Linux 2.6.0 Expected In Mid-December

Ridgelift writes "CRN is reporting the release of Linux 2.6.0 in mid-December. 'Torvalds, Linux's lead developer and now an OSDL Fellow, and Linux kernel maintainer Andrew Morton this week released the test10 version of Linux 2.6 after a three-year development effort. A final test11 version is expected before they sign off on the production version next month.' Get ready for 'major scalability improvements, faster performance, enhanced support for embedded systems and, to a lesser extent,' a kernel that 'supplies desktop systems with better USB and FireWire support.'"

Comments

Linux 2.6: I can only recommend it!

[quigonn]

We're running 2.6.0-test9 on several production machines at work, and we had absolutely no problem, so far, but a huge improvement on performance instead. The only thing one has to care about is that 2.6.0 requires module-init-tools instead of modutils. It's especially important to read the upgrade guide, so that one can easily switch back to 2.4.x even when using modules (not that I would miss 2.4.x, but you never know... not all people will have such flawless upgrade processes as I did).

Re:Linux 2.6: I can only recommend it!

[Bas_Wijnen]

As far as I know Linux 2.4 also needed module-init-tools.

Anyway, I have a USB device here which had problems with a bug in the uhci driver of 2.4, and there was a patch for it for 2.6.0-test2. I used that, and it worked fine. Later, I moved the device to a different computer, so I compiled a new kernel. By that time, -test9 had come out (which included the patch btw), so I used that.

I don't know why, but the other computer was completely unstable with that, crashing several times an hour. This was of course unacceptable, so I compiled a -test2 kernel for it and it hasn't crashed since.

I didn't file a bug report, because I couldn't figure out what was causing the crashes. I sure hope my machine will run allright on 2.6.0, because I want to let other people use that usb device as well, and I wasn't planning to tell them they need to compile their own kernel.

Re:Linux 2.6: I can only recommend it!

[dossen]

I don't know about Gentoo, but as far as installing module-init-tools/modutils, kernel and related stuff Source Mage GNU/Linux has been there for quite some time.

Re:Linux 2.6: I can only recommend it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... I installed the new tools on debian and can still boot 2.4 kernels...

Re:Linux 2.6: I can only recommend it!

[Dave2 Wickham]

make moveold before make install - it moves the current lsmod, modprobe etc to lsmod.old, modprobe.old etc.

Re:Linux 2.6: I can only recommend it!

[BoysDontCry]

Nope. Linux 2.4 needed modutils. 2.6 needs module-init-tools.

Re:Linux 2.6: I can only recommend it!

[brsmith4]

If you want, here is an RPM that contains updated modutils. The package is called modutils so that it cooperates with the pre-defined dependencies. It also allows you to boot 2.6 and 2.4 kernels. It works well for me on redhat 9

modutils-2.4.21-22.i386.rpm

Re:Linux 2.6: I can only recommend it!

[Mullen]

Depends. I worked at a place that used 6 Proc with 4 Gigs of memory systems that had 20 to 30 heavy users at any one time. We were using the 2.4.9 Redhat kernel and the machines would crash after 3 or 4 days. Considering we had 300 or 400 machines, you can take a guess what oncall was like. Well, I took a couple of the mid-level problem ones and replace the kernels with 2.4.18 release canidates (I played with the patches) and they did not crash for several weeks afterwards. Some servers never went down unless we rebooted them. Sometimes using beta stuff will save your ass, but as a general rule of thumb, your right, it can be bad.

Keyboard still doesn't work

[chrysalis]

I own a Logitech ergonomic cordless keyboard and 2.6.x still doesn't work with it. The key repeat is very strange and typing anything becomes impossible.

That's very strange. I also have a Logitech cordless confort keyboard that is basically the same but with a different base, and that one perfectly works.

Re:Keyboard still doesn't work

[MrHanky]

Have you tried "pci=noacpi" at the boot prompt? I had complete crashes (no kernel panic) when the keyboard was initialized before I tried that. Maybe your problem is related? (This is for a PS/2 type keyboard, BTW.)

I don't think I have any problems with 2.6.0-test9-mm1 at all.

IDE support on Dell Latitude D600

[cerberusss]

I'm running this new kernel to get full support on whatever IDE chipset my Dell Latitude D600 laptop uses. Combined with the better performance this kernel really rocks.

They seem to have som problems though...

