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Linux Kernel 2.6.4 Released
justinarthur writes "The Linux kernel version 2.6.4 has been released at 03:16 UTC. Included in the changes from version 2.6.3 are fixes to XFS support, Wide Area Networking, USB connectivity, and IEEE1394 connectivity. To download a copy, it is recommended that one utilizes a Linux Kernel Archives mirror. Linus Torvalds' announcement to the Linux Kernel Mailing list concerning this release is available here." Reader k-zed points out that Linux 1.0 was released in March 1994, ten years ago.
Hmm.. I don't see it on ftp.sco.com yet. What lousy service for $699.
Trolling is a art,
10 years and that guy is only on version 2?
Linus, or Bagle and Netsky......
Does it run Linux?
(Ok, sorry. I know its not funny anymore.)
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
... hasn't even gotten finished compiling the last 2.6 kernel release *grumbling* *adding yet another patch to my to-do list*
... I was thinking "I don't need this kernel upgrade, 2.6.3 has been working great for me..." I find in the changelog:
[IRDA]: Add stir4200 driver.
doh... finally added support for one of my usb-irda dongles.
Damn.
FLR
The name of this release amongst the core developers was "Heathen Chemistry.". Alan Cox came up with it - it's was inside joke about british pop/rock phenomenon.
has there been any talk of removing the alleged SCO code? or rumors? i guess linus wouldn't make a statement about it now, since there's the lawsuit going on
Oh no! Someone leaked their source! Call Microsoft, maybe they can help track down who leaked this to the internet...
oh, wait... nevermind.
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
usermode linux runs linux on linux.
So, the answer is yes.
Odd. I'm still stuck on my 2.4.xx version. I tried to upgrade a few distros to 2.6 and things didn't go very well (kernel panic)
It seems to me that the number of users who have picked up 2.6 x compared to the number that picked up 2.4 from 2.2 has greatly diminished on many of the distro mailing lists. From this it seems that either the migration is uglier than anticipated, or that more people are just willing to sit back and wait for their distro to provide them with all their needs.
Who will be the first to ship kernel 2.6 by default?
this is the first time i've installed the kernel and had it running before the slashdot announcement!
i just checked the new one after lunch. blasted centrino ultralights need all this new stuff in them.
I think i'll go celebrate "I beat slashdot's unnecessary kernel release announcement day!"
Wonder if we'll see reiser4 in 2.6.
You can test it now, but it is very experimental.
Maybee they'll merge it with 2.7
I haven't gotten 2.6.3 compiled yet, and here comes 2.6.4. Hell, I'm still running 2.6.0-gentoo. What's with this heightened release schedule? I mean, gcc is only so fast on my machine.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
2.6.4-rc1 ChangeLog:
d .org/msg58421.html
[libata] catch, and ack, spurious DMA interrupts
Hardware issue on Intel ICH5 requires an additional ack sequence over and above the normal IDE DMA interrupt ack requirements. Issue described in post to freebsd list: http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebs
Since the bug workaround only requires a single additional PIO or MMIO read in the interrupt handler, it is applied to all chipsets using the standard libata interrupt handler.
Credit for research the issue, creating the patch, and testing the patch all go to Jon Burgess.
---------
Woo, this is very exciting. If you had problems with SATA & ICH5... this probably fixes those problems.
I aimed the Preview button ;)
.2 to .4 for example? IE: Im running on 2.4.20 and everything works fine. For the kernel I apply the "its not broke, dont fix it" rule.. but Im just curious!
On a more serious note, maybe this was asked before many times, but whats the real benefit of upgrading from
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
all it needs now is some love and it'll be ready for my machine.
Copy down the numbers from the kernel panic.
I know it's a pain, but we really need this.
If you're terribly lazy, just get EIP, ESP,
and any names you see.
Mail that to linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org and
expect a few questions about your hardware.
That's not so difficult, is it? This gets the
bug fixed so that the next release will run on
your system.
Maybe you mean the desktop experience? That's provided by KDE/GNOME/fluxbox whatever, and it's very clear what innovation is going on there if you look at KDE 3.2 vs KDE 1 (for example).
In the OSS world, major releases are counted in the minor numbers, so 2.6 is what a commercial company would have called 26.
Aren't you confusing kernel and distribution? Microsoft Windows is like a distribution (it's a complete running system). How different are Slackware 1 and Slackware 9 for instance?
;-)
If you looked at what's happened to the NT kernel during those 10 years, I reckon it would also look like "10 years of incremental patches". Apart from the graphics renderer turning up in it, that is
I believe that you are a clueless person when it comes to Linux and have a bias of you own. I also think that you are a troll. Windows XP is no better than Linux at just letting you run. Have you run a current Linux distro like Mandrake, SuSE, et all ? If not then you should try it and then comment. If you have, share you problems. I think that you have not, and you just want to troll. Ya got me though.
I have been getting USB Error messages with 2.4.25 and 2.6.3 about my UHCI controller being halted and some -110 error with my mouse. Strangly enough my USB card supports both OHCI and UHCI and only uses the OHCI controller (cat /proc/interrupts shows no UHCI activity). I hope this Kernel will fix whatever is going on because for me it's either a USB mouse or plug one into the serial port (no ps/2 port.)
At least when I plug in a USB mouse into a Linux Box it doesn't care what port it's plugged into. If I change what port the mouse is plugged into on Windows 98 however, first tells me there is no mouse, then it will detect new hardware, then it finds the USB mouse in the other USB port. One of my friends complained about the same problem on his system which is running a newer, better version of Windows.
Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
Dude, this is the *kernel* it's not a GUI...
Take a look at KDE and Gnome over the years and you'll see how they've become more idiot proof with each release. They're a hell of a lot younger than the Windows GUI, but IMO, they're at Windows 98/ME level of user friendliness and gaining quickly on XP and Mac OS X.
Its kinda funny, I run windows on one of my machines, and I'm constantly installing patches. Not to mention my 3 BIG patches the ones that cost me a hundred or so dallors. My 98 - 2000 patch and my 2000 to xp patch. The process is still the same, the only difference is the linux changes come bit by bit instead of in a bulk jump on a cd. Personally, i would rather get my updates in small increments. That why I can pick and choose what updates I want. If 2.6.4 doesnt add anything I need, maybe I'll hold off to the next one. And besides, it beats spending cash.
