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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."
"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."
I wish Linus would arrive at a policy and just stick with it instead of all these gyrations of "we'll use this method from now on...no wait...we'll use this one from now on...and by the way I want everyone to switch revision control systems now...oh wait...sigh.
I'm not really a grammar/spelling/correctness nazi either, so I can't really complain about slashdot going down hill. I just feel compelled to post.
Uh... I wish my name was Linux?
This is a cool use for the Coral Cache, mirroring files this big: the kernel.
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It's LINUS Torvalds. God, I hate reading typoes!
The new release strategy being introduced as of this kernel, with two weeks before a feature freeze is an interesting step. The kernel development process has been changed a lot, and as much as some people may complain about these frequent changes, I believe it is in the search for a better way of working/more productivity. Surely exploring the problem for better solutions is a better way of trying to improve releases than putting up with a good-enough release method..
Business Voyeur
2.6.13 Linux(TM) kernel
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
- RMS
I'll give you my opinions on these.
A) It's been years since I've recompiled a kernel, and I've only compiled a few software packages in years. I use Linux daily at work, and exclusively at home. It may not be as easy to install software as on a Mac, but a good distro is equal to Windows.
B) I agree, but at the same time I find it rare that I have to drop to a command line to do normal computing tasks. I still go there daily, but by choice.
C) I can usually find anything I need online without having to post to a message board myself. However, I do agree that it needs significant improvement. I wouldn't expect non-technical people to search online for their answers.
By the way, you should find other examples to "prove" your technical skill. Ripping videos and using Photoshop aren't too "technical" in nature, especially here. Alternatively, don't try to prove it, just leave it assumed. Note: I'm not calling your knowledge into question, just your examples.
Industry standard 3d, compositing and editing tools all run under linux which is the natural progression because of their IRIX legacy.
I've also done some DTP under linux but that probably wasn't professional, since I didn't just bang a series of poorly masked raster images together like most 'professional' agencies we dealt with.
Does this make me a linux fanatic?
As they say in osnews, devfs seems to have been removed from the kernel.
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As you may have noticed, this article is about the KERNEL. Changing your kernel is a very much geek thing to do. If there is any place you should expect to need the CLI to install something it is the kernel!
Compiling and installing a new kernel isn't for everyone, that's why there are these collections of tested software known as "Linux Distros" where geeks get the software packaged nicely so you can use a GUI to do all your upgrading. If the CLI scares you so much and you want to use Linux, I'd recomend using Fedora or Ubuntu and sticking to standard packages.
You don't have to. years ago when I used SuSE, I never ever compiled anything, and I had no problems
Linux does have something similar. How about Yast or Synaptic or up2date? True, it's not identical to way things are done in Windows or OS X. But Linux is not Windows or OS X.
I don't think the kernel-developers are to blame if some GUI-tool doesn't do the job. They work on the kernel, not on the GUI.
Failed at what? To satisfy the whims of some random user who propably hasn't paid one dime for the software he's using? Here's a hint to you: they (the developers) don't owe you anything.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I've been using Linux since 2.0.27. It has usually been generally quite stable for me. But recently, I've been encountering more and more kernel crashes. For trivial things to, like a kernel crash when I try to use ifconfig yesterday when setting up a machine. And random crashes on one of my servers that doesn't seem related to RAM. I know that some kernel versions have "problems", but it seems to be more than that. A recent trend of unstability. Can anyone else who has been using Linux for a significant amount of time attest to this?
This PCI code rewrite doesn't bother me as much as some of the recent 2.6 releases including new drivers for obscure proprietary hardware.
A large number of organizations (as well as Debian Stable and Redhat) still use 2.4. It's pretty pathetic. 2.6 was released in December of 2003, over a year and a half ago. It offers significant performance advantages over 2.4 in many areas. Maybe instead of spending time switching policies, kernel developers should be consulting with end-users (note: this does not mean just/predominantly IBM and the other big fish. It means people like US, too) to find out why we're not using 2.6. Aside from security patches, any effort on 2.4 development/maintenance needs to stop. It's a brain drain, and active maintenance is encouraging people to be lazy in upgrading (and that's probably part of the issue).
