Kernel 2.6.1 Released

jnf writes "And so he said it is released, and then jumped on a plane to Australia. Linus announced the release of 2.6.1 a few minutes ago, fixes include AGPGART, a fork() bugfix, and misc changes to XFS, and those are just the patches applied since v2.6.1-rc3. Full changelog is avialable, kernel at the usual places, i held off posting this until kernel.org was updated." 2.6.0 is now in Debian unstable...

Comments

cygwin

[Anonymous Coward]

still doesn't build on cygwin..

Re:cygwin

[aled]

Worst: it doesn't compile with VS.NET. This Linux thing isn't as portable as advertised.

Of course...

[Stween]

... it gets released the minute I've installed 2.6.0.

Perhaps I'll wait until at least 2.6.2 before doing it again :)

Re:Of course...

[SQLz]

Try this.

Copy the .config file from the 2.6.0 directory to the 2.6.1 directory. Then enter the 2.6.1 directory. Type: 'make oldconfig'. That will apply the old kernel configuration to the new one asking you manually about any new options. Then just do your normal, make, make modules_install.

Beats the hell out of make menuconfig.

Re:Of course...

[grahamlee]

Or use /proc/config.gz from the 2.6.0 system, that might work too :-)

Re:Of course...

[Shazow]

... it gets released the minute I've installed 2.6.0.

Perhaps I'll wait until at least 2.6.2 before doing it again :)

But but but... If you never install 2.6.1, then 2.6.2 may never come out! The fate of the world depends on you!!

- shazow

do_mremap local exploit

[zeroclip]

Does this release fix the do_mremap() exploit? I coulden't find it in the changelog. I got the impression from security sites that 2.6.0 had this bug.

Re:do_mremap local exploit

[PowerBert]

Yes, it was fixed in 2.6.1-rc1....
and then again in 2.6.1-rc2.
Real men don't test patches... aparently ;-)

Re:do_mremap local exploit

[sopuli]

Here is the relevant changelog entry:

<torvalds@home.osdl.org>
Don't allow mremap of zero-sized areas.

Re:Besides Debian, What distros have 2.6.x ?

[SteevR]

Gentoo as always I'm sure ;-)

Slackware

[turgid]

Slackware is 2.6.x ready, and 9.1 comes with it as an option.

We will know that it is time to use 2.6.x in anger when Patrick ships his distro with it as the default kernel. This is usually a sure sign that stability and maturity is upon us.

Re:Slackware

[Enry]

By 2.6.x ready, I hope that means that the existing 2.4.x kernel includes the devmapper patch so that you can go from LVM1 to LVM2. No other distros seem to have thought about that particular upgrade yet.

Let me get this straight...

[clifgriffin]

I download it, double click on the .exe, click next a few times and restart? Thanks, Clif

Re:Let me get this straight...

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

It looks like you're trying to upgrade your Kernel. Would you like to:

1. make gconfig?
2. make clean bzImage modules modules_install?
3. copy system files to /boot?
4. install a bootloader?

Re:Let me get this straight...

[JCholewa]

> The concept of being 'user-friendly' has yet to seep into
> the murky underworld of Linux development, so no.

That's not exactly fair. Although installing a kernel independently of a distro isn't easy, program installation in general is far, far easier than it is in MS Windows. In debian, you just type "apt-get programname". In Mandrake, you type "urpmi programname".

In Windows, you open your web browser, go to download.com, type "programname" into the search field, click on the most likely link to the program from the search results, click on the "Download Now" link, click on the closest mirror, wait a few seconds, tell the app to "Run" instead of "Save", pray that the app is safe for your system (in the above apt-get and urpmi examples, programs are generally added into the installable app databases only after they make sure that the programs are reasonably secure and reliable), wait for the graphical installer to come up, click next, select the program components to install in one of several different ways (checkboxes, checkboxes in a scrollview, that tree-based Office2k method with the little dropdown buttons, etc..), verify the install location, click Finish, then delete the stupid excess shortcuts placed on the desktop, the shortcut bar, above the "Programs" entry in the Start menu, etc...

Then you agree to a surprisingly restrictive and needlessly redundant ("you agree to not do the following already illegal things...") license agreement. Then, maybe, it'll make you reboot.

BTW, if you have multiple program names in Debian or Mandrake Linux, you can install all of them with a single command line (or a single button in the install gui).

So hah! ;P

--
-JC
coder
http://www.jc-news.com/parse.cgi?coding/main

Hmmmm....

[Soko]

I'm going to be in Australia (and on airplanes) for the week, but we're
all in the capable hands of Andrew, so why worry? The fact that I'm
fleeing the country should in no way be construed as anything sinister at
all, no siree. Nope. I'm innocent, and nobody saw me do it.