Yes new kernel releases are only for hardcore users. Joe Schmoe *should* be using a distro SuSE, Fedora, Mandrake, whatever, and rely on their patch releases. Updating the kernel can be tricky and I'd hope non-hardcore users wouldn't attempt it.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
I am waiting on 2.6.4.5.4.333a I hear there will be good things with that.
Is there a handy place to find a listing of ALL changes since 2.6.0? I missed the change logs for a couple version and am trying to figure out if my nforce2 stuff was ever added (wasn't in 2.6.1).
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
Or ... maybe linux developers don't care for Joe user. I know, you are a troll, but to the mods that made you insightful (since the comment per se isn't) goes this:
Linux is a lot more than a set of "incremental patches". It has been rewritten over and over, not completely but large chunks at a time. Linux will never beat Windows un the Joe User category, because that's not the objective. If Linux was ever to become the prevalent OS I'm pretty sure most of us would stop using it. Not because we're a bunch of elitist assholes, but because you must make very strong concesions when your OS will be used by hundreds of millions of people.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
You sound like a troll, but I'll bite.
You don't have to tinker. You don't need to know what kernel version you're running. Get a modern distro and it will be the same thing as running your "innovative" Windows XP. You're also missing the fact that the kernel is only a small portion of the entire system. And the amount of tinkerability you have with Windows XP is nothing. You have no control on the low level stuff
--
The world is divided in two categories:
those with a loaded gun and those who dig. You dig.
um, does it mean there were dangerous bugs?
in practical terms, I am running 2.6.3 now and I use XFS on all my partitions, do I need to upgrade to prevent my disk from possible "bad stuff" happening to it?
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H.G. Wells, "The Outline of History"
Incremental improvements inspired by others is not innovation. What great new features have Microsoft ever introduced to the world? It has to be more than a couple to claim the status of "consistently innovating".
Things like ReiserFS? Major sections of the kernel have been completely rewritten since 1.0. The scheduler, the module loading system, the /dev handling (static /dev to devfs to udev), the network subsystem. Anybody even remotely familiar with the kernel wouldn't make the claim you are making.
That's a straw man argument. People don't claim that open source automatically makes something perfect.
Desktop OS of choice for some people. It's certainly not the desktop OS choice for me.
Zealots of any kind aren't objective. But people who use and develop Linux at home or work are not automatically zealots as you seem to be implying.
What else than "incremental patches" does Microsoft deliver, especially in the days where there is no week with new IE and OE exploits being announced and eventually (after months) being fixed?
The reason why "Windows is still the desktop OS of choice" is just because it comes preinstalled with any vanilla PC you can buy out there. Because it will run the games people copy from their friends. Because it runs Microsoft Office.
If Microsoft released Office for Linux I'm more than sure that numerous offices will switch to Linux and if it's just to escape the virus race which cost them plenty of time, money, and nerves.
Linux is fantastic, but has lots of flaws that really do need addressing before it goes mainstream on the desktop. The sort of things we can take in our stride but which would screw up a novice linux user. Microsoft has lots of technology in place to make sure the user doesn't screw their computer over. That's the sort of functionality that lets Joe Average sleep well at night. He doesn't care if his computer's making the most efficient use of its CPU, but he does care whether installing a patch will kill it or not :-P
I found this Changelog entry rather funny. Looooong story about stir4200 driver - then another commit that adds stir4200.c:
[IRDA]: Add stir4200 driver.
After a long maturation, this is time to send you the latest
version of the stir4200 USB driver. Initially started by Paul Stewart,
modified by Martin Diehl and me, and later partially rewriten by
Stephen Hemminger.
The hardware has many quirks. This is the first version that
work reliably at SIR and mostly work at FIR. We may never get optimal
operation from this hardware due to its pecularities, but at least its
now usable.
[IRDA]: Forgot to add stir4200.c in previous commit.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
Finally they've included mdpart. This means anyone with a SATA RAID motherboard can use its full potential. Excellent :-)
it takes 30 minutes to install a service pack (which can change any functionality in windows, so it's a comparable procedure)
This is not quite true, Windows does not run on as many architectures as Linux does.
Look at the new Debian installer, it takes alot of time to "get it right", only because it has to work on so many architectures.
I think this is the same reason why there is no 1-click upgrade procedure or something for Linux.
It doesn't mean it's impossible, I think it's just damn hard to create such a procedure which works the same way on so many platforms
How do they get by making them experimental? How is this ebuild any different than the 2.6.3 ebuild? All it does is download and extract the archive. You still have to configure and install yourself.
Yeah, I just mentioned to someone that I will likely be going to 2.6 once it goes above 2.6.5. I think I switched to 2.4 w/the pre kernels. It had some support that I wanted. 2.6 isn't offering anything that I desperately need.
I don't use Linux w/X, I don't really use it for much other tahn a webserver, IRC, and email. It's basically just a way for me to do IRC and email from work.
What advantages would I have using 2.6 with that setup?
That was almost 12 hours before the story was posted! How am I supposed to wait that long to upgrade my kernel?
To understand recursion,
you must first understand recursion.
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
I can't remember to ever have upgraded the kernel on my windows machine. Hm, thinking of it, this may be because MS does not allow me to download new kernels from their kernel repository. I they did, it wouldn't be newbie-proof either. Therefore, your comment makes no sense whatsoever.
...). Using the distribution's tool for software upgrades is, last time I checked, nearly as newbie-proof as possible for current distributions. At least each of them beats Windows' "Add/Remove software", which is a sorry excuse for a software manager, easily. I also find it more friendly than Microsoft's web-based update manager.
"Normal people" wait (and rightly so) for new packages coming from their distributor (Fedora, SuSE, Mandrake,
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Um, normal desktop users will probably never upgrade their kernel, much less across major versions, short of the equivalent of an operating system upgrade. Honestly, how many patches to ntkernel.dll do you see in service packs? (Serious question, I don't use Windows.)
