udev. Also expect that it will still take a while for 2.6 to become the standard kernel

Re:Hot damn

[golgotha007]

Just to clear up a little thing about Debian, yea, stable is some pretty old packages/versions, but it is very well tested, and rock solid.

i keep hearing this about Debian, and indeed it's true. however, i run redhat 9 on all my production servers using the latest packages from the apt-get repository from freshrpms. i have zero stability problems and my servers run rock solid as well.

even though i run redhat systems, i still use vi for every configuration; that's one of the things i like about redhat is you can configure the machine with gui tools or you can do it the old fashioned way (i prefer the old way myself).

besides my redhat experience, i am also the sysadmin for 5 debian (latest stable) boxes at another company. just about every package on there are full point releases behind that latest release (some are 2 year old packages, look at the old clunky vi for an example).

the debian machines are rock solid and i don't have any problems with them at all. of course, the redhat machines are problem free as well.

with my experience, my distro of choice for a production platform? redhat. it has all the great features of debian, plus.

i geuss my point is that debian folks are always saying how stable debian is, but i find that other distros are just as rock solid.

Re:Hot damn

[mkro]

install vim|emacs, openssh, and fluxbox right off the bat. it will help make the install a little less painless.

I knew it! I knew it all the time, and finally someone goes out and says it! Gentoo is a S&M club!

Re:Hot damn

[hynek]

I think it's worth to mention that as the install works using a chroot, it doesn't matter at all, whether you boot the install-cd, Knoppix or even you old Linux for installing gentoo.

Ie. you don't have the often mentioned problem of waiting too long for a working system. Just set it up on your old system and boot gentoo when you thing you have installed everything you need to work comfortably.

Re:Hot damn

[Theatetus]

They could easily have waited following the initial RH8 release until now to release RH8-Final, and then give kernel geeks the chance to pore through the 2.6 kernel before releasing RH-Fedora1 with 2.6 support, not without.

And if you'll notice, with their enterprise server version (which is their real moneymaker and the distro they spend most of their effort putting innovations into), they are pretty much doing exactly that. The "personal" Red Hat release is pretty much just a service they offer to the userbase, so they release it on a much faster schedule.

Re:Hot damn

[Ktulu_03]

I've installed these kernels on top of Fedora, and they have worked great so far. I believe Fedora already has all the updated modutils, so I've just installed the Kernel RPM for my processor, rebooted, and have had success.

For laptop users, test 8 and beyond have the touchpad driver in them, so your laptop can be usuable with 2.6 again.

Re:Hot damn

[GreyWolf3000]

Recompile any third party modules such as dri drivers. If you got binary ones, I think you'll need to find some 2.6.0-ready ones.

Re:Hot damn

[BusDriver]

You're missing what they mean by "stable"
They don't necessarily mean software not crashing stable (though that's part of it)

They mean the API's for programs will stay the same, the expected behaviour of a program will stay the same.

The only time anything like that gets modified is for security fixes. But it's why they backport the fixes, so that program behaviour is the same as it's always been.

Re:Hot damn

[drewness]

Too bad SuSe costs so much, otherwise I'd consider that.

You can get SuSE 9.0 Pro Upgrade, which is the same as Pro but without all of the books, for $50. That's what I'm planning to do to replace SuSE 7.3 on my machine. I think that's a fair price considering all the commercial stuff they throw in. Redhat 9.0 Pro is $150. And I've heard very good things about using apt-for-rpm with SuSE.

Re:Hot damn

[rgmoore]

Thanks, but I want a distribution, not just a core.

Fedora Core is rather poorly named. It covers roughly the same territory as the standard Redhat did, so if that was adequate for you then Fedora Core should be, too. It's also designed to be more friendly to external repositories (which makes sense for a community project) so there should be sources for most things that aren't on the 3 CDs of the standard install.

Re:Hot damn

[losycompresion]

I'd also like to use SATA drives in my new server

Um slick...i'd hate to tell you that rh 9 allows you to use SATA drives...all you need is a driver. I have 3 SATA drives in my webserver now...unfortunaly its down right now because of bad SATA drives, but that is OT.

Re:Hot damn

[Bert64]

If you have that much spare hdspace, remember you`l need a seperate partition, and then if you decide to remove your existing install your left with suboptimal partitioning on your drives.. the installcd is very usefull

Re:Whaa

[BJH]

SATA = Serial ATA, a replacement for the old Parallel ATA.
XFS = SGI's high-performance filesystem.
CIFS = Common Internet File System, otherwise known as SMB. The Microsoft networked filesystem emulated by Samba. A misnomer in that it isn't generally used over the Internet (except for worms, ha ha).

Re:Whaa

[Squeebee]

Well, I'll bite.

SATA is Serial ATA, a technology where a serial connection with thin cable replaces the parallel connector with the wide cable for your hard-drive.

XFS is a journaled high-performance file system from SGI. Nice for big servers.

CIFS is a file system for shared folders in Windows. You share files in a recent version of Windows, you use CIFS.

Hooray for SATA!

[moltar77]

Now all I need is a distro with the 2.6 kernel and I can actually get Linux up and running again. It hasn't been the same since I got that SATA drive.