Linus is not only a great project manager, system architect and coder, he's funny as hell too.

(If that isn't an underhanded slap in the back of the head of Dalek McBride, I don't know what is. "I'll be in Oz all week, try the veal!!")

I hope SCO sticks around for a while just for the comedy factor. :-)

Soko

STILL waiting for...

[Trolling4Columbine]

Native support for SATA hard drives!

I've been wanting to dual-boot for several months now, but the Linux installer (any distribution) does not recognize my SATA hard drive.

For an OS that's supposed to be innovative and cutting edge, Linux is really dropping the ball on this one!

Re:STILL waiting for...

[jtshaw]

Go to the Low-level SCSI drivers in the kernel. It is under the Device Drivers->SCSI Devices section. There exists and option that might make you happy:

[*] Serial ATA (SATA) support
ServerWorks Frodo / Apple K2 SATA support (EXPERIMENTAL) (NEW)
Intel PIIX/ICH SATA support
Promise SATA support (NEW)
VIA SATA support

important fixes summary

[Anonymous Coward]

To Sum it up:

o lots of USB-Updates, eg. for storage-devices and BUGS
o seeking in /proc/net/tcp fixed
o some more use-after-free()-fixes
o [libata promise] fix another ugly bug (for those who use it)
o lots of misc small fixes
o lots of ARM stuff
o dvb: Update DVB core (and more stuff, for those video-people)
o Fix via686a/KX133 TSC failure (for ppl with an Abit KA7/KA7-100 etc)
o Fix memleak on execve failure (memleaks are always bad)
o cpuqfreq stuff/additions
o "at least" one important X86-64 fix
o mremap() security fix

Re:important fixes summary

[lawpoop]

And most importantly:

• [PATCH] USB: Add Lego USB Infrared Tower driver
• [PATCH] USB: fix up formatting problems in the legotower driver.Basically fixed up spaces to tabs problems.
• [PATCH] USB: give legotower driver a real USB minor, and remove unneeded ioctl function.

Now I can finally get my legotower working!

Finally, the patch party is over (for now).

[graf0z]

2.4-patches i regulary used:

• UML
• ipsec
• ebtables & bridge-netfilter
• robert love's preemptable patch
• LSM-hooks (which make not everybody happy:grsecurity, RSBAC
• LS-module SE-linux
• filesystem-encryption
• apci 2.5 backports
• Kernel .config
• DVB-support

I got really tired of applying combinations of those patches to newest kernel source (due to security issues). They 're now all included to 2.6! Only MPPE-support seems still to lack.

They must have beaten up Linus to get all those accepted ...

/graf0z.

UML?

[Slashamatic]

Ok, maybe it does seem stupid, but sometimes you are cursed to a Windows wokstation by corporate policy. Sometimes you are not permitted admin access even to the local system and Knoppix isn't permitted.

Cygwin is great but a full linux would be even better. In theory at least, User Mode Linux should be able to run under Windows. Possibly with a MinGW compile under Cygwin so after building, it doesn't need the Cygwin layer.

Re:UML?

[gl4ss]

well..

there is a project on sourceforge http://line.sourceforge.net/

* LINE Is Not an Emulator

LINE executes unmodified Linux applications on Windows by intercepting Linux system calls. The Linux applications themselves are not emulated. They run directly on the CPU just like all other Windows applications.

Status
Current version: 0.5
Release date: May 29, 2001

LINE IS ALPHA SOFTWARE *

though, now I should get off my ass and compile 2.6.1..

Re:UML?

[Anonymous Coward]

... cursed to a Windows wokstation by corporate policy.

WTF?

I am what most people would consider a highly trained technical professional. Unlike most people who spout off at this site, I have the certificates to prove this, and furthermore they're issued by the biggest software company in existence.

I know how to tell facts from marketing fluff. Now, here are the facts as they're found by SEVERAL INDEPENDENT RESEARCH INSTITUTES:

Expenses for file-server workloads under Windows, compared to LinuxOS:

• Staffing expenses were 33.5% better.
  
• Training costs were 32.3% better.
  

They compared Microsofts IIS to the Linux 7.0 webserver. For Windows, the cost was only:

• $40.25 per megabit of throughput per second.
  
• $1.79 per peak request per second.
  

Application development and support costs for Windows compared to an opensores solution like J2EE:

• 28.2% less for large enterprises.
  
• 25.0% less for medium organizations.
  

A full Windows installation, compared to installing Linux, on an Enterprise Server boxen:

• Is nearly three hours faster.
  
• Requires 77% fewer steps.
  

Compared to the best known opensores webserver "Red Hat", Microsoft IIS:

• Has 276% better peak performance for static transactions.
  
• Has 63% better peak performance for dynamic content.
  

These are hard numbers and 100% FACTS! There are several more where these came from.