People who are having trouble upgrading to the 2.6 series from 2.4 are generally people who are doing it all on their own because the distros haven't all started doing it yet. Many of them have run into common problems that are explained in FAQs ("Why is my screen blank and the keyboard does nothing?", "Why don't my modules work?", etc.). Some of them are valid regressions. Some are because the technologies underlying tools have changed (I believe dm is an example of this). Most of these problems are things best solved by the distributions, which provide the functional equivalent of service packs.
So, no, I don't think this is really a big problem for Linux, since most Windows users wouldn't go download binary patches to system files and apply them by hand. They'd use Windows Update. Similarly, non-tech-savvy Linux users can wait until distributions ship 2.6.
(As far as cohesiveness of Linux, yeah, I agree. That's why I'm really waiting to see what comes out of the D-BUS and HAL projects.)
From the Changelog
[PATCH] kthread primitive
From: Rusty Russell
These two patches provide the framework for stopping kernel threads to
allow hotplug CPU. This one just adds kthread.c and kthread.h, next
one uses it.
Most importantly, adds a Monty Python quote to the kernel.
Haven't had a chance to pull in the source. Anyone know what this is?
Did you read any of the many guides you can find with a quick Google search? You need only have proper versions of various kernel utils, sometimes swap needs to be reformatted if it's a really old system..and of course you have to make sure you enable all the right stuff, just as with any other kernel build...
Please help metamoderate.
I love slashdot logic. I reply to a post which was based on straight-up misinformation (which was modded insightful, +5 no less), and get modded flamebait in the process. This place makes no sense! I didn't make anything up, just pointed out some short-commings in Linux, and corrected the poster's "strange" take on windows. Apparently, that's enough to be a flamebaiter around here. go figure.
A 'service pack' would be something like upgrading from 2.6.3 to 2.6.4, which you can do trivially, it's a single patch. If you don't want to deal with patching, or are a few versions behind, you can even download a clean copy of the source and delete your old. Then you do 'make oldconfig' and say 'no' to the new drivers that have popped into the kernel, (unless, of course, you need them), and run make install. Or you just download a binary.
Upgrading from 2.4 to 2.6 is like upgrading from the Windows 2000 kernel to the Windows XP kernel, which you can't even do. WIth Linux, you can do it as long as you update a few important things, depending on how old your distro is. A lot of them support 2.6 even if they don't come with 2.6, so all you'll need is a new version of the module loading utilities, or possibly not even that. Alternately, you might need to upgrade half a dozen packages, which should be fairly easy if you know how to upgrade packages on your distro. There are lists of the version you need.
But, anyway, it's not the same as a service pack, it's an entirely new version of the kernel to go from 2.4 to 2.6, despite what you might infer from the version numbers. You're going to have to update a few things, but be glad it's not a microsoft OS, you'd have to do an installation of an entire operating system over your old one to go from 2000 to XP.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I did not try this one, but upgrading my Fedora laptop to previously released 2.6.* kernels was piece of cake - just apt-get.
Certainly nothing like Windows rebootfest.
I don't even know of anyone running 2.4 anymore actually. I mean, why not upgrade?
I finally got around to compiling 2.6.3 last night; ran into some issues.
its much more responsive than 2.4 for desktop use
The desktop is definitely more responsive, but (at least for me) at the expense of everything else. MPlayer, xmms, and anything that's remotely timing-intensive is unusable (xmms actually skips while playing MP3s, and Mplayer prints the message "Your computer is TOO SLOW to play this file" when playing anything I've got. Note that everything works fine under 2.4.)
I went through the various mailing lists looking for suggestions, with no luck; every suggestion is OK (checked drive DMA, kernel settings, X nice level, etc.) - interestingly enough, one post I read said to try glxgears.. I did, and it runs better under 2.6 - constant frame rate, regardless of what else I'm doing, whereas in 2.4, even moving the mouse drops the frame rate.)
So it's back to 2.4 for me. I'll probably try 2.6.4, to see if the situation has improved, but for the mean time, I'll stick with 2.4.
The fact you're trashing "Add/Remove programs" shows how much you know about it ;) Coupled with MS's .MSI format, it's one of the best software management tools out there.
No, no, no. The "make sure the user doesn't screw their computer over" features are the most annoying of all. A simple thing like changing your current directory becomes an interrogation - "are you sure you want to go into that directory? I doubt you need to go in there!" And crap like automatically copying (and restoring!) system files, and for that matter the artificial distinction of a "system file" in the first place. Please keep that rubbish away from Linux!
"Upgrading from 2.4 to 2.6 is like upgrading from the Windows 2000 kernel to the Windows XP kernel, which you can't even do"
You can do this, it's called upgrading windows. It takes about an hour, requires 2 mouse clicks, and doesn't install "over" your old one, but upgrades it as necessary.
Believe me - I'm not slamming linux. I love it! I just think there are key areas of linux that need to be addressed before it can go mainstream, and it appears voicing those concerns gets one branded a troll. We're not going to progress if this keeps on. We'll be to complaining what sco is to litigation... :-P
That said...
In a production environment do not play with existing servers that use 2.4.x. Use a test machine (or your own system) with 2.6.x. When the distribution you use is upgraded, test *that* and upgrade if it fits your needs. Otherwise, don't!
That said, I've only had problems with Fedora Core 2 test 1 and Nvidia's binary drivers. (Not that that surprises me at all.) Everything else is damn stable, and one annoying issue with USB mass storage crashes went away entirely (supposedly also fixed in a later version of 2.4.x).
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
2.6.2 => 2.6.3 completely broke ALSA on my system. I haven't seen any ALSA patches go in after 2.6.3. Anybody have info on that? Is there another big ALSA merge coming soon?
They've fixed that f**king annoying problem where I can't boot if either AGPART or the framebuffer are enabled. Why would a simple Riva TNT2 card cause problems where there were none before???
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
You should almost *never* need to upgrade your kernel from the one that comes with your current distribution, assuming you are using a reasonably modern distribution...