Right now 2.6 is a lame-duck kernel, and if they keep trudging on and release the next stable without looking at why 2.6 isn't the defacto kernel of choice today, Linux will be rather fubar'd.
Please help metamoderate.
A) Fine. So we'll distribute one binary version of the kernel. It won't work as fast. It'll be hundreds of megs in size. It will take ages to load as it checks for every single known piece of hardware. You've just lost all the speed/memory advantage of having a tailored kernel. Alternatively, it'll come with a hundred modules. It'll also never be x64 optimised or, for that matter, able to work on every machine (some options crash some machines, while the opposite options may crash others) and APM/ACPI will NEVER work on some machines.
B) Fine. You come up with a GUI that can allow me to find files modified on the second Tuesday of every month between May 1, 1946 and June 27, 1978, which contain the words 'secret' and 'report' within 26 characters of each other, sort them by date, and replace any occurence of the word 'anchovie' by 'dead bug'. Some things GUI's just cannot do, some things GUI's do that are just command line interfaces in a fancy coloured textbox, some things GUI's can do once in the time that someone who knows the command can do twenty times.
Secondly, how do you expect a GUI to be able to do stuff like modify computer internals safely? Windows answer to this is usually that settings won't take effect until the next reboot, which makes your computer *stop all it's work* until it's done. X can be restarted with a single keystroke to have the same effect. Maybe a couple of command line edits in between but meanwhile none of your users have been disconnected, no programs have stopped doing what they were supposed to be doing.
Command-lines are not for the faint-of-heart. Then again, last time I touched the command line on my own Linux desktop (not counting other machines that are cmd-line only via SSH) was to run LILO - not something that a "desktop doughnut" should be doing. You obviously have either different ideas of what you should be doing on a normal desktop machine or have not found out how to do them GUI-wise. By the same token, Windows should never expect me to recover in safe mode, or via recovery console, or by running any batch commands ever. Fine for the ordinary desktop user because it very rarely does. Not fine for a power user. An ordinary desktop user wouldn't even notice if you ran a Windows GUI on a Linux machine.
C) Man pages can be a pain in the arse (make it compulsory to include enough examples to demonstrate every option!). HOWTO's are not always up-to-date. Forums are, pretty much, for people who want to know how to install this Linux thing they downloaded. Then again... how much documentation do you get with Windows?
A small booklet showing you how to use a mouse to point at the various icons. An online help system that, even with it's wizard-style help for some items, is next to useless if you don't know the terms to look for (I work support for six schools... that's about 60-100 staff and a few thousand pupils. I have NEVER seen or heard of anyone even bother to try using Windows Help or Help inside ANY program because it's never been useful to them). Annoying dogs, wizards, paperclips that people want me to TURN OFF for them because they can't figure out how.
That's surely Linux 0-0 Windows in terms of help.
If you're an advanced user, you've got to be comfortable with the command-line. I carry a USB key full of cmd-line utils and use them almost every day on Windows and Linux. It's amazing how much quicker "Start, Run, Cmd, ipconfig" is than navigating that poxy GUI network settings. And while I'm there, doing "route print" is the ONLY way to discover Windows network routes.
Anyone who's not going to set up networks or advanced stuff (i.e. users), or home users shouldn't ever NEED to worry about the command line on either OS. And they don't. They pick a distro like Lindows and once the installation is complete, they never see it again. Or they have a decent desktop set up and then never see the command-line again. You, however, are on the border. You are trying to do stuff that NEEDS a command line, stuff that's beyond a GUI point-and-click.
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?
I just finished configuring and compiling the kernel for my desktop last night, and now Linus decides that I'm not important to him. Why doesn't he return my calls? Doesn't he love me anymore??
I have bad karma
>> Any time I'm forced to drop to a command line, you as a developer have failed.
> I don't think the kernel-developers are to blame if some GUI-tool doesn't do the job. They work on the kernel, not on the GUI.
