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

good stuff

[inode_buddha]

I've tried several -test kernels, and the desktop performance boost blows my mind. I could probably stay with -test10 and akpm's patches, but that's not what the kernel team is really looking for (I think). Last I heard, They really want people to hammer on stuff like PnP, scalability, USB, and ACPI.

Any ideas on how much akpm's patches end up becoming "mainstream"? After reading the changelogs (and using the patches), I think it'd be a good idea.

Re:This isn't unexpected

[Ianoo]

The NT and XP kernel are the same. XP's is just an incremental improvement over the NT4 Kernel (it's almost the exact same Kernel in Win2000 aka NT5). Microsoft have just moved things in and out of the Kernel since NT3 to improve performance (such as the full DirectX support added to W2K rather than the awful DirectX emulation in NT4).

Also, while it's true that the 9x series are built on top of DOS, the same as 3.11, there were a significant number of changes to support 32-bit and things like pre-emptive rather than cooperative multitasking. Not quite as many changes as Microsoft would have us believe (it certainly wasn't the 100% new 16-bit-free operating system everyone expected based on what they were saying), but certainly a lot of changes under the hood.

Lastly, 3.x never had a Kernel, it was effectively a big graphical library and program launcher, and not much more.

That given, I'd revise your list to:

• DOS Kernel (if you can call it a Kernel!)
• 9x Kernel (which built on DOS/3x)
• NT Kernel (featuring in 2K and XP with tweaks)

I agree entirely that Linux has to be taken in a larger context. Considering that in the same time it's taken to go from 2K to XP we've seen Gnome go from v1 to v2 and KDE go from v2 to v3, which were much more significant changes, I'd say that Linux on the desktop is advancing more rapidly.

Besides, there's no reason to rewrite a Kernel from scratch if you get it right the first time. There don't seem to be that many fundamental problems with the Linux Kernel, so the continued process of tweaking and gradual improvement seems set to continue. Microsoft, on the other hand, had to write a new Kernel because 9x was such a horrendous mess and lacked quite a lot of modern features and elegance.

alsa sound kernel support

[HelloKitty]

I'm looking forward to the end the nasty OSSFree, and the beginning of the silky smooth default included Alsa sound kernel.

no more annoying upgrading my system to Alsa when I want to make it into a professional audio workstation