This is why new kernels are "bleeding edge" for people that want to play until the distributions release them officially. This kernel release has *nothing* to do with why people are put off from using Linux. In fact, since 1997, when I've started using Linux, I've NEVER once upgraded my kernel because the official "standard" kernels have always been sufficient. Generally, if you have a resonably modern distribution, it's included kernel is enough. Those people that say that "normal users can't recompile their kernels" are missing the point... You NEVER need to recompile your kernel, in the majority of circumstances. Simply upgrading your desktop with the most recent major revision of your favorite distribution is simply enough, and these days, that is almost always as easy as simply popping in a CD and rebooting. The only time that I ever considered upgrading my kernel was due to a hardware flaw in the KT600 chipsets that hardlocks AGP in 3.0 mode. Kernel 2.4.22 doesn't support AGP 3.0, but kernel 2.6 does. Fortunately, I was simply able to use ATI's internal GART driver instead of the kernel's driver. This does not mean that I'm incapable of recompiling my kernel (I've done it several times for testing)- I just see no need to do it when the current *standard* kernel works so well on my machine. I'll update my machine to 2.6 when it is an official Slackware kernel.
I understand that you meant well by your post, but you are seriously missing the boat here. It's the myths about Linux difficulty, from *non-Linux users*, that make Linux seem difficult.
It's certainly widespread, though. So many pages around the web look like they were generated by a horde of hyperactive chipmunks...
So I went to the 2.6 series when they first came out. I was very happy with it at work, there was a noticable bump in speed...mainly in starting applications.
/dev entries. So no reading CD's, DVD, or writing CD's. I honestly don't do it that much anyway, so I didn't spend a lot of time trouble shooting it. Plus after a day at work trouble shooting problems I don't feel like doing it at home.
/dev and the /sys stuff is not mountable. Enabling USB debugging just shows me that things are messed up but does not really help much.
At home it was another story. Sure the speed increases I noticed at work were still there but there were some fairly large problems.
First, neither my DVD reader or CD burner were assigned
Second, I have not been able to mount my USB flash drive. It is an MP3 player which I changed CD's on weekly so I am not listening to the same stuff at the gym every day. Well after a few weeks of Outkast it was time for a change so I sat down to fix the problem. Two hours later, I just went back to the 2.4 kernel.
I have gotten as far as getting the kernel to assign sda to my usb device but it never creates an entry in
I also started to get annoyed with all the SCSI emulation needed to mount a USB storage device. I don't understand how Linus can hate SCSI emulation so much when it comes to burning CD's yet it is perfectly acceptable to use it to mount a USB disk. Seems a bit hypocritical, but then again...he did sort of invent Linux so I guess I can cut him some slack.
So all in all, I have been disappointed in the 2.6.x series of kernels and if they are the one's that are supposed to take the desktop market by storm then I think Linux on the desktop is in trouble. It is no wonder Redhat and SuSE are staying away from it for the most part right now. It is going to take both of them a lot of work to get everything working properly I would imagine.
Am I the only one who went back?
Considering the very first sentence in your post was misinformed, I don't see why you're complaining.
There is a difference between extension and patch (bugfix) in that extensions are entirely optional. If you don't need anything in Linux 2.x, then you are perfectly able to run Linux 1.x or even 0.x.
"But I can do that with Windows!"
Not really. You cannot (in general) run a Windows NT program on Windows 3.11, as Windows 3.x is a 16-bit OS, whereas NT, ME, XP, CE, 2000, 2003, etc are all 32-bit. 32-bit applications don't run well on 16-bit OS'. The 32-bit support for 3.x is OK, but far from perfect and is totally unmaintained.
"Early versions of Linux are unmaintained, too!"
Not entirely correct. Linux 2.2 and 2.4 are under active development, and people occasionally submit bugfixes for earlier kernels.
Innovation - what has XP got, really, in terms of innovation? The GUIs are just front-ends to functions that largely already existed. QoS was in Linux before Windows, and in FreeBSD before Linux. The same is true for IPSec and IGMPv3.
Filing systems - Reiserfs and Reiser4 are vastly superior to NTFS or FAT32. LustreFS wipes the floor with CIFS/SMB, and CODA is without parallel. Unfortunately, CODA is also without any real development work, these days, but that may change precicely because it's Open Source. If CIFS was abandoned by Microsoft, who could take it over?
Terminal Server offers very little that the "R" tools (rcp, rsh and rlogin) didn't provide 20 years ago. The "S" tools (scp and ssh) are slightly more flexible and a lot more secure.
I can weight certain classes of application on XP's scheduler, but that's it. Under Linux as-is, I can specify the exact weight of each application. I can even choose between different schedulers (standard, real-time, heirarchical, etc).
Do you have to tinker? No. These are all options. Virtually every distro can run out of the box, and remain running without any alteration, upgrade, patch, or even a reboot for years.
Linux isn't perfect. There is much that it needs to really rework. (The TCP stack has a lot of rats-nest coding, for example.) There are some GUI issues that need resolving (XFree, Berlin with an X layer, or either KGI or GGI with an X layer?), better drag-and-drop, shadow passwords with a wider range of hashing options, etc.
However, none of these are serious obstructions. They are things that need to be done, but they are not show-stoppers. A typical Windows user, who primarily wants Office, can switch to Open Office or KOffice, MySQL and a decent MySQL interface, and either Gnome or KDE.
Where is tinkering necessary or even desirable for the average user???
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Most distros are still on 2.4.x kernels. So upgrading to a 2.6.x kernel necessarily involves compiling it and installing it. However, if you're running a distro like Red Hat, Mandrake, (or even slackware), when 2.6 becomes standard in those distros, all you'll need to do is either install a package (which is done almost automatically in mandrake, and involves a download, and 2 shell commands under slackware) or upgrade your machine.
The 2.6.x kernel happens to have some things in it which is vital for some people because of the newness of their machines. These people pay a price for living on the bleeding edge, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to pay that price when they finally upgrade to 2.6.
- first, re-create the
- now copy over your previous versions
- now change to the new source tree directory and simply type make
2.6 is wonderful; it will now ask you to specify what you want for any new options that weren't included in the previous version, and continue to build the kernel.
All That's left at this point is to do a make modules_install, and copy arch/YourArch/boot/bzImage to your boot partition. Oh and you should copy System.map too.
