Slashdot Mirror
Linux 2.6.9 Released
An anonymous reader writes "Linux 2.6.9 has been released. Read Linus's official announcement, and go get it!" Better yet, if you hanker for the upgrade, use one of the mirrors instead.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Windows XP firewall says the download is not safe. Better stay away people, and wait until they distribute those on free CDs.
2.6.8 had some problems with tcp connections being broken, I hope they fixed that.
And I need kernel >= 2.6.8 for forcedeth gigabit support...
And tere are always little improvements... as soon as your distro packages 2.6.9 it makes since to upgrade but since there's no hurry just put in in your bootloader and wait till next reboot to load it....
The unofficial
I have been upgrading kernels ever two or so sub release (I am currently running 2.6.8.1). But it that really necessary? It seems that there is much more upgrading than there needs to be. Obviously, some people will need the new kernel, but it seems that often, once the kernel works well for my hardware, why should I keep upgrading? Any thoughts? I am probably overlooking something obvious.
The notes you just glanced at only show the minor changes between 2.6.9-rc4 and 2.6.9. There were a lot of changes between 2.6.8[.1] and the 2.6.9 release.
Looks important enough for me.
There are a bunch of important looking fixes for ppc64 and amd64, a fix for a swapd lockup, fixes for xfs and ext3.. most people should probably upgrade fairly quickly, I'd say.
Does somebody have a torrent of this yet? If they do, coudl they posta link so we can slashdot it and downlaod it faster...wait, that sounded weird.
-------
Support Indy Music. Buy
you have to peruse the nvidia linux forum for the fix. I forget what it was exactly, but you have to put a #include in some kernel file, recompile the kernel, reboot, and then the nvidia installer will work.
the real fix will require nvidia to release an update for their driver.
Lacking 'safe' vs. 'devel' kernel branches, what category does this point release fall into?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I do that too. But once in a while something goes wrong and since it was ages since I updated the kernel and put it in like a grub timebomb, I've forgotten that I did it. Fun and games.
Money for nothing, pix for free
There are no stable and development branches anymore. For kernel 2.4 the development branche was 2.5 but there will be no 2.7 development branch for 2.6
No. Even different compiles of the same kernel can be incompatible as far as modules are concerned. It depends on the compiler (and version) you use, the kernel and patches and the configure options. When you compile yourself a new kernel, you should rebuild and reinstall all your modules. You will also have to "recompile" closed-source binary drivers. There come with an open-source "shim" layer to interface with the kernel c.f. nVidia drivers. You then need to go into /etc and frob with the scripts that load the modules at boot time.
The rationale for this design decision was to force vendors to either provide GPL'd drivers for their hardware or at least to open the specs. so that volunteers could implement them themsleves. This has been largely successful, but there are a number of significant instances where this has been a problem, for example accelerated 3D graphics drivers. nVidia has been providing binary modules with a shim for years now, and recently ATI has started doing the same. There are various reasons why in the "real world" drivers can not be open-sourced and specs. can not be divulged. Sadly, we do not live in a GNU utopia.
So, for idealogical reasons, we have this dreadful system of driver modules in Linux.
Please note, I'm actually quite a Linux fan. I've been using it exxclusively at home since 1996 (Slackware all the way). I just think it's maybe time for Linux to grow up and take a leaf out of Solaris' book, for example, and to provide a _stable_ (i.e. unchanging between kernel minor versions at least) binary interface for device drivers and other kernel modules. This would make my life a lot easier and cut down on the recompiles.
Sadly, I fear the ideology might get in the way...
Stick Men
I too have had many problems with the 2.6 kernel series and 2.6 and 2.8 ssh versions, specifically pertaining to samba authentication, pam modules, and X forwarding, amoungst other inconsistencies. Not always problems with kernel or openssh per se, but it's the little stuff that gets you.
;)) unless it's stuff that we can't ourselves can't answer.
If you'd like some help head over to ##linux (yes, that's two pound signs) at freenode.net irc and ask me (same nick), or anybody. We tend to be very helpfull, and try to keep the "google that" and "RTFM" to a minimum (with some exceptions
IRC is the best linux help out there as far as I'm concerned. E-mail lists and forum sites aren't very condusive for troubleshooting because of their non-realtime nature. Stop by.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
You might want to read this discussion. It seems the old way of doing things, using even sub-versions for stable and odd for testing is no longer going to be done. So, a 2.7 kernel is not going to happen for quite some time.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this margin is too small to contain.
If you use the propietary nvidia drivers.... Forget it, DONT UPGRADE to 2.6.9 ! Its very very broken :(
This works ... I grabbed it out of a patch file...
... Why the hell on kernel.org is 2.2.19 the latest stable... lol
Add this to arch/i386/mm/init.c
On line 43 right below unsigned int __VMALLOC_RESERVE = 128 20;
add this line...
----- Begin -----
EXPORT_SYMBOL(__VMALLOC_RESERVE);
----- End -----
nVidia drivers WILL work. I'm using 2.6.9 and 6111 nvidia drivers right now.
Btw... http://tuxq.com/~tuxq/wtf.jpg
UML support was added to the 2.6 kernel a while back (2.5.34 in Sep 2002).
Since then the mainline kernel has lagged behind the latest UML releases on user-mode-linux.sf.net.
Over the 2.6.8 to 2.6.9 timeframe BlaisorBlade (aka Paolo Giarrusso) has worked with Andrew Morton and Jeff Dike to bring the mainline kernel up to date with the latest UML changes. (To the point where the 2.6.9 kernel is more current than the latest 'official' UML release). I would guess this was the biggest, in terms of lines of code, change in 2.6.9. Most of the changes just touched the 'um' architecture though. So changes are pretty isolated from other arch-es.
This may be of interest to you if you run chrooted systems anywhere (UML may be more secure). Or if you are a kernel hacker (so much easier to debug things that run in a user process).
--
(UML-based) VPS Hosting
2.6.8 introduced a bug in which it makes k3b unable to detect the cd writers as normal user and would require root only.
Has that been fixed in 2.6.9?