Who do you think we professionals trust more?
Reliable companies with tried and tested products, or that bedroom coder Thorwalds who publicly admits that he is in fact A HACKER???

--
Copyright (c) 2004 Mike Bouma, MCSE, MCDST, MS Office Specialist

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
Free Documentation License".

Slackware kernel compile guide available

[G3ckoG33k]

Slackware kernel 2.6.x compile/upgrade guide available here.

Some facts 'n figures

[bwindle2]

This patch weighs in at 4.1 megs... there are 998 files changed, 40596 insertions, 50838 deletions.

That's a heck of a lot of changes for a "stable" kernel.

Re:Some facts 'n figures

[tjw]

That's a heck of a lot of changes for a "stable" kernel.

Not really. The patch isn't even large by 2.4 conventions. The biggest patch ever seems to be 2.4.20 to 2.4.21 which was around 30Mb. Keep in mind that unified patches are made up mostly of code that hasn't changed surrounding the code that has.

Dammit!

[Saint Aardvark]

I just downloaded everything for -rc3 last night, compiled before going to bed, and was going to copy bzImage into place right now. And now this.

Me: How many fingers do you have on your right hand?
Linus: What?
Me: Oh, how I have prepared for this moment. The coding, the studying, the kernel crashes, never seeing the sun...
Linus: What the hell are you talking about?
Me: My name is Saint Aardvark the Carpeted. You killed my kernel. Prepare to die.
Linus: How the hell did you find me? Did Darl send you?
Me: My name is Saint Aardvark the Carpeted. You killed my kernel. Prepare to die.
Linus: ...All right, I can see you're upset. How much would it take to clear this up? Patches? A syctl named after you? The head of Alan Cox?
Me: My name is Saint Aar--
Linus: Stop saying that! Guards!
Me: --killed my kernel.
Linus: What do you want?
Me: I want my -rc3 kernel back, you son of a bitch.

BitTorrent...

[teoruiz]

Here.

Re:Ugly version system

[MoonFog]

Uhm, it's the second number that determines stable or development version. 2.6.0 and 2.6.1 are both stable releases.

Actually

[Czernobog]

This is a way to make the Windows 85% desktop share vanish overnight.
Just compile the most expansive possible kernel. Package it and "sell" it to cnet as the p2p app to have. Include boot loader.
No one reads warnings/lisenses anyway...
And voila! 85% linux on the world's desktops overnight! And what a night it will be!
I pity Dell support and the Indians....

Re:Upgrading kernel

[thesman]

Use APT and use Arjan's RPM repository. Cheers.

Re:My Patch

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Well I've been poking around in the kernel for years now. Mostly just trying things other people have told me to do to fix what ever problem I was having. Then I'd say, "yeah, that fixed it", and the author of said code would submit the patch.

This time, I attempted to do the same. But the author didn't tell me much of what to do at all. So I just started looking at the one function he pointed me to. I ended up surprising myself. I found I could easily follow what was going on, and quickly found my problem. I tried a fix, and it worked. I reported back to the author, that I fixed my problem and how, and he asked me to submit a patch to Linus.

I've used to think of the kernel as some beast, full of black magic. Some of the parts dealing with broken hardware, are a little arcane. But the more I look at it, the more I see that most of it is just C. Now that Linus is subscribed to the linux-kernel mailing list, I see more developers interacting with him. He really does have good taste in code.

Re:Help: re-introducing myself to the intracacies.

[the_crowbar]

When I went from 2.4.xx t 2.6.0-testxx (on a Gentoo 1.4 system) I downloaded the 2.6.x kernel and checked in Documentation\Changes. That file will list several packages and the minimum version needed. It also has the command to check the version and the site to download updated packages. Once you have verified that you have the correct versions of extra software compile the new 2.6.x kernel. Boot it and see what breaks. Of course you want to keep a backup of your current working 2.4.x kernel to boot.

As for breaking half your apps: no. I built my Gentoo system under a 2.4.x kernel and now run a 2.6.x kernel with no problems.

the_crowbar

Gentoo of course has it

[ScottGant]

Been playing with 2.6 since test9 and been upgrading the kernel since.

They keep on top of things with Gentoo.

Re:My Patch

[LiquidCoooled]

You sir are what Linux is all about :)

Thank you for fixing our code and making it a little more stable for us all. Hopefully your comments will spur others to have a peek under the hood and see what they can discover.

Install module-init-tools! Or you will get errors!

[khasim]

I know many people will not read the documentation so I'm posting it here.

You need module-init-tools with the 2.6.x series.

I've always loved

[llamalicious]

Linus' comments in changelogs... ...snip...

<torvalds@home.osdl.org>
Fix silly mremap test.
Get off the drugs, Linus.