Easy as 1-2-3!
If you're worried that this sounds like it may become a pain after a while, not to fret, that's the beauty of unix. Simply write a script to automate the process, and two things will happen: 1) You'll probably learn something in the process, and 2) You'll be happier.
Instead of complaining... try doing something about it, it's a wonderful feeling to find progress being made as the result of your own work.
Depending on your hardware, that may already be the case. Here's an example - I have a Dell LS-400 laptop that had a bug in the sound driver that would lock the system when running X if you tried to load the sound driver (because the sound and video hardware shared memory or something like that.)
Last Fall, I installed Slackware 9.1 and all the hardware "just worked" as the Apple fans like to say. So I don't really have any plans to change the kernel any time soon.
The Konqueror and KDE versions in Slack 9.1 and the Mozilla version I installed are quite nice so I don't really see much need to fiddle with end-user software either.
I always got at least some enjoyment out of tinkering with my machines, even at its most frustrating, but I'm happier to not have to do it anymore in this case.
Its very obvious that you should be waiting for your particular distro to put out a pre-tested version that has 2.6 in it. So you had problems with CD burning and your USB device. Stuff happens. Many others have moved to 2.6 and have all of their devices working and are enjoying a nice boost in speed.
"if they are the one's that are supposed to take the desktop market by storm then I think Linux on the desktop is in trouble"
I'm sorry but your particular experience doesn't mean what you think it does. Just because you had issues isn't the litmus test for Linux desktop use.
"It is no wonder Redhat and SuSE are staying away from it"
They aren't "staying away from it", they are currently testing it and will have distros with 2.6 out this year.
I know how it can be annoying when things don't work, but in this case regardless of your linux experience it very much sounds like you should stick with what works for now and wait until your distro vendor or community puts out a fully tested 2.6 release.
Your patch is corrupted.....
The header of that piece states it starts at line 3 for both files (old and new), but the old one is seven lines and the new one is 8 lines.
Asuming that the other lines are just whitespace you somehow pasted this patch without atleast the new line that is added.
was it this?
+ #include
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
...why kernels are still not offered up via torrents yet?
Seems like it would help a lot.
Right now, I can't even connect to a use mirror. Grrr.
Yeah - they really should have waited for the final release of the last version of the linux kernel.
I was wondering if anyone knew if these represent significant improvement.
anyone?
Desktop OS of choice for some people. It's certainly not the desktop OS choice for me.
I second that, Windows (98SE/XP) just feels hog slow compared to Linux kernel 2.6, so unresponsive.
And if you've seen screenshots of Longhorn and asked what they could use that sidebar for, I'd suggest installing a Linux distro with KDE 3.2 and enabling the "universal sidebar" feature (rightclick the taskbar and you will find it under 'Add', 'Panel', 'universal sidebar').
I'm still kinda starting out with Linux, etc., so I'm not really sure whether "IEEE1394 connectivity" means what I think it does. Please bear with me.
I haven't spent a lot of time tinkering with any of this, and wasn't sure if IEEE1394 was supported fully, partially, in customized kernels, manually set up...
Also, if someone actually reads this, does it make any sense for me to try to partition and install Knoppix on this drive, or should I put the OS on the internal drive?
Stats:
That is not normally enough to get a 2.6.x kernel working correctly with the rest of the system.
Debian Distros Only!
First edit your apt sources file so you are upgrading to unstable. (Insert Windows Joke Here!) (I don't know offhand if any other Debian branch has the right stuff for Linux Kernle 2.6.x)
apt-get update && apt-get install module-init-tools && apt-get upgrade
apt-get upgrade may not upgrade module-init-tools for some reason. You might also want to run "apt-get install udev" if you have the hotplug stuff built into your kernel. Other things may need to be done for your system. This was enough for mine.
The debian command dselect may do a better job of Upgrading your debian system as far as conflict resolution is concerned, but I really don't like the user interface to it. If you want to know more about debian packages check out http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages.
A complete Debian 2.4.x to 2.6.x upgrade guide would be nice. Anyone know of one?
Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
more point(less) release 'news'. You can tell that there is no news content by the fact that the top 20 comments are nothing to do with the release. Perhaps a more general discussion of Linux 2.6 development might be interesting?
Posters recognized by their sig,
I can't remember to ever have upgraded the kernel on my windows machine.
There was (is..) a kernel update for Windows 95. It fixed some things with network stacks AFAIK.
Where did I state that I'm new? :)
I am just wondering why Gentoo (which I use) put 2.6.4 in the "~x86" architecture when all "emerge development-sources" does is download and extract.
In the corporate world, which is where I predict that Linux will make more immediate inroads, normal users will not have to worry any more about upgrading a kernel than they do about installing the latest Windows service pack. If that's what you mean by a "desktop", then congratulations, the straw man is down.
If, by "desktop" you mean "consumer desktop", then the future is probably in "hand-holding" distros like Libranet, Mandrake, Lindows, etc., and "normal" people will download "service packs" which upgrade their kernels and/or whole distros.
Anyone who understands the 2.6 kernel well enough to realize that there's a "must have" feature or two is probably capable of getting it compiled and installed all by his lonesome.
I do see your point; I just don't think you mean what you think you mean.
I saw that shot more than a few times back when Starbuck was a man. ~ lucabrasi999
Even Kernel 2.4.6 still locks up frequently on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard unless I specify the options "noapic nolapic" at boot time. Then the system runs flawlessly (even with ACPI-support).
I read somewhere that the problem currently lies in the BIOS, rather than in the kernel, and that some vendors have already released proper BIOS updates that add a "C1 disconnect" option, which supposedly does the trick.
Unfortunately, Asus has released no such update as of yet.
Does anyone here (perhaps one of the kernel developers involved) have any more details on this?
Can this problem eventually be solved in the kernel, even without any BIOS updates?
After all, as far as I understood it, the BIOS pretty much takes a back seat as soon as the kernel is running, right?
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
On MS Windows, you have windowsupdate and if you're upgrading the distribution, you could upgrade up 98 to 2000 or XP.
