Linux Kernel 2.6.0-test10 Released

antrix angler writes "Linus Torvalds released the 2.6.0-test10 Linux kernel today, tentatively calling it the "stoned beaver" release. Linus plans to hand the kernel over to Andrew Morton in a few weeks, and then it will be up to Andrew to decide when we see the final 2.6.0 stable kernel. Download it from a mirror."

Comments

problems in test9

[cft]

i had some serious problems with my usb mouse in test9 (while it worked in test4 and before), and i don't see any mouse related fixes in the ChangeLog, so for now I guess usb mouse users should stick with older releases.

i really hope this gets fixed before 2.6.0, especially since it worked before..

Re:problems in test9

[crimsun]

Hmm...it's a tad bit more complicated. Some of the possible issues are apic related. If you're the user of a VIA chipset, this particularly is the case. I append "noapic" to the kernel cmdline to use my USB mouse.

Re:problems in test9

[arth1]

Hmm...it's a tad bit more complicated. Some of the possible issues are apic related. If you're the user of a VIA chipset, this particularly is the case. I append "noapic" to the kernel cmdline to use my USB mouse.

It doesn't seem to be 2.6-specific -- I see the same problems with 2.4.20 and 2.4.21, where USB, serial and pseudo-serial works erratic at best if apic is enabled. For a single-CPU system, you might as well compile without SMP, and for a SMP system, it apparently helps to compile with CONFIG_X86_IO_APIC commented out.

Regards,
--
*Art

hey...

[Ann Elk]

...nice beaver!

BitTorrent

[teofilo]

Here

Let's share our bandwidht!!

Honest Question

[twistedcubic]

Is 2.6 really noticably faster than 2.4 for regular desktop use (X responsiveness, etc...)?

Re:Honest Question

[fire-eyes]

Is 2.6 really noticably faster than 2.4 for regular desktop use (X responsiveness, etc...)?

Yes, it definately is.

Note that Linus says preemption should be turned off for now, there are odd problems.

Re:Honest Question

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Preemption is one of those things thats great under ideal circumstances, but in something less it hurts more than it helps. Preemption, for anyone that doesnt know, allows one task to jump to the top of the runqueue whenever it needs to run anything if it has a higher priority than everything else. This works great until you run something like SoulSeek or Bittorrent(both wxwindows python apps..) which end up with a much higher priority than they deserve. This then preempts all of your other tasks making your system highly unresponsive.

Re:Honest Question

[PugMajere]

Preemption, as you describe it, has been there in every Linux kernel.

Preemption, as Linus referred to it in the release announcement, is Kernel preemption.

I.e, the kernel itself can be preempted. This has improved consistency for things such as xmms.

The problems you complain about are more likely the result of the new scheduler. Tell me, what nice level does X run at on your system? If it's -10, that's why your responsiveness sucks. Stop X from being reniced to -10 from 0 and you'll find that everything performs much smoother. The new scheduler does a much better job of actually respecting priorities, and as such doesn't need adjustements such as "nice" for everyday things such as running an X server.

Re:Honest Question

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Thanks for that tip about renicing the X server. It made a huge improvement for me (using 2.6.0-test9).

For reference here's how I fixed this, on my Debian machine: I edited /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config and removed completely the line which sets nice_value.

If you don't want to restart your X server to make the change have effect, then you can instead do:

renice 0 PID

where PID is the process ID of the X server.

Rich.

Re:Honest Question

[GammaTau]

For reference here's how I fixed this, on my Debian machine: I edited /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config and removed completely the line which sets nice_value.

But the easiest way to change it is to simply type:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common

...and let debconf allow you to choose the nice value with the normal debconf configuration dialog.

Nice Beaver [Was: Re: hey...]

[fire-eyes]

...nice beaver!

Why thank you, I just had it stuffed.

Stoned Beaver?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this name confirms Linus's rockstar-like role in the open source world, as it shows he is now addicted to both drugs and sex.

Re:wonder

[yellowcord]

Reading TFA I came across this:

Btw, I tried to come up with a good name for this release. But the fact is, that as Scott Adams has so often pointed out, you can't do much better than "weasel" when it comes to funny. Ever since the "greased weasel" series of kernel releases I have been stuck for a good name.

This release is tentatively called the "stoned beaver" release (beavers are _almost_ as good as weasels, as I'm sure Scott Adams would agree).

If you feel strongly about the issue, please send your votes and ideas to "feedback@beaver-overlord.com", I'm sure somebody will find your insight fascinating.

Thank you in advance. ]

Linus

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[samadhi]

Your boss would probably be more interested why you were running a test kernel on his hardware, rather than what code name it had!

Re:wonder

[PGillingwater]

1. Register the in DNS beaver-overload.com
2. Wonder why there is no email
3. Correct registration to beaver-overlord.com
4. Read strange emails from hundreds of Kernel compilers voting on the above issues
5. ???????
6. Sell beaver-overload.com to a Sex site
7. Profit!!!!

devfs on Debian: works for me

[smcv]

I know I'm anonymous, but can anyone tell me whether I have to/ really really should turn on devfs if I upgrade to 2.6?

I've tried using devfs under 2.4 several times but have never succeeded in getting it to work with my crufty (been around since slink) debian box.

And since I use ALSA and XFS the 2.6 kernel would simplify compiling desktop kernels no end.

