Linux Kernel 2.6.3 Has Been Released [updated]

justinarthur writes "At 04:36 UTC, Linux kernel version 2.6.3 has been made available. As is typical, downloaders are advised to utilize a mirror upon file availability. There are many changes from version 2.6.2, including recent ALSA patches, XFS fixes, and updates in many other areas." Update: 02/18 14:15 GMT by T : Peter Willis points out that kernel 2.4.25 (changelog) was also released, and writes "Incidentally, a security advisory dated today states there is an exploit in kernels up to 2.4.24 and 2.6.2, but the two releases today don't seem to reflect any changes, so get ready to patch up as soon as a patch pops up. More details on the vulnerability here."

Comments

Re:Gentoo disappointment...

[vojtech]

That was me, thanks for the torture offer. ;)

Btw, the problem was that 2.6.1 actually supported the 103rd European key, and users couldn't cope with that. Now (2.6.2+) it's treated like a regular backslash key, even though they're two different keys in reality.

Changes include

[halfnerd]

KernelTrap reported "large merges" to 2.6.3-rc2, including:

network driver updates, compiler warning fixes, PPC updates, a major ALSA update and SCSI updates, NFSv4 update, XFS fixes, ARM and sparc updates

Re:Changes include

[halfnerd]

And as if that wasn't enough, -rc4 introduced these:

out-of-the-box ppc/ppc64 support, complete with G5 support (64-bit), large radeonfb driver updates, IDE oops fixes (and cleanups), and a SELinux update

Slashdot really should consider linking to kerneltrap for each kernel update that has to be reported...

Changelogs..

[noselasd]

Those that wants detailed changelogs, or just wants to follow the very very latest changes/additions to the kernel source tree can do so here
2.4 kernel tracking can be done here

Re:Is any distro already with 2.6 kernel series?

[mshiltonj]

Fedora Core 2 is running the 2.6 kernel. I hear from first impressions that the performance
improvements are nothing short of stunning, but I haven't tried it yet.

Re:Is any distro already with 2.6 kernel series?

[Ender Ryan]

To really see the threads performance improvements, you will need to recompile glibc with support for it. From what I understand, this will break a number of programs and cause some programs to not compile, so it's not really considered stable yet by most people.

OTOH, even without rebuilding glibc to take advantage of the new kernel-based pthread support, I have found really nice interactivity improvements on the desktop. It's really quite nice, I wouldn't want to go back to 2.4.

Radeon users will be happy

[CRCulver]

Previous kernels have never worked entirely well with my Mobile Radeon M6-P graphics card. Switching from radeon-powered X to radeonfb-powered console, or changing the resolution within radeonfb, would occasionally cause the screen to get all fuzzy, making me switch back and forth until it looked normal again.

But with the 2.6.3 kernel, there's a kickass new radeonfb driver that doesn't have any of these problems, and has improved collaboration with the BIOS to decide certain settings. No longer will peers think Linux must suck because my screen occasionally gets fuzzy.

However, I'm still only getting 435fps in glxgears with a 16MB graphics card at 1024x768 with DRI definitely on. Is this normal for a sucky notebook display card, or is there a problem with Linux's radeon gl support or my settings?

Re:distributions

[FooAtWFU]

I hear that it's the kernel in Fedora Core 2 test release 1.

Re:distributions

[RodeoBoy]

Fedora is scheduled for april, Debian and Suse by the summer. Start preparing now for the new install.

Re:TODO:

[tcopeland]

> "unnecessary use of cat" awards page

Done.

Many's the time I've been guily of a

[tom@hal tom]$ cat pmdexport.xml | wc -l
42031
[tom@hal tom]$

when a

[tom@hal tom]$ wc -l pmdexport.xml
42031 pmdexport.xml
[tom@hal tom]$

would have done just as well...

Re:Great work!

[Feztaa]

gazbo mentioned the unneccessary use of cat, you actually don't need any pipes at all:

$ grep -xP "<.*@.*>" ChangeLog-2.6.2 -c
1105

$ grep -xP "<.*@.*>" ChangeLog-2.6.3 -c
1260

It still crashes :(

[motown]

The bug's still there. :(

The lockup can be easily triggered by running "hdparm -t /dev/hdX" (hdX being your harddrive) from the root prompt a couple of times.

I know, I know, it's easy (as well as unfair) for me to bitch and moan, since I'm not a kernel developer. But knowing that there are patches out there that could solve this problem, but still haven't made it into the kernel, it's frustrating.

For what it's worth: I haven't noticed any speed advantages between an APIC-enabled and non-APIC-enabled kernel, so I guess it's not too much of a loss.

Does anybody here have any better experiences with this?

Vulnerabitily fixed in 2.6.3 and 2.4.25

[Shanes]

At least acording to Linus .

Re:SCO's code is available for perusal

[warmcat]

They have kernel source in a kernel-source package in the updates dir, the distro sources and apparatently by the date the rest of the update sources are here:

http://linuxupdate.sco.com/scolinux/SRPMS/

The thing is they are compliant to the GPL :-)

Today they put up a new web-based "buy a year's license for the SCO IP" thing on their website. But why bother when you can license any SCO IP under the GPL irrevocably and for free, from the same website? Its just madness from SCO.

ACPI cure for 2.4.25 HOW-TO

[Quietti]

Many people complained that kernels since 2.4.22 broke ACPI support on their hardware.

The cause is a brand new ACPI implementation which has a cutoff date of January 1st 2001. If your computer's BIOS is older than that, any ACPI support that might be present will be completely ignored by the kernel. ACPI hacker Len Brown explains that while the cutoff date is indeed arbitrary, it was already being used by certain distributions who noticed a pattern in when BIOSes with broken ACPI support where manufactured, so the ACPI hackers stuck by that concensus.

If you know for fact that ACPI worked fine on your computer until 2.4.21, you can enable it again: the cure is to put acpi=force in your bootloader configuration options.

Len also noted that there might eventually be a whitelist of older BIOS versions whose ACPI support is spotless. If you feel that your motherboard is one of those that should be whitelisted, file a bug at Kernel.org. Len makes absolutely no promise whatsoever that such a whitelist will ever be implemented, but still leaves the door open for people to manifest their interest via the above bug report form.