:D
I think it's much easier to do debian apt-get update then apt-get upgrade if you as me. I've done 98 to 2000, 98 to XP, 2000 to XP, from one version of Mandrake to another, etc. I know now you have urpmi with mandrake, but I got sold on apt-get and my university (Michigan State) has a debian mirror and it's just great
I think apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.3 (debian didn't have 2.6.4 as I just checked) is much easier than the Windows method (and even easier with Synaptic). However, it's not without its problems. When I did that the other day, Linux didn't boot. vga=791 in lilo was the culprit but I had to spend hours to figure that out. Second, support for my synaptic touchpad is worse than it was on 2.4.x. Also, I just got NdisWrapper to work for 2.4.25, the fact that I have to do that again is a hassle for a "kernel upgrade". Troubleshooting on windows or linux is both a bitch, but recently, many more things on Linux have been more difficult for me.
And GNU/Linux as a system is still more problembatic for regular users by far. I spent too much time getting multiple monitor support for my laptop. The same for getting the side buttons to work on my mouse. I'm still having trouble doing the configurations so that it loads for one monitor and mouse settings one place and automatically detects another monitor and mouse settings at another (which I move from my research lab to home and vice versa). And xmodmap changes my touchpad settings, but not the external ones so there is a problem there. It took me a long time to get my wireless to work using NdisWrapper. Granted the last part is much more about third party support, but as a user, it's still a problem.
Overall, it has come together and improved much since when I first used Red Hat Linux 5.2. I've been using both windows and linux on and off since then but there is a convenience factor with windows not there yet with linux. Now that I've gotten most of the settings like I want on my debian machine, hopefully I won't be going back to windows...
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
Actually this: .config, plus change the vmlinuz symlink to point to the new version AND run lilo! How's that for service?
All That's left at this point is to do a make modules_install, and copy arch/YourArch/boot/bzImage to your boot partition. Oh and you should copy System.map too.
isn't needed. Just do #make install, and it will copy System.map, the kernel and
don't be such as ass. mandrake has said the offical 10 release will be much later. If you use a testing version, don't get all antsy because you were premature.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
The gentoo team puts a great deal of effort into making sure that a standard gentoo install is going to be as solid as a rock. Given the relatively short life span of the 2.6 kernel, I think it's a smart move to keep it in development sources, until all the bugs are worked out, not just in the new kernel, but in the way that the rest of the gentoo system handles the kernel.
For many of us who know what we are doing, migrating to 2.6 was simply a matter of upgrading portage, and rebuilding the entire tree cache, however for some users this seemingly trivial task may not have been. Also at the time that 2.6 first became available, the only recourse was to use a development version of portage. Another thing to note was that udev support was highly limited and the only real choice was to stick with devfs, and if you read the kernel help which says "DEVFS is deprecated" you may have been mislead, and produced an unusable system.
Of course many of these issues have been ironed out, but I think it's safe to say that the gentoo team knows what they're doing. You have every right to question their methods, but when you do so without having done any research into your question, or having had much experience you will certainly come off sounding like a newbie asking the same old newbie-type questions.
Thus the implication that you are new to linux and gentoo. One which I maintain is certainly true.
Personally I never have any trouble downloading kernels (usually straight from kernel.org... they have a lot of bandwidth) but I usual don't download the day-of.
A kernel BitTorrent would probably work quick successfully. Not really so much because of the whole upload-while-you-download thing (not as important for such a small download), more because it makes it so easy to provide bandwidth and I bet there would be tons of seeds for something like the kernel.
You simply, oh, open up a guide, which took me 30 seconds googling to find, to upgrading. Holy cow, seven whole packages you might need to upgrade to have a working system, and exactly what you need to type to find out.
Your gcc and make almost certainly already are the correct versions (We're talking four years old here.) and everyone's util-linux should already be up to date.
You probably will need a new version of e2fsprogs and procps. You might need a new version of binutils and util-linux, depending on how old your distro is. You'll need a copy of module-init-tools if you don't have it.
But, yes, I can see how you wouldn't be able to type those seven commands and compare version numbers, and heaven forbid if one of them wasn't up to date...you'd actually have to to type the name of the package into urpm or emerge or apt-get or whatever your distro uses to download it!
And, of course, you also need to scroll down and check if you're using any of the stuff in the other table, and run those commands if so.
My God, how complicated! I'm sure it's easier to install an entirely new OS and hope and pray all your drivers work. And spending ten minutes the next time you want to change network settings because MS has redone the interface. And locating and downloading TweakUI again. And spending a hundred dollars for the priviledge of a slightly updated kernel.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Can you use the RAID controller? My motherboard has an ICH5-R. It implements a software RAID system. The system works fine with Linux when I set legacy mode in the BIOS. I would like to use its RAID functions.
Looking through the 2.6.4 changelog, it looks like there were problems with 2.6.3's e100 driver (which I have.) As my machine uses the network heavily (I've got about a dozen NFS mounts) this could be the reason that I was experiencing problems.
I think it's a little unfair to say I was spreading misinformation. I was just saying that kernels change must less rapidly than desktops.
Like Debian GNU/Linux 'apt-get upgrade'? Any good modern Linux distribution does include a smooth OS update path. But upgrading from kernel 2.4.x to kernel 2.6.x is not something most people are going to want to do. It is not the equivilent of a "service pack." It is much more akin to an OS upgrade. Few expect that to go without a hitch... even on Windows.
It's things like this that puts "normal" people and companies off using Linux on the desktop. To linux guys and developers it's not a big deal, but imagine if you were some granny somewhere - it'd scare the pants off you and if something went wrong, nigh-on impossible to fix.
So when Windows breaks, Granny is capable of fixing it? Give me a break. She's lucky if she is able to format her harddrive and resinstall without a hitch.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Would this work with a Silicon Image 3114 controller? I saw something about 4-port support being fixed, so I might switch to it. Currently I'm forced to use the 3112 driver (with a hack in the pci_ids.h file so that it recognizes the device) because I kept getting system hangups with the sata_sil driver.
