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

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

[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!

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

[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: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).

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.

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?

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: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: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: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: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?

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.

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.

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)