Re:Hooray for SATA!

[SiChemist]

You can use the Red Hat Beta (Fedora Core 0.95) with SATA. It includes a version of the 2.4.22 kernel with SATA support backported in. I successfully installed the 0.94 version on a Dell Optiplex GX-270 with a single SATA hard drive. As always, YMMV.

Taunting the LG users?

[wrinkledshirt]

I see one of the icons for this story is a compact disc. That's just plain mean.

Still a bit to do.

[Neon Spiral Injector]

It doesn't build for the x86-64 platform, and doesn't boot on "white box" Alphas (ones only intended to run NT). So my 64-bit machines are feeling a bit left out.

At least patches for both problems are available, but need to be merged.

Re:Still a bit to do.

[phantomlord]

wait for 2.6.1... Linus has repeatedly stated that all he cares about being buildable and stable for 2.6.0 is x86. He's been pretty irked by the people maintaining trees for other architectures which have gone ages without merging suddenly wanting to get the patches in at the last minute, especially if it means changing more than just the arch specific files.

Re:Still a bit to do.

[Neon Spiral Injector]

The Alpha patch is just to the arch specific setup.c file, adds one conditional, and three lines of varible twidling. That should probably go in.

But yes, the x86-64 stuff is a pretty big patch.

Re:Still a bit to do.

[13Echo]

White box Alphas? You mean like the Deskstation machines, or something else? Gosh. I'd love to have Linux on this old Deskstation Raptor that I've got access to. Doesn't look like it will happen.

Re:Still a bit to do.

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Actually I mean the pedestal sized machines. There are blue and white box varients. The blue box could run NT, VMS, and Digital Unix, but the white box versions of the same machine were only licensed to run NT. The internal system ID was just set to negitive of the blue box version. The patch I'm speaking of, detects the negitive ID and inverts it.

Have you tried getting Linux to install on it? I'd have a look at the Redhat Fedora Linux port to the Alpha. It may not be that far along now, but 2.6 did add support for a few more machines, you might just luck out.

Also can't hurt to Google around, someone has probably tried to get it running on the exact same machine.

Still the same error, propagated from kernel 2.2

[Anonymous Coward]

I submitted several bugs to the bug tracker, I e-mailed Alan Cox and Lunis Torvalds, and I still get the same error when trying to run it:

kernel-2.6.0-test9.tar.bz2 is not a valid Win32 application

and then the error message with Ok and Cancel.

Anyone has any howto on whether this bug will ever be fixed? Or is there a service pack or a patch I missed?

Hooray

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait to install this one on my new LG computer!

So what's the difference?

[flamingantichimp]

Sorry about this- somewhat new to Linux scene. Dispite these minor changes in test9, what overall in 2.6 is going to be different? Any good reason to upgrade?

Re:So what's the difference?

[gid]

Alsa sound drivers are built right in. So now I don't need to copile them separately. The oss support for my sound card was very half ass, it didn't even support full duplex and hardware mixing.

Also, i2c and the lm sensors interface is built right in as well. So now I don't have to compile i2c and lm sensors to know how hot my mobo and cpu are running. They have saved my computer at least once. My cpu fan died on me, I wouldn't have known if I didn't have it graphed.

Also there's pre-emptible kernel option. It makes X more responsive, especially noticeable under heavy load and on slower computers. Supposedly better memory management as well, but as I have 768 megs of ram, I probably won't ever notice that.

There's also USB 2.0 support, and support for USB type removeable drivers. I think both of those are new.

There's probalby more, but those are the ones I know off hand.

Re:So what's the difference?

[petabyte]

USB 2.0 support actually exists in 2.4 as well. Noteable improvements to 2.6 include a new scheduler, additional filesystems, pre-emptiblity and ACPI. (Its faster for sure).

Then again, I run Con Kolva's patch set in 2.4 so I have a pre-emptible kernel and the new scheduler and some other random goodies. Its not quite as fast as 2.6 but as I can't keep up with that development cycle it suits me.

Re:So what's the difference?

[Arker]

If you're 'somewhat new' to Linux, then you should probably ignore it. Upgrading your kernel to a release candidate ("test") version isn't recommended unless you know what you're doing and you want to help test it.

Just wait for your distro to pick it up in a few months, after the testing is done.

Re:So what's the difference?

[rgmoore]

One big improvement in 2.6 will be with handling of CD and CD-RW drives. CD audio extraction will be able to use DMA, which should speed it up a lot. Also, CD writing will be possible using the regular IDE driver, so it won't be necessary to use SCSI emulation anymore.

For a really comprehensive description of the changes with 2.6, you might want to look at The Wonderful World of Linux 2.6, which goes into much more detail than anyone on /. is likely to be able to.

Re:So what's the difference?

[Xua]

Do I need special version of cdrecord to use this? For me cdrecord doesn't seem to have any IDE support so far. Even -scanbus doesn't recognize my IDE CD-RW drive until I boot with ide-scsi option.

So is there any experimental cdrecord version with support for IDE already?

Re:So what's the difference?