I have a RAID 0 config for nonvital Windows files on an NTFS partition. While it's not necessary, it would be nice to be able to access them in Linux at times.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Late last summer I stumbled upon a Windows Update bug at work. The update page installed a new version of WU on my machine and then just wanted to install i again and again and again... I tried removing WU according to the help available at the WU site (it was a known bug) but that didn't help, so I reported I had seen the bug too. It took over four months before it was finally fixed. Four months of installing security patches by hand. How is that newbie-proof?
...if the laptop touchpad issues have been addressed since 2.6.3 - or if they're going to be?
Granny should never ever touch the system itself, unless she's also a knowledgable admin, but then she would know that she doesn't have to recompile the kernel or update it to the next minor version until her distro vendor does it for her.
I feel so sig.
First of all, "Add/Remove software" has nothing to do with updating/upgrading windows
;) Coupled with MS's .MSI format, it's one of the best software management tools out there
It's correct that it hasn't. But that's the main problem with it. See, the distros' update tools concern themselves with updates for my whole installation. Whatever updates I need I can get through apt. The very fact that in Windows I need Windows Update for updates to the OS and then Add/Remove Software for 3rd party stuff is not user friendly IMO. Why do I need 2 tools, with 2 completely different UIs for essentially the same task? Why should I even care if some program is part of the OS or from a third party? Heck, I just want to upgrade all my software.
You mean Windows Update, which the last time I checked did a hell of a better job than the update agent in RedHat [...] hardly newbie-proof
Without discussing the possible merits of RH's update tool (I have no idea about it), considering the fact the RedHat is clearly targeted to servers means that it may not be the pinnacle of newbie-proofness. Moot point, more ore less. Of course I agree that given the fees they charge it should work. Which Debian's apt does for me always.
I don't do updates on Windows (only use it at work and we have staff for that) but I have heard numerous accounts that one should be wary with Windows updates, because especially driver stuff tends to not work without problems in all cases
The fact you're trashing "Add/Remove programs" shows how much you know about it
From a user's point of view I feel always severely handicapped compared to apt. Seriously, what does it do? I can add and remove software, but that's about it. I can't tell it to give a short summary about the app. I can't tell it to list all files this app has installed. I can't tell it to upgrade all listed software to newer versions, if available. I can't tell it to uninstall an app, but keep my configuration around. I can't tell it to fetch the source and compile locally. And so on, and so on. The new versions of Synaptic (GUI frontend to apt) beat it hands down in available functionality, and do a very good job making the functionality accessible.
So, what exactly make it "one of the best software management tools out there"?
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I've upgraded my MSWindows kernel. With Windows 2000, some of the service packs do replace the kernel. This can be a dangerous process if you run VMWare Workstation 3 on a dual-boot machine. Prior to version 4, VMWare wouldn't run a kernel that used ACPI. My MSWindows kernel for native boot used ACPI, so I had to download a separate kernel for use with VMWare, and now i have to be very careful about installing service packs.
One of these days I'll get around to upgrading VMWare instead.
testing will work too. I did it today.
I think it's much easier to do debian apt-get update then apt-get upgrade if you ask me
.avi somebody gave to her, Media Player popped up, but instead of playing the movie it says in hard-to-read letters in its status bar "error downloading codec". Similar for many .movs with QT. All those play without a hitch on my machine.
Same here. And I did set up a few people with Debian, and they all have no problem with it whatsoever. Not Aunt Tillies, but no geeks either.
I think apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.3 (debian didn't have 2.6.4 as I just checked) is much easier than the Windows method (and even easier with Synaptic). However, it's not without its problems.
You are using an unreleased distro (testing or unstable) or non-official repositories (backports.org). So you are on your own. I'd hope SuSE, Mandrake et al. have this sorted out when they release with 2.6
And GNU/Linux as a system is still more problematic for regular users by far
In my experience, it depends. E.g., it's highly problematic for my mom that she has to have her machine reinstalled every few of months because she somehow managed to infect it or it stopped working for some unknown reason.
It's also not user friendly that when she tried to watch an
When I bought my nephew a force-feedback joystick "Designed for XP", the driver install destroyed the system. Since I don't do Windows support (I have no idea about Win whatsoever and couldn't help anyway. Besides, I get angry trying to fix stuff in Win), my sis called over a friend of hers who is a CS guy with years of experience implementing Windows stuff for Siemens. After 2 hours his verdict was "reinstall". Cool.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Using slapt-get or swaret it's all done for you even in slackware these days.
These PR ratings are misleading. I benchmarked it against 2.6.3 and unsurprisingly it was in no way 0.0.1 better.
So my point was not to get technical support from people. I am quite capable on my own, the real problem is that when I go home I don't feel like dealing with this stuff. I don't want to trouble shoot. I do this crap all day at work so at home I just like things to work. But anyway, here are the answers to your questions if you care to figure out the problem for me. :)
Distro) Gentoo
Kernel) 2.6.3
Enable devfs, usb?) I did NOT enable the depricated devfs at first, but did when trying to figure the problem out. I have of course enabled the usb mass storage mod, and scsi emulation mods. I also built these things into kernel to see if that made a difference, it did not.
Module-init-tools) This was a touch one, I was not using the absolutely latest version. I was using was Gentoo had in portage tree. Fairly recent 3.0 pre 9.
Hardware) Involved parts:
Asus A7V133 (Via chipset)
iRiver iFP-390T MP3 player
Just as a side note...my Kodak DC240, usb keyboard, mouse all work without a hitch.
#emerge dev-gentoo-kernel :P
Actually, I don't even know if they've put one out yet, I just compiled 2.6.3-rc3 lastnight IIRC.. not worth my upgrade yet, I've had my share of issues already with 2.6. hehe
You can do this, it's called upgrading windows. It takes about an hour, requires 2 mouse clicks, and doesn't install "over" your old one, but upgrades it as necessary
You are comparing apples and oranges. What you describe here is equivalent to an upgrade from SuSE 8.2 to 9.0 or Debian Woody to Sarge. These also upgrade (not install over), are tested and work.
The whle kernel upgrade issues exists only for people who do it manually on their old distros, which would be equivalent to downloading the ntkernel.dll of SP and shoehorning it into 2000 manually.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I wonder if they fixed this yet. I have an iRiver iFP-390T that I use as a UMS, but it hasn't been working correctly under Linux. Something about being marked removable when it isnt. Anyone have a patch?