I don't know about 2.6, but I use 2.4.x with devfs on two stable boxes ("servers" running on obsolete desktop hardware) and two unstable boxes (a desktop and a Powerbook), and they all work fine. Tab-completing commands is so much nicer when you only have device nodes for hardware you actually have; it's also handy to be able to see (say) whether your CD drive was detected properly, or how many partitions a hard disk has, by looking at the device nodes.

If you're using at least Debian 3.0 stable (woody), install devfsd, install a devfs kernel, reboot, and everything should Just Work.

What specific problems do you have with it?

Re:devfs

[fstanchina]

Not at all. In fact, devfs has been declared obsolete in 2.6; on those machines where I'm testing 2.6, I'm using a plain old /dev until I have time to figure out how sysfs and udev are supposed to work.

Now, if you want to use devfs, all you have to do is: 1) install devfsd, 2) compile a new kernel with devfs enabled and set to mount on boot, 3) install said kernel, 4) reboot. Doing 1 before 2 is the tricky stuff for me, I always forget that. You may also have to adjust some permissions and/or create some nonstandard devices you made yourself, but I've been using devfs on all my machines with 2.4 and it's working perfectly.

Re:Udev

[pldms]

These explained a little:

udev presentation (PDF), Google HTML version.

Detailed paper on udev (PDF), Google HTML version.

devfs works fine for me, but since some people (see second link) want thousands of disks I guess I'm not the target market. I mean ... thousands?

Re:Udev

[silvaran]

I'm running 2.6.0-test10 at this very second, and have been running every test version since test2 except for test8 (screwed up my sound system for some reason). I gave udev and hotplug a try but found hotplug to be straying behind. They had a few notes on their web site about patches for pciutils and usbutils to add something that probed all the devices (especially for coldplugging), but also said that you won't need them for 2.6.x due to the new sysfs filesystem (mkdir /sys; mount none /sys -t sysfs). But then doesn't say anything else about hotplug utility support in 2.6.x. So without a working hotplug, udev is kind of useless (since it interfaces with the hotplug).

ATM I'm using murasaki as my hotplug facility, as I've personally had the best luck with it (that's really the only reason), especially on the 2.6 test kernels. I'm also still using devfsd (which will be obsoleted by udev).

This is the extent of my knowledge about new things like udev, etc. in the new kernel. So anyone should feel free to correct any innacuracies, omissions or blatant stupidities :).

- Sil

APIC

[Second_Derivative]

A new interrupt controller dreamed up by Intel to enable multiprocessing. It seems to cause a disproportionate amount of problems under Linux (a dedicated server I run would crash something like every 4 hours before I enabled noapic)

Unless you've got more than one CPU, it's more trouble than it's worth. The old 'legacy' 8259 interrupt controller (or the interface your system chipset supplies that emulates it anyway) works just fine for single-CPU applications.

Re:Framebuffer

[srussell]

The fix is a tiny one-liner.

===== drivers/video/radeonfb.c 1.30 vs edited =====
--- 1.30/drivers/video/radeonfb.c Fri Aug 1 01:58:45 2003
+++ edited/drivers/video/radeonfb.c Tue Sep 9 13:18:36 2003
@@ -2090,7 +2090,7 @@

}
/* Update fix */
- info->fix.line_length = rinfo->pitch*64;
+ info->fix.line_length = mode->xres_virtual*(mode->bits_per_pixel/8);
&nbs p; info->fix.visual = rinfo->depth == 8 ? FB_VISUAL_PSEUDOCOLOR : FB_VISUAL_DIRECTCOLOR;

#ifdef CONFIG_BOOTX_TEXT

Note that this patch doesn't apply directly to any of the 2.6 kernels; I just make the change by hand, since it is only one line. I have no idea why Linus isn't including this patch; it has been available for months, and it isn't exactly huge. It does fix the Radeon frame buffer issues.

Also note that /. is munging the code; it insists on inserting a "&nbs p;" that shouldn't be in there. I can't seem to get rid of it. Gotta love buggy software.

Suggestion for 2.6.0-test* naming

[weeboo0104]

Ever since the "greased weasel" series of
kernel releases I have been stuck for a good name.

This release is tentatively called the "stoned beaver" release (beavers are
_almost_ as good as weasels, as I'm sure Scott Adams would agree).

I think that the "Stoned Beaver" is almost as good of a name as "Greased Weasel". However, I would like to submit the following suggestion.

I feel that "Stoned Beaver" sends the impression that this release has problems with volatile (short-term) memory and gets the munchies for more resources.

To improve market visibility, I recommend that the next testing release be named "Shaved Beaver". I feel this name denotes something that is sleek and highly visible. The only shortcoming I could foresee for this name are emails or newsgroup postings with the subject line "Shaved Beaver ready for pounding". It may be a possible problem for SPAM filters.

I agree that it's tough to beat "Greased Weasel", but if you really are stuck coming up with a new name, I think "Greased Beaver" would be almost as good.

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[Tin Foil Hat]

And what's wrong with drugs and sex, anyway? I mean I could understand being against sex addiction, but drugs?

Oh wait, that came out all wrong...

Re:Is JFS abandoned?

[runswithd6s]

Read Kernel Traffic, the periodical summary of conversations on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML). In article #240, you will find your answer. If in doubt, email the authors directly.