[Xua]

Nevermind, I searched gentoo forums and found that I need to use cdrecord 2.x specifying dev=ATAPI:b,t,l . So I'm going to try it when I get my hands on 2.6 computer with CD burner.

Re:So what's the difference?

[theTerribleRobbo]

> Also, i2c and the lm sensors interface is built right in as well.

Umm, good luck to all those Thinkpad owners, then.
The R40 (at least) has its EEPROM completely borked up if you use lmsensors, and you have to get the motherboard replaced (apparently).

Re:So what's the difference?

[fjm03]

For one, the RAID controllers. A significant increase in speed.

Re:So what's the difference?

[Asdex]

• Also, i2c and the lm sensors interface is built right in as well. So now I don't have to compile i2c and lm sensors to know how hot my mobo and cpu are running.

You don't need lm_sensors to check voltage, temperature or rpm. Mbmon does the same as lm_sensors but is a userspace program. So no more kernel patching and recompiling. Even hardware compatibility is sometimes better.

http://freshmeat.net/projects/xmbmon/

• Asdex

Re:So what's the difference?

[drfreak]

you just specify dev=/dev/hda or whatever your cdrom is, just as you would mounting it. I love the speed/latency improvement. My CPU doesn't even blink now while burning a CD. Unfortunately though, cdrdao doesn't work with the new kernel without still using SCSI emulation. I've dropped cdrdao altogether now, and just use cdrecord -dao, which gives the same functionality.

Re:So what's the difference?

[drfreak]

Make that about three new schedulers, maybe four in the -mm series. Let's see, there is deadline, noop, anticipatory, and cfq. I think we're set in the scheduler department!

Re:In other news..

[cgranade]

No, but this is post-freeze, last RC sorta news.

2.6 really is nice

[Zebbers]

I decided to test out 2.6 test7 when it was announced awhile back on /. I was tempted by all the comments about increased desktop responsiveness. Well, it's true and it IS noticeable. Coupled with the fact that there is a patch for the nvidia drivers and I'm one happy camper. :)

Re:2.6 really is nice

[cgranade]

I was tempted by all the comments about increased desktop responsiveness.
Personally, I'm looking to YWindows... love that name, too.

try this ftp

[Anonymous Coward]

if you have problem downloading, try this one.

ftp.sco.com/pub/linux/source/beta/kernel/hey_bil ly-/we_need_to_check_da_code/need_cash/buy_mo_shar e/2.6.0-test9.src.rpm

Good luck everyone!!

Re:try this ftp

[killthiskid]

Well done, troll. I am glad to see that your posts have grown in versions, and that you are using the well formatted method I gladyly provided to you. Use the force. I still watch you, waiting for the day when you gain /. fame.

Re:Not ready for prime time

[duffbeer703]

Got a point there...

linux-2.0.39.tar.bz2 - 5958KB
linux-2.2.25.tar.bz2 - 15421KB
linux-2.6.0-test0.tar.bz2 - 32448BK

For a kernel compilation newbie...

[mnemonic_]

For someone like me who has never compiled a kernel before, what sort of troubles should I expect in a move to a new kernel version?

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[Muvlo Redond]

As a fairly new GNU/Linux user myself, I've found compiling and running new kernels to be quite easy. I should mention, though, that my early efforts failed completely. This was when I was running Red Hat 9. I guess RH needs something special; at any rate I never got 2.6.0-testX to run on it. I am now using Gentoo, and everything seems to be working extremely well, and I'm currently running test8-mm1. I recommend you read this tutorial written for the 2.6 kernel: http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/799. Good luck. :) -M

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[GigsVT]

You both probably know this, but unless you have a specific need to run 2.6, or you want to get involved in reporting bugs and such (or you just feel a compelling need to live on the edge), it's probably best to stay with 2.4 for now.

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[digitalhermit]

Things to watch:
Build your root fs models statically into the kernel.

Your /etc/modules.conf file will likely need to be updated because of differences in the module names.

Some init scripts will need to be modified.

None of these are fatal errors but will cause some failure messages as the system comes up. This can be a little disconcerting but shouldn't do any harm.

If you're running things like NVidia binary drives, VMWare, or any applications that build kernel modules specific to the running kernel you will need to rebuild those hooks.

Some USB devices may magically start working!

Your /dev layout may look different, possibly breaking some scripts.

Some parts of /proc may not be the same, so things that rely on cat'ing files in /proc might break. For these use applications like lspci instead of reading proc directly.

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[Muvlo Redond]

Since my computer is not a critical, data-filled, work-type computer, running (potentially) unstable kernels is not a problem for me. But the test series is quite stable, and I've had no problems with it. Not to mention that there are quite a lot of new features in it that I simply couldn't wait for months to get!

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[inode_buddha]

+1, Informative. I've been thru this all along; the change to 2.6.0 is very reminiscient of going to 2.0 or an SMP box (both in my case).

FWIW, I was playing with 2.6.0-test8 -mm1 this AM and wasn't pushing it very hard at all; I still ended up *decelerating* my mouse by about 20%, and had no hangs or slowdowns at all under loads such as re-compiling itself while watching videos, etc. This is on a RH9 box with updates.