John Hancock
Are you sure about the X nice level? Your symptoms sound exactly like what happened to me when I ran 2.6 for the first time, and my problem was the X nice level.
For 2.6, you want X to run at nice 0. Many Linux distros set X to nice -10 for kernel 2.4 and older, but for 2.6 that gums up the works.
Debian users can fix it like so:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common
Then, when it asks you what X nice level you want, set it to zero.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Slackware 9.1 works for me. It doesn't include a 2.6.x kernel, but a kernel compiled from unmodified kernel.org sources works.
Slackware isn't fancy, but it generaly works.
WTF why is this troll. Anyone familair with changes in this kernel know if it has true preemption yet? or is it still using the preemption points hack that was put in 2.4.x ?
I was hoping someone could answer. and anyone familair with the way something like Solaris works knows how primitive the thread support in linux is.
and the new scheduler is quite controversial, i wouldnt be surprised if they return to the previous one later
Moderators mod this back up. Questioning and being critical of a part of the OS that is lacking != troll.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
It cuts the kernel stack down to a single 4k page. There are performance advantages to doing this.
The main caveat is that drivers (and other kernel code, really) have to be very careful about their stack usage, or they run out of stack.
Consequently, badly written binary drivers with fat glue layers are right out...
DNA just wants to be free...
I'm still on 2.4 because 2.6 broke the ability to use DVD+RWs as a random access device. Anyone know if this will ever be ported to 2.6?
The breakage has something to do with ide-scsi
Dear AC.
You may be right in in that 'devfs' and 'fstab' may be as well hidden in Linux as registry etc is in Windows (no 'newbie' would stumble into registry). I do not know, as I'm unfortunately totally unskilled with Linux.
On the other hand, this guy seemed to have a HW problem, and then some other guy recommended using 'devfs' etc. The point here is: I do believe XP seldom require someone to use 'regedit' or similar in order to proparly install (recognize all HW).
But on the third hand, this is pretty moot as 'newbies' would not dare install even Windows =)
There are backports of module-init-tools to stable at backports .
When i upgraded to 2.6.3 the asound.conf got trashed or wasnt recoginzed anymore so i did:
alsactl store
alsamix (set the volumes as u want)
aslactl store
And thats it, it will work the next time you boot.
http://securityportal.com.ar
WTF why is this troll.
It sure looks like a troll. You toss around technical-sounding terms and make vague assertions. I've followed the kernel preemption patch as it appears in the news, and I don't remember ever seeing the words "preemption points" so I don't know what you are talking about. Linux kernel preemption allows preemption except when an SMP spinlock would have been invoked. What are these "preemption points"? Can you provide a URL to a page that explains them?
anyone familair with the way something like Solaris works knows how primitive the thread support in linux is.
If you don't want people to think you are a troll, don't say things like this without pointing to some kind of reference that backs this up. Since Linux kernel 2.6 just got the NPTL, threads are way better than they used to be. Are you claiming that Solaris is way better than NPTL on kernel 2.6? Or did you not know about NPTL? Or are you just trolling?
the new scheduler is quite controversial, i wouldnt be surprised if they return to the previous one later
References for this statement, please? All the articles I have been reading are very enthusiastic about the new scheduler, especially with the interactivity boost.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
--
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where does the road paved with evil intentions lead to?
I was talking about the 2.4.x kernel. Hence my questions on 2.6.x. with regards to the "premption points", AFIK the 2.4.x kernel with the premptive hack in the kernel oly supported premption of opeation at certain predefiend points and not at arbitrarily.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Sheeet! How are we supposed to hear about this kind of stuff?! The Debian package kernel-image-2.6 didn't say anything about it! If only /. reported something more useful than the kernel releases...
:(
And it's really too bad, sounds from the FAQ that udev is a weak replacement for the brilliance that was devfs.
AFIK the 2.4.x kernel with the premptive hack in the kernel oly supported premption of opeation at certain predefiend points and not at arbitrarily.
Read the article I linked. The kernel can preempt anytime it is outside an SMP spinlock. This is true for 2.4 and 2.6. On a uniprocessor system, there aren't actually SMP spinlocks, but the preemption code took adavantage of the SMP spinlock code.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
No way ... Windows ME was the fastest version of windows. I honestly had NO problem with it on my PII 350 and it would boot (full boot) in under 30 seconds. Which for that poor 350 was pretty good.
... oh well we all have our own tastes
The only thing is ME required you to spend some time taking care of it. I had it do a Norton Windoctor Test EVERY night and would come up with countless errors. As long as I baby it, I could keep boots for along time (1w was plenty for a family machine not serving anything).
The 9x series was ANYTHING but slow. If not faster since it was so simple. But easy to break.
The only reason I liked ME was the speed. (and it supported my 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee very well)
From the looks of it im the only person who liked ME
Solosoft.org - Your Online Resource to Nothing
They're a hell of a lot younger than the Windows GUI, but IMO, they're at Windows 98/ME level of user friendliness and gaining quickly on XP and Mac OS X.
I dont think so. I have a dual-boot laptop running XP-pro and linux with KDE3.2. IMHO, KDE 3.2 is way better than XP-pro. KDE has long overtaken windows as far as user friendliness is concerned.
You're an idiot. From "make menuconfig":
/dev file system support (OBSOLETE)
[ ]
Moron.
Ah, so it is a genuine Microsoft patch.
Wow, that's the first time I've ever heard anything positive about Windows ME. I never installed it myself, but from trying to tinker around with my uncle's laptop with ME installed, it is a nightmare. It is appropriately named ME because the system takes up so many resources (Ze RAM, it belongs to MEEEEE! was a joke some friends of mine made while helping me fix the stupid laptop). with 64 MB of ram, it stil ran incredibly slow, and crashed numerous times. With so much memory being taken up by the system, multitasking was impossible. IT seemed there was some sort of memory leak, as we watched the system eat up more and more memory until it froze up. We finally gave up, had my uncle back up his documents and a few games, then reformatted and installed Win XP (he was a noob, so I didn't feel like forcing Linux on him), and the system ran 10x better.
If you can read this then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously"