2.6.13 Linux Kernel Released

LynuxFre@k writes "Linux Torvalds announced the release of the 2.6.13 Linux kernel. He noted that there was a major change to the x86 PCI code, and that while all bugs from the change were believed to be found during the release candidate phase, it's possible that some devices may have problems. From this release on, it is intended that major changes only be merged into the kernel within two weeks after a major release. The rest of the time will be spent fixing bugs, with the goal of both increasing overall stability and decreasing the amount of time between major releases. Download the latest Linux kernel from a kernel.org mirror."

Comments

Re:Coral

[croddy]

dude, there's no need to stick kernel.org behind the (comparatively sluggish) coral cache.

it's kernel.org. they mirror other people's stuff.

Devfs removed

[Saiyine]

As they say in osnews, devfs seems to have been removed from the kernel.

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Re:Devfs removed

[diegocgteleline.es]

not that many people is going to notice it - devfs wasn't really used in most of mainstream distros except 2 or 3. In some cases like Mandrake, they used it and then switched back.

And it's not a surprise, linux's devfs implementation was broken from start, and the idea behind devfs isn't a relly good one. Fortunately, udev is much better...

Re:kernel bug fixes

[GigsVT]

When I can't find a stable kernel for one of my servers, it's a serious problem.

It's been hard to get long uptimes with 2.6... the network drivers are leaky/crash, SCSI support sucks.

It's just not been very hot.

Summary of new features

[makomk]

There's a good summary of the new features over at LWN. Among other things, inotify has finally been merged in - about time! I wonder when Gentoo will add the new version to Portage, and if I'll dare to upgrade?

Re:Coral

[LnxAddct]

You're kidding right? A kernel release like this doesn't even make kernel.org break a sweat. Read this. The only time they ever even start to see some strain on their bandwidth is with a new release of Fedora, because they are a mirror for it (both of their gigabit links become saturated). For kernel releases though, they say that their bandwidth stays pretty normal at around 150Mbps to 200Mbps.
Regrds,
Steve

Linux DOES has a stable ABI

[diegocgteleline.es]

Linux DOES has a stable ABI, this is, the syscall interface. It hasn't been changed in years...I know people who is running binaries compiled for linux 1.0 in 2.6 kernels. If your app breaks or works bad when changing the kernel version (ej: openoffice when the semantics of yield() where changed in 2.5) is probably because your app was broken in first place. Now, regression and bugs can happen too, but those aren't on purpose

Maybe you mean the internal kernel API - which affects to modules, NVIDIA & friends etc. That API is unstable on purpose, as explained here: http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds /linux-2.6.git;a=blob;h=f39c9d714db3d6bf2f6440d2f6 cf9353057eeae5;hb=02b3e4e2d71b6058ec11cc01c72ac651 eb3ded2b;f=Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt

Or maybe you mean "compatibility" WRT gtk & friends, if GTK breaks compatibily thats their broblem

Re:More kernel crashes as of late?

[hackstraw]

Are these crashes repeatable or do they have any kind of similarity?

I've been using Linux since 0.9x, and its been very stable for me over the years with a few exceptions that were experienced by other people as well.

My first assumption when I have a seemingly random kernel crash with no meaningful data from the OOPs or other messages is that there is a problem with my hardware.

For me, the Linux kernel is more robust than electrical power or hardware.

YMMV.