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the documentation in the kernel. There is a file in the kernel Documentation subdirectory called Changes. In it are versions of various software tools you will need to build the kernel properly. If something is deficient, update it before compiling. Reguardless of your system, loader (lilo or grub), don't overwrite your old kernel! Keep it around in case something goes wrong with your new one. When compiling, use a build script (there is an option to save your configuration to a file...do it so that you can use it again later). After building, check to see how many modules your system built. Go to the directory /lib/modules. There will be different modules for different kernels (and the directory names are for the various kernels). Get a rough idea of how many modules were built. Look in /boot and look for vmlinuz-(new system) or vmlinux-(new system). That is your new compressed kernel (with the z) or your new kernel. There are different instructions for modifying the bootloader for grub/lilo (read them carefully and follow the instructions). Also, for 2.6 you will need new tools for loading kernel modules. Go get the latest version of module-init-tools and install it carefully. (And on RedHat 9.0 like what I use, you have to modify a startup script...(and the information for what to change is in the FAQ..search for RedHat). I've been building kernels since 1.2.13 on Slackware (95), so some of this isn't quite that new to me. Good Luck!

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[imbaczek]

Make sure you don't have both a LG cdrom drive and packet writing enabled at the same time, or your cd is going bye-bye.

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[i.r.id10t]

Remember, "make oldconfig" is your friend. It may be in /boot, on the install cd, or actually in the source tree at /usr/src/linux/.config

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[heretic]

Read this article at KernelTrap . You'll probably need new modutils and may need new fs utilties. If you've never run ALSA before, there's a lib and some more utils.

Re:For a kernel compilation newbie...

[Fruit]

But more importantly, the 2.6 kernels use a new set of module handling utilities!

You need to grab a module-init-tools package from somewhere. This package should be able to coexist with the previous modules package so that you have a way to go back to a 2.4 kernel if need be.

They still don't support my platform :-(

[armando_wall]

Why does Linux dev-community reluctantly ignore Commodore 64s???

Re:They still don't support my platform :-(

[localghost]

Who said it was reluctant?

Re:They still don't support my platform :-(

[Waffle Iron]

Why does Linux dev-community reluctantly ignore Commodore 64s???

Because they are bloated, overly complicated, overpriced kludge boxes. People in the know stick with the clean, elegant VIC-20.

Re:They still don't support my platform :-(

[damiam]

They don't.

Re:They still don't support my platform :-(

[WWWWolf]

Why does Linux dev-community reluctantly ignore Commodore 64s???

Because GCC (the compiler of choice) requires at least 16 bits. The ports for 8-bit platforms have Sucked.

Besides, the Linux kernel was made with the assumption that it runs on "modern" hardware (that is, Amiga or whatever); you're better of finding an operating system that was specifically written to meet the needs of Commodore 64 (which is to say, small memory consumption and heavy optimizations).

I still run Mini Office II and GEOS 1.2. I've got to try this Contiki thing soon.

Re:aw jeez...

[gid]

pimpbot:~/mrtg# uname -a
Linux pimpbot 2.6.0-test8 #5 Fri Oct 24 15:45:49 EDT 2003 i686 GNU/Linux

me too dude... me too.. :( I'll probably wait till test10 or final as this one is working flawless for me right now so far.

The one thing that's annoyed me so far is the lack of documentation on how the new sensors interface works, and the fact that no programs seem to support it yet. Apparently you don't need lm sensors anymore, but that little tidbit is hidden away well within a vague statement on their website. Sensors now just use sysfs. That and i2c-viapro interferes with via686a driver. So don't build/insert i2c-viapro. Or else your sensors won't show up, took me forever googling to find that out. And the fact that I couldn't even find exactly how you were supposed to reading the sensors data.

Anyway, so now I'm using a dumb little php script as my glue right now to make mrtg still graph my temperatures. Here it is if anyone cares:

#!/usr/local/bin/php -q

Re:aw jeez...

[gid]

2 bad I suck:

#!/usr/local/bin/php -q
<?
$TEMP1=file_get_contents('/sys/devices/leg acy/i2c- 0/0-6000/temp_input1');
$TEMP2=file_get_contents( '/sys/devices/legacy/i2c- 0/0-6000/temp_input2');

printf("%.1f\n", $TEMP1/1000);
printf("%.1f\n", $TEMP2/1000);
echo ltrim(`uptime`);
echo ltrim(`hostname --long`);
?>

Running 2.6-test9 now

[Azar]

I downloaded and was compiling the sources when the story broke on Slashdot.

When Pat said that Slackware 9.1 was 2.6 ready, he wasn't kidding. So far, so good. Not a glitch during the compile or boot-up. I plan to stress test it as much as possible to see if I can tell the difference between 2.4.22.

I can't wait until Linux 2.6 final is out.

Re:Not ready for prime time

[aardvarkjoe]

Don't forget that the vast majority of increased code size is in new drivers. You won't be running a kernel that incorporates more than a fraction of that code. In fact, IIRC, the size of the base code actually decreased between 2.2 and 2.4.

2.6.0 or later?

[aardvarkjoe]

Looking at the note from Linus, it looks like a lot of things that will eventually be pushed into the 2.6.x series are going to have to wait for post-2.6.0. I was sort of intending to wait to upgrade until 2.6.2 or 3 -- however, if there's going to be a flurry of additions in the early 2.6.x kernels, I'm thinking that 2.6.0 might be more stable, in which case I might use it instead. (I don't intend to wait too long before upgrading ... I don't have that much self-control.)

Does anyone else think this will end up being the case?

Re:2.6.0 or later?

[Duncan3]

If 2.4.x is any indication, you're not safe until 2.6.13 at least.

Or aren't we supposed to talk about that ;)

Re:2.6.0 or later?

[MrHanky]

If 2.4.x is any indication, you're not safe until 2.6.13 at least.

That's almost true (wasn't 2.4.14 broken too?), but personally, I've had as few problems with 2.6.0-test* as I've had with late 2.4-kernels (with the exception of ACPI, which needs 'pci=noacpi' at the bootprompt, or the computer won't boot at all (a fairly major problem, I must admit, but not after I learned how to solve it)).

The correct answer to the question is: test it now, and see how it works. If it's broken, submit bug reports. If it works, submit success stories to /., and troll about how dead *BSD is, how much anything from Microsoft sucks, and how stable Linux is, even when it's beta. And so on.

Re:2.6.0 or later?

[ChrisJones]

Your mileage will indeed vary considerably depending on your hardware.
I have made a specific point of buying well supported hardware where possible, so things like my network and scsi cards work with almost any kernel version (and both have vendor supported drivers in 2.4 and above - adaptec's aic7xxx driver and intel's e100 driver). If you are running strange newfangled onboard chipsets for things you might find it won't even boot ;)
I've been running test8 for a couple of days now and it has been pretty much exactly like 2.4.21 so far - nothing feels particularly improved or regressed. I'm sure I'll get into the new 2.6 stuff at some point (the crypto stuff especially), but right now I'm just running it to see if I can shake out any last minute bugs to report to the kernel dudes :)

Cheers,

Re:2.6.0 or later?

[MrHanky]

For me, the 2.6.0-test*-mm* series has been a marked improvement to 2.4.*-ck* (which has some of the scheduler improvements backported), especially under load. A couple of hours ago, Gaim hung and used 100% CPU. I didn't notice at all. The system starts to feel sluggish when the load reaches 1.80 or there about, with heavy disc activity.

Oh, and burning CDs is so much better now that I don't have to use ide-scsi. Faster, and I don't even have kernel panics! (My system has always been horrible with CD burning. Some kernel versions would panic by the mere thought of using ide-scsi.) Don't know how it performs as a server though.

Re:2.6.0 or later?

[Uerige]

Everyone keeps saying that you don't have to use scsi emulation to burn cds with 2.6. How is this supposed to work; cdrecord always looks for them on the scsi bus or uses the generic device, and I have not found the generic device for ide.
What am I doing wrong? Or do I need to upgrade cdrecord?

Re:2.6.0 or later?

[elgaard]

cdrecord dev=/dev/hdc foo.img

I burned one yesterday with cdrecord 2.01a19 on 2.6-test8
without SCSI emulation

Re:2.6.0 or later?

[gid]

I ran the 2.4 serious through various test kernels and most of the stable kernels, I never had a serious problem, short of the vm subsystem pushing vital things out of memory to cache my mp3s I was playing.

Re:aw jeez...

[jpmkm]

gkrellm works with the new sensors. Actually I couldn't get lmsensors working at all, but now the hardest part was just figuring out which modules I needed to load for my motherboard, then load them, and it just worked.

Re:Question about security on Linux kernel

[iggymanz]

it wouldn't run at all - that's really slow 8D. Cyclone is really a different language; the Linux kernel has gcc specific parts in the C code, plus assembler. I've found 2.6 kernel to even be very sensitive to the particular version of gcc as to whether it can compile at all or not.

Nvidia Drivers

[jigokukoinu]

Now, if only the nVidia drivers hacks out there worked for me (perhaps I am horribly inept!) so that I could upgrade my desktop and still use my nifty graphics card! Or Maybe nVidia will get support for the 2.6 kernel included in the Linux drivers!! (Not holding my breath)

Re:Nvidia Drivers

[jigokukoinu]

I've tried the hacks at minion.de. They didn't work for me. That's why I had stated that I may be horribly inept! :)

I'll be trying again later this week, just in case I missed something.

ACPI and USB

[PeterClark]

Does anyone know if the conflicts between ACPI and USB have been fixed yet? Basically, if ACPI is enabled in the kernel, it will mess with USB--for instance, my USB mouse will suddenly stop working (no errors in /var/log/messages or syslog) and won't work again until I 'rmmod ohci_hcd' and modprobe it back again. My laptop (which is currently running -test8) has this problem, and it is very annoying (although at least APM works).

I hope...

[AltGrendel]

...that 2.6 will be released before RedHat finally drops support for all the pre-9 releases

Yes, I realize that I can roll my own kernel, I've done it many times. It's just that they work better when RH makes the RPM. Not that this is as it should be.