In fact, if some functionality requires a GUI, people like me are mightily upset. The moment I'm forced to drop to a goddamn GUI, you (the grandparent poster) as a whiny user have failed.
[Disclaimer: not a single byte of my code can be found in the official kernel tree, so take my words with a grain of salt. Still, I don't really imagine Linus using mouse for anything but cut&paste]
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
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
s /linux-2.6.git;a=blob;h=f39c9d714db3d6bf2f6440d2f6 cf9353057eeae5;hb=02b3e4e2d71b6058ec11cc01c72ac651 eb3ded2b;f=Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt
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/torvald
Or maybe you mean "compatibility" WRT gtk & friends, if GTK breaks compatibily thats their broblem
OK, first off, this guy is obviously a desktop user. So, yeah, it's understandable he wants everything driven via a GUI. Fair and reasonable request really. But he should understand that not everyone is a desktop user and many people who use Linux as more than just for servers are power users who LIKE having the power and flexibility of low level configuration files. Man pages do suck when not written properly. Would a few examples kill people to write?? But, the argument that Linux is free and that "the developers don't owe you anything" is getting old. Ok, it's free. BUT it's being put out there as a superior OS to Windows. So if you're going to develop and tout it as such, stand behind it and stop running for cover behind statements like: "Failed at what? To satisfy the whims of some random user who propably hasn't paid one dime for the software he's using? Here's a hint to you: they (the developers) don't owe you anything" This isn't helping anyone's cause. Learn to take and use criticism to make a better OS. Linux isn't better becuase it's free, linux is btter becuase it's a superior system is so many ways. Hardly any REGULAR desktop users would say it's as easy to use/configure as Windows and until they do, there's work ahead for developers....
Any time I'm forced to drop to a command line, you as a developer have failed.
Without getting into the whole "you have failed" thing and whether or not your particular requirements are some sort of mandatory minimum, it's my opinion that the same thing applies to GUIs. I think every piece of functionality should be available in three different ways:
The common Unix and OSS methodology is to build the command-line tools first, then factor out libraries and add GUI interfaces that use either the libraries or even the command-line tools underneath. So, it's common that features are accessible for a while from the command line, but not from the GUI. In the Windows world, the methodology is to construct the GUI first, then expose functional components via OLE and then, maybe, to create command-line tools. Of course, it's very common in the Windows world to stop after the GUI.
IMO, the Unix and OSS approach is superior because it improves the odds that all three interfaces will be implemented, leading to maximum functionality not only for novices, but also for power users and developers. But I won't clam that Microsoft has "failed" because I understand the difference between my opinion and global Truth.
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I'd like to use the stock kernel as much as possible.
:(
As of now no SATA DVD drive works well unless you change one line and recompile the kernel.
So many systems are now built as SATA-only (yes, the IDE ports are completely unused), stock kernels break all live-CD distributions - none of them will boot
Damnit! I just finished compiling Kernel 2.6.12-gentoo-r9 yesterday!!!! No. REALLY!
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
Linux packaging technology beats the ass of windows any time. I can click double click on .debs and get them openened by a installer just like .msi
.exe programs from docens of differents web pages. This becomes SCARY when you've to update things. For the vast majority of software you've to check for new versions visiting their web page and reading the text to check visually if there's a new version. Compare it to the magic of apt-get and emerge....I wonder when Microsoft will catch up with the early 90's and will develop a new .msi format where developers can suministrate a URL for a XML file which tells Windows what are the latest file versions of a given program...there're hints that makes me believe that they'll use RSS for this in Windows Vista, but I don't expect that much from microsoft...
The problem is in how they're delivered and the lack of 1) a common packaging format and 2) lack of a common "package namespace" (ie: xorg can be called xorg in fedora and xserver-xorg in debian, that makes dependencies fail and can be only fixed by using a common packaging framework where developers and not distros makers package things)
But Linux continues being much better than windows in some areas. For example, you've to download the
Snobbery like this is partly why Linux fails. GUIs are easier to use, especially for the non-technical user - i.e. 90% of computer users -or- who you should be catering to if you ever want Linux to be anything other than a niche operating system.
