Linux Kernel 2.6.8 Released

J ROC writes "According to The Linux Kernel Archives kernel 2.6.8 is now out. It includes some fixes from 2.6.7. Happy upgrading." You may want to read this earlier story and think twice before upgrading.

Comments

Re:2.6.8.1

[ThisNukes4u]

I guess they were really serious when they said that the stabilization of the kernel was up to the distro maintainers. Guess I won't be downloading 2.6.8 until 2.6.9 comes out.

Summary?

[tweakt]

I scanned the Changelog briefly and didn't see anything major. I usually grep for 'thinkpad' or 'laptop' (my main system), to see if there is anything nice to try out. There are some laptop_mode improvements (disk IO buffering, keeps hard drive spun down for as long as possible) which should benefit any laptop user.

On occasion, someone will write up a nice summary of highlights. Anyone seen such a thing for 2.6.8?

Re:Dam

[mostlyalmighty]

I care, I bet a lot of others care too. Thus /. is serving its purpose for me.

Upgrading your kernel is good for the soul.

Re:Download Size

[Spoing]

1. I think Linux is a great kernel, but a 42 MB download is really a bit too much for my liking.

[ suggestions for reducing the source update snipped ]

The upgrade patch from 2.6.7 to 2.6.8 is under 4MB and can be found right along with the complete source here.

Splitting the kernel source into parts would be a logistical problem...and I'd rather the developers not be bothered with it. If you want source, and you want small file sizes, using a diff to patch a previous release is a reasonable compromise. There are plenty of comments on the web on how to apply these patches, so being a developer isn't even necessary.

Most of the suggestions you have would be appropriate for a binary release, though binary kernel packages are much smaller anyway so much of the benifit there is also lost.

That said, there could be improvements on the package updates for just about every package ... I don't know any that do atomic updates (ex: MD5 sums of the files and fetch only the ones that differ...or apply a patch to make the files match.). That would be quite handy for mass deployment of files over a LAN to cut down network traffic; push out the update details to the clients, have the local systems check if they need a specific file, have the local systems report back what they need or if they are already OK. Not ideal for every situation, though it could be benificial. I wouldn't be surprised if the Tivo updates are handled like this.