Re:Not ready for prime time

[Prof.Phreak]

Hmm... try this:

lex@particle theory $ uname -a
Linux particle 2.6.0-test6 #3 Sun Sep 28 19:27:41 EDT 2003 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

alex@particle theory $ uptime
01:03:46 up 27 days, 3:45, 4 users, load average: 0.16, 0.36, 0.30

And this is my *primary* dev box that doubles as a server (web, mysql, etc.,) and pretty much anything else I use a computer for (play music, video, etc.,)

How exactly is 27 days uptime not stable?

emerge nvidia-kernel

[XanC]

Gentoo's ebuild will automatically detect 2.4 or 2.6 and adjust accordingly.

Re:Whaa

[nathanh]

Hate to be a nitpicker, but SMB/CIFS is a technology developed by IBM in 1984.

I'm going to be an even bigger nitpicker. SMB is the technology developed by IBM. CIFS is an extension to SMB developed by Microsoft though cynical people say that CIFS is more a marketing exercise than a new protocol.

Info on SMB and CIFS.

YESSSSSSSSS

[Apreche]

SATA SUPPORT!! HALLELUJAH!!! As soon as 2.6 final official is out

emerge ac-sources
genkernel --config ac-sources

ph33R!!!!!!!

Re:YESSSSSSSSS

[Omicron32]

genkernel?

You goddamn pussy. You're using Gentoo, you're supposed to sort out your own damn kernel...

God, n00bs. Will they ever learn. :P

Andrew Morton at Southern California Linux Expo

[MrMorph]

Andrew Morton the heralded maintainer of Linux kernel 2.6 will be speaking at the Southern California Linux Expo on November 22nd at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. Andrew will be speaking on the Linux pagecache, VFS, filesystem and VM nexus. Regular priced and student priced tickets giving full access to the event are still available for this event. Free expo only tickets are also available using the "FREE" promotional code on the orders page. The Southern California Linux Expo is a non-profit event organized by LUG volunteers.

Re:Not ready for prime time

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Windows 95 box with 120 days of uptime - would you care to generalize about the stability of all Win95 systems from that one specific case?

Didn't think so.

Re:Not ready for prime time

[Prof.Phreak]

If you've been pounding at it for 120 days with all sorts of weird programs/code, been running all sorts of programs, etc., and it hasn't failed you, then yes, I'd be inclined to think that Win95 is 'stable'.

If on the other hand it's been sitting idle for most of those 120 days, then no, it's no, I wouldn't think it's stable.

acpi?

[LordMyren]

umm... acpi and half a dozen others i dont care about are still muy unstable. but acpi! i'd like to suspend my laptop, thanks...

are they just freezing devel to do bug changes for a bit, then going back to serious changes before release, or is it this + bugfix = release?

Re:acpi?

[Kourino]

The mailing list post that is linked to in the headline, if you'd read it, mentions that Linus doesn't want to do anything major before release. I'd consider "bug changes" critical, personally. Linus is only taking bug fixes for major issues. Witness:

"So guys, let's work on this even more for test10. I'm going to _totally_ ignore patches that aren't for major bugs. Don't send me anything that _others_ wouldn't consider horribly critical."

Re:Still the same error, propagated from kernel 2.

[Captain Large Face]

Here's the last MS service pack you'll ever need:

format c:

Re:Not ready for prime time

[Prof.Phreak]

Get a grip kiddo, the uptime of your personal Linux box running SETI@home and a warez ftp server means nothing compared with computers that people actually do work on.

Heh. And by your definition work is what? Checking e-mail and reading slashdot?

I say if I can run a bunch of servers; type, compile and run code; play video/audio; use devices like printers, etc., and the OS handles those tasks without any issues for a month, then the OS is good enough. What is it that you do at work that's so damn extraordinary that doesn't fit under those categories?

Are you implying that people cannot do actual work with Linux 2.6 just yet?

Re:SATA

[glitch23]

And exactly how much did you have to pay for the licensing of Win2K server? How many CALs did you purchase for your users? How many security updates have you had to download? How many did not work after installation?

Re:Whaa

[glitch23]

CIFS=Common Internet File System or as some people call it SMB=Server Message Block. It's the protocl behind Samba.

lm_sensors

[kmike]

Though i2c and sensors drivers are integrated into kernel indeed, there're no userspace tools to read sensors values yet. One have to dig through sysfs hierarchy and try to figure out real temp or voltage values from some cryptic readings.

Strangely, work on libsensors sysfs port is going very slow, there're some patches for actual sensors utils floating (from lm_sensors mailing list), but values printed still make little sense...

Re:lm_sensors

[Zoolander]

I think the latest gkrellm reads sensor values directly from /sys, but don't quote me on that, since I haven't got an i2c board myself.

Re:Still the same error, propagated from kernel 2.

[Overly Critical Guy]

Wow, this same joke, every time Slashdot updates about the latest 2.6 test.

RedHat 2.6 Kernels

[Oronwe]

Take a look at http://people.redhat.com/~arjanv/2.5/ they have unofficial, precompiled 2.6 kernels there, last one is test8. Kernel is working just fine on my T23, minor bootup issues with USB, otherwise no problems. Only other thing is, you have to update your modutils and initscripts.

PCI-enumeration changed

[Anonymous Coward]

For the admins:
Watch out, if you use several ethernet-cards. The PCI-scanning-routines have changed which result in different enumeration and thus:

cards get different device-names than before!

When switching from 2.4 to 2.6 I had to exchange my ethernet-cables between cards.

This may be with all multi-card-setups.
Keep an eye open.

Re:Not ready for prime time

[lewp]

You had right up until you indicated you were being sarcastic.

SCO code

[tuggy]

anyone knows if the supposed stollen code from $CO has been removed? :>

2.5.57 through 2.6.0-test8-mm1 still unusable

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still having HORRIBLE performance issues with 2.6.0-test8 and most-recently 2.6.0-test8-mm1. Most of it seems to be centered around timing and multimedia (audio and video) playback. The performance is HORRID (No, I'm not trolling). In 2.4.21, I can turn the mixer down with a keyboard shortcut (aumix -v -2) and it goes down immediately, in response to my keyboard shortcut. In anything after 2.5.57, up to current 2.6-testX releases, it takes about 40 seconds to fully bring the mixer down 12 clicks. Meanwhile I can't open any other windows, click on any other apps, or anything. It's completely blocking.

I've tried using all three schedulers (as, cfq, deadline), all with the same results. 'deadline' is clearly the winner here though. It seems to give the most level performance.

Also, the issues with opening windows in X have not been solved, which I've reported 1/2 dozen times.

Why does it take 2.6.0-test8 (and every version of the kernel after 2.5.57, when this problem first appeared) over 3-4 seconds to open an xterm from a keyboard shortcut? In 2.4.21, again, it is instantaneous. In many cases, a keyboard request to open one xterm will either open none, 1, or several. The timing is COMPLETELY screwed up for this, and I can't figure out why.

For me, 2.6.0-testX and anything after 2.5.57 is not even remotely usable for any server or desktop use. The performance is just not there. It's laggy, slow, and the timing is way off in some regard. I'm surprised nobody has caught this yet. How many times do I have to report it, before someone actually tries to test it? Who am I supposed to send my next volley of emails to?

Oh, and lastly... orinoco_pci immediately hard-locks my Thinkpad T23 the moment I try to modprobe it.. forcing me to do a hold-power-down-for-7-seconds power-off. Not fun.

Though I appreciate the work of the kernel authors and maintainers, I will definately not be moving any servers or desktops I deploy and administer (which is quite a few hundred at this point, and growing every day) to 2.6.x until these issues are found, fixed, and resolved. 2.4.21 is where they'll stay, until 2.6 outperforms it.

Re:2.5.57 through 2.6.0-test8-mm1 still unusable

[spitzak]

The X problem is definately caused by your window manager.

Most likely it has a bug in how it checks for events so that it tries to read from X when there are no events there, and eventually times out. In previous versions of Linux, due to different timing, this did not happen.

It is extremely unlikely that a bug in the kernel, or even in the X server, would cause only keyboard shortcuts to the window manager to slow down so drastically.

Re:A bit behind Windows with SATA eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Linux has supported SATA drives for ages. It now supports the additional SATA extensions, which, BTW, win* doesn't use.

Performance

[pasi]

Ok, before you read any further remember that this is NOT accurate, tested or anyhow valid information. Some of this is purely psychological and has got NOTHING to do with real benchmarks.

I've been running 2.4 series with CK [1] patches. I'm unfortunately using somewhat low-end hardware (P200MHz) and hence I really appreciate performance. I switched to linux-2.6.0-test8 only a week ago, so again this isn't really the best source of information.

Anyhow, I'm so far REALLY happy with performance of 2.6.0-test8. Before the switch, I was using 2.4.22-ck1 which was a lot worse performance-wise than my previous kernel, .20-ck6. Didn't switch back just yet because I had compiled in some stuff I needed and it takes a while to compile a new kernel with this hardware.

Linux-2.6.0-test8 has done A LOT better than .22-ck1, and it has seemed even more responsive in normal use (IRC, web surfing, MP3s etc) than .20-ck6 which I was already happy with. Responsiveness shows in switching desktops when browser is doing things, starting things and playing MP3s at the same time.

And yes, as I said in the beginning, most of this is purely psychological and inaccurate. Slower hardware of course benefits more even from smallest performance gains. Then again, I don't believe that 2.6 will be The Thing for serious production enviroments for a while, it's not mature enough yet. But for me -- for desktop use -- great!

[1] http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/ (Con Kolivas' kernel patches that aim to a more responsive system)

Re:Not ready for prime time

[pilot1]

It's very stable for me.
# uptime
06:38:34 up 13 days, 14:46, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

That's my server. HTTPd/IRCd/MySQL/BIND/Postfix

Before that it was up 14 days, and before that ~20. The reason it rebooted wasn't because it crashed - it was because the power went out and I haven't bought a UPS yet.