[errl]

A problem, potentially delaying release? Seems that they don't really know what causes it as of yet...

YES: Gentoo and Source Mage do it

[FreeUser]

I upgraded to module-init and after that 2.4 wouldn't boot. grr.

Is there a way to have both installed so I could dual boot 2.4 and 2.6?

Gentoo GNU/Linux supports this, and I believe Source Mage does as well.

I run 2.6.0-test10 and 2.6.0-test9-mm5 on numerous Gentoo boxes with no problem, and occasionally switch back to 2.4.22 without difficulties.

I'm not sure how they do it exactly. A quick perusal of module-init-tools and modutils revealed that, for example, bot install /sbin/modinfo, and numerous symlinks to things like lsmod.old exist. There is probably a boot script that detects the kernel version on boot, creates the appropriate links, and then loads up the modules, but nothing in /etc/init.d jumped out at me as the culprit.

In any event, it is certainly possible have both installed and functional, and to seemlessly move between 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels.

Re:Debian support

[scharkalvin]

Debian supports 2.4 right now. You get your choice with 'woody'. True the default install CD DOES install 2.2, but if you boot with the BF24 image, you will install the 2.4 kernel. AND 2.4 kernel images ARE in the 'stable' package tree.

Red Hat builds

[Bernie]

It's worth reminding RH/Fedora users that Arjan van de Ven maintains kernel RPMs (including new module RPMs etc), and those with yum and apt can very easily test 2.6 using these files.

Read the readme.txt for full details.

redhat supplies rpms

[Anonymous Coward]

they are here: http://people.redhat.com/arjanv/2.5/

I do expect redhat to come out with a release that defaults to 2.6 kernel first, because the next release of fedora has only one critical upgrade in it, the kerenel. there will be other stuff, probably
minor gnome/mozilla/python upgrades, but since Linus asked them (and most likely other distros as well) to release 2.6 default distro asap, and fedora is structured now that they could, then it probably will be...

Re:2.6 Kernel issues - Is it really ready?

[Dionysus]

Most notably (for me) is devfs not being actively supported anymore (being shifted in favor of udev).

Well, the reason devfs is not actively supported is because the maintainer disappeared, and nobody has stepped up to take over the code.

udev seems to solve the problem of only have /dev files that correspond to devices you have connected. But they are moving "back" to the old /dev/sg?1 etc. I much prefer the devfs nameing scheme (what do you do if you have more than 24 hds? The devfs had a solution for that).

Re:any info on improved SATA support?

[QSO_Wizard]

I just tinker with linux, and before Mandrake 9.2 I was completely unable to get linux installed on my new system, which has SATA hard drives. I wasn't very hopeful when Mandrake 9.2 was released, but I thought I would give it a try. Fortunately, Mandrake 9.2 recognized my hard drives immediately and I had no problems installing it.

Re:Newsflash - Christmas Postponed..

[j3110]

The greating should actually be:
"Happy Capitalistic Compulsory Consumerism month!" ...and may you have a marry new year of frivolous letigation against your own or potential clients.

Re:This isn't unexpected

[spongman]

You're correct, right up until you imply that NT was written to replace 9x. NT shipped before win95, and it existed within MS well before win95 was even conceived. win95 was writen because they wanted to ship win32 to customers and NT didn't run as well as OS/2 or Win3.1 on consumer-level machines.

There was an effort to write a completely new win32-based replacement for win31, cougar was the codename for the 32-bit DOS kernel, and panther was the win32 core, but panther was canned and cougar was merged into chicago (win95).

Try SuSE 9

[IronTomFlint]

I've got an ICH5 board and a Seagate SATA drive. The RH 9 installer wouldn't even boot, so I went to FreeBSD for a while, waiting for things to catch up in Linux (FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE worked fine).

I just installed SuSE 9, and it works fine. One caveat: on my machine, I had to add the following options:

apm=off acpi=ht

in order to get the thing working. And now it works fine. I'm not sure that I'm up to full SATA speed yet, but it's pretty fast.

Benchmarks here (linux 2.4, 2.6, *bsd)

[Szplug]

here

Re:alsa sound kernel support

[CTachyon]

If you hear a hiss or have volume trouble, it means that the ALSA driver for your particular card you're using is buggy and not initializing the card correctly, and it has nothing to do with the ALSA core itself. File a bug report with ALSA, and include which driver you're using and what card you have, because it'll never get fixed if the developers are never told about it.