Okay, this is something that's been on my mind a while, so I hope it'll get some amount of attention and hopefully an interesting reply or two.
I also hope it's not going to get modded down to the seventh level of hell, as I'm about to (gasp!) express disagreement with Linus.
First of all, I am vaguely concerned about the Linux kernel development. It's been a long time since there's been major improvements under the hood. I've had Linux desktops freeze on me. In the past, that never happened. Ever. I don't know which kernels are trustworthy anymore. I've read something to the extent that stabilizing kernels is now considered the Linux commercial vendors' job. Excuse me, but WTF?
In the meanwhile, while we Linux types wave our dicks around and gloat over how great we are, the guys at Redmond are happily making it possible to change video drivers in their OS on the fly, and to unload a crashed driver without taking down the system. Will it work? Probably not 100% well right away, but trust me, they WILL make it work or they'll die trying. And Windows 2000 is proof that they can certainly do things well when they put their minds to it.
And Linux is about to become the unstable OS choice and it seriously pisses me off.
A very long time ago, Linus Torvalds and Andrew Tanenbaum had a since famous argument about the core structure of the kernel.
Linus's argument was, if my memory serves, that it all boils down to pushing bits around, and that you should as well push the bits in the simplest way.
And this is where I disagree.
Kernel development is about pushing around the bits that will push bits around. Those are the bits you want to push around in the simplest way. The goal is not simply to produce a good kernel, it's to produce a maintainable, efficiently improvable set of source that will compile into a good kernel. Otherwise, the end product you get is a good kernel for its time that will be a bitch to drag into the future.
Perhaps the state of the Linux kernel development today is but Tanenbaum's schadenfreude.
Assuming that kernel improvements have indeed, as is my admittedly fragmentary view, slowed down worryingly, I find myself wondering if, simply, now is when Tanenbaum should be speaking up, rather than all those years ago. The structural needs then were simple: few consumer devices, reduced architechtural diversity. Today's aren't. And there is STILL no 'just-works' way for third parties to deliver drivers to their customers. The least worse they can do is deliver sources to the kernel maintainers and hope that 1) they will be accepted, and 2) there won't be too many months between now and the moment their customer's OS uses that kernel. Or they can ship scripts that will compile glue code between their driver and the currently running kernel, and hope that the customer has a freaking compiler installed. I'm sorry, I can compile drivers and upgrade kernels manually, but neither are acceptable solutions for the mass market.
In fact, I'll go out on a limb and predict that unless the kernel's structure and development processes are rethought to take into account the use of an OS as a three-party system -- the OS vendor, the user, and the commodity/paraphernalia providers -- Linux will never be a significant player in the desktop market.
Thought on that? Please, please, please prove me wrong. I'm a long time Linux user, I did in my time the mandatory contributions to the kernel that allows me to speak up and bitch now, and from what I can see the future is not looking well for the Linux kernel. So please prove me wrong. Thanks.
When it comes to community distributions... they may handle things differently. But they can afford to... as they are the true hobbyist form of Linux. (Well, except for K/Ubuntu)
Overall, though... The astroturfing/trolling was a refreshing experience. Nice to see that you can still bring up the oldies-but-goodies (no matter how false) of linux fix-its. As a matter of fact, you should be heralded as the paragon of all members on the site. I propose a petition! Let everyone who wants to assign Mr PorchPuppy a UID of 2^32 speak now, as it is surely his proper place amongst /.ers.
I think I've said enough though. Have a nice day.
anti-Linux (MS ?) Shills are at it again, with their support to mod them up. The oldest occurrence of this post I can find is this one : http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=135647&cid =11333134 .
...).
... I suppose this one will be resurrected often though. Reminds me of the good old days, when old trolls were reappearing even though the problems were fixed a long time ago. ...
What's sad is that you see them coming from far far away, but the worst is that their arguments are always flawed.
So they play with emotional things, and don't even get that right (Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with > 1% marketshare, I suppose they meant < 1 %
And then, say stupid things like :
Take installation. Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Eliminating the context, and deliberately forgetting the part about the GUI, like Synaptic or Mandrake Update (which are available in the menu, with names like "Update your system" or "Add new applications").
But wait, they are even more stupid than that !!!! They have no shame. They even talk about the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and then, to illustrate that, ask How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?. Which of course, has nothing to do with Linux configuration issues, and everything to do with the Quake 3 editor not providing a convenient installation method. I don't know Quake 3 per se, so I can't verify what these unreliable sources say, but if these guy http://wcuniverse.sourceforge.net/ can provide an installation file for their Open Source game that works on any Linux thanks to the very old Loki installer, I think any proprietary company can do it too.
Oh but wait, I checked and Quake 3 actually comes with the same installer at least for the french version !!!!
But of course, this old troll had to detail all the installation instructions of the NVidia driver and whatnot for XFree, to sound complicated. Trolls these days
Heck, today I just saw "X does not support PNP displays", "X is slow", "Linux has bad font support"
Fortunately, anti-Linux trolls do not include "Linux has no games" when they talk about difficulty of installing Quake 3 on it, thank god !
You will find people using Microsoft keyboards with Linux; for the reason that it doesn't suck as much as your crappy OS, and dont have to upgrade to a new keyboard after every three years.
Does Microsoft make the keyboards themselves (I doubt it) or do they just outsource the production of them or license their trademark to the company which produces it?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
There are discussions here regarding Linux's instability. However, there is a bigger problem that exists which I have pointed out earlier.
The issue is that it is not Linux that is unstable, but X (XOrg or XFree). I recently installed a multitude of distributions recently*. X crashed on all of them, many times frequently. All occurred within the first few days of installing. Bear in mind that not everyone has another computer hooked up to the Internet where one can SSH into the machine and kill X. For some, the crash of X is the crash of the computer. CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE doesn't always work. This is my biggest issue with Linux or UNIX variants.
I do propose a solution: a patch or replacement to X in where it does not run as root at all (to the uninformed, running X as a user still has parts run as root). If this is not possible, then revise it as such:
1) Include only the minimal, absolute necessary code required to run as root
2) A small, and as a result less complex, code will make it easier to reduce bugs and increase stability
3) Make this root code standard across platforms (Linux and other UNIX variants) so no modifications which add to code size are required, again reducing code and enlarging the audience that can review the code
Strip the code that runs as root the *barest* essentials and let all functionality run as a user. Long story short, whatever can't run as root can't crash your computer. Therefore, eliminate or make it as small as possible (significantly less than what X runs as root today).
Are there working projects available that I am not aware of? Recently, I have heard that OpenBSD has something akin to what I am talking about. Is this accurate? What of GNU Hurd? If I remember correctly it implements some of this (at least to my limited micro kernel understanding); however, is it even usable yet?
* I was let down by the new Debian Stable (stock install 3.1ra) (1 of 5 distributions I evaluated). It's wonderfully easy now and set up everything out of the box (mp3 and video support included which many users have been clamoring for from other distributions), but X crashes very frequently when switching to a VC and randomly crashes a lot in general.
That works both ways - the users do not owe you anything either, which means that you can't complain if they then decide to go and use XYZ other OS.
"Why do all these lusers keep using crappy Windows? They should use a product that they don't understand and that we refuse to improve for them because it's free and we don't owe them anything!"
Because THAT'S a good sales pitch...
"If he were a plant, people would roll him up and smoke him."
Maybe that the time has come for Linus to take in some consideration the need for a change in the kernel code model. As of today it is released as a monolythic piece of software wheighing 27+ MB of compressed code (almost 240 MB when uncompressed). /dev/null.
If you add this to the complexity of an OS anyone can easily understand why a "partitioned" schema would greatly help the development.
Of course I'm also thinking about an oldish querelle between Linus and Andy Tanenbaum about monolythic kernel and microkernel approaches. I'm not talking just about this, but at least about partitioning of the code into (almost) independed units.
And maybe a microkernel approach could help to move in this direction: none can deny that both of them have a lot to teach about OSes.
Please, send flames to
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]