This is 2.6.0-test5, btw. I haven't upgraded because I don't want to reboot until I have to. (Although 2.6.0-test8 is on the GRUB list, and 2.6.0-test9 is compiling right now.)

Re:torrent link - VALID NON-GOAT LINK

[alsutton]

Theres a valid torrent link at http://www.distributedbandwidth.info/torrentmap/ex plorer.jsp?cat=Lin260.

It's got the patch & the full kernel.

If you're new to kernel compiling...

[jensend]

then you probably ought to become familiar with compiling a kernel from the same kernel series as the one you're running before doing a 2.6 kernel. Many drivers in 2.6 haven't been changed to the new driver specs yet, and 2.6 needs new userspace utils (module tools are the most crucial) to work. When you decide to compile a 2.6 kernel, read Dave Jones' What to expect from 2.6 which hasn't been updated in a couple months but is still very much a must-read.

Dont bother..

[adeyadey]

Ive found a version of Windows that is actually superior to Linux..

Re:Dont bother..

[Queuetue]

It's amazing, the way they've distilled the essense of Windows into such a simple application...

Re:Dont bother..

[adeyadey]

Its an incredibly accurate recreation of some of my install experiences with Win98. I especially like their implementation of Solitaire. I am now going to lay in a dark room with a damp towel on my forehead..

About your problems opening windows in X

[sterwill]

You're using sawfish, right? I am, and I tracked down the problem to a line in librep. I mailed John Harper just now about it. If you're not using sawfish, you can ignore the rest of this message.

It all has to do with the following lines from unix_processes.c:

timeout.tv_sec = 1;
timeout.tv_usec = 0;
rep_sig_restart (SIGCHLD, rep_FALSE);
select (FD_SETSIZE, NULL, NULL, NULL, &timeout);
rep_sig_restart (SIGCHLD, rep_TRUE);

The call to select() on kernel 2.6 causes the timeout to be fully expired every time. This code is in the parent branch after the fork() (right before it starts waitpid() on the child), so everything freezes for at least 1 full second. Dropping this timeout to 1 usec causes the problem to go away.

Re:About your problems opening windows in X

[sterwill]

Oh, I forgot:

The delay only seems to happen when using keyboard shortcuts to open new windows, although I believe the same code in librep is executed for menu-launched programs. Sometimes I'll get 2 or even 3 instances of the program I want to launch when this delay happens.

Mod this guy up, please.

[theTerribleRobbo]

If you wouldn't mind.

Re:Still the same error, propagated from kernel 2.

[BrokenHalo]

Wow, this same joke,

At least nobody asked about Colonel Panic :-)

Re:Not ready for prime time

[Nucleon500]

Yeah, OK. The kernel gods on LKML are zealots, but thankfully we have that guardian of sanity, Slashdot's own Anonymous Coward, to set us straight. Sure.

hmmm

[ShadowRage]

time for me to do some upgrading eventually
upgrade gnome to 2.4 (I have 1.4)
new kde (I still have 2.2)
new XFree (I have 4.2.0)
new xfce
new kernel
upgrade gtk

blah, I have a lot to do

I want the new kernel when it comes out as a stable
looks very promising.

Re:hmmm

[DarkOx]

upgrade gnome to 2.4 (I have 1.4)- Nah 1.4 is better
new kde (I still have 2.2) -- why use KDE?
new XFree (I have 4.2.0)
new xfce -Yes sweet as all hell do this today!!
new kernel -you could
upgrade gtk -you need to

I don't understand this anger toward RedHat.

[jbn-o]

RH [RedHat] decided to fuck all of their loyal follwers and concentrate on their "corporate" customers.

I don't understand your anger here--RedHat

• is apparently contributing to the Fedora project (bandwidth, hosting, and software Fedora is building on, to name three things); it looks like Fedora and RH are working together to bring us the next revision of what used to be RedHat's GNU/Linux distribution.
• will still be subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License. Their changes stand to benefit the community, just like anyone else who distributes a modified version of a GPL-covered work. RH appears to me to be making money from corporate customers and turning some of that revenue into free software for everyone.
• RH has shown they want to work with the free software community even on issues where other businesses do not (such as software patents which poses a powerful threat to free software development in any country where software patents are allowed).

I don't see how RedHat's "loyal followers" are being "fuck[ed]" by moving the distribution more under the control of Fedora.

Re:Still the same error, propagated from kernel 2.

[Jetson]

kernel-2.6.0-test9.tar.bz2 is not a valid Win32 application

Try associating WinZip with the bz2 extension. I haven't tried opening a bz2 file yet, but I'm able to download .gz files and open them by double-clicking in Explorer -- WinZip pops up a message box saying that the compressed file contains a tar archive, and asks me if I would like to have the tar archive extracted to a tempdir and opened....

Re:SATA

[glitch23]

It says that MS programmers do their coding as their job and OSS programmers do their coding as a hobby in most cases and have to do their real job as a first priority and only code when their family has been taken care of.

Re:CDROM destruction bug

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but it has been ported to the DVD driver, so it will also meltdown DVDs.

Re:Still the same error, propagated from kernel 2.

[pyrrhonist]

That's because it was General Protection's fault.