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Vanilla Kernel 2.6 Stability vs 2.4?

Posted by Cliff on from the to-upgrade-or-not dept.

chromis asks: "I am a 'Linux-from-scratch' like Linux user. I maintain my system for almost 4 years that way. I'm still using kernel 2.4, and I'm a little bit afraid for updating to 2.6 because of the problems like stability issues, driver subsystem problems, etc. I once tried 2.6.0 a long time ago, but I experienced random freezes which I could not diagnose. We all know about the development model issues, and I often read complaints about current kernel development practices. Now that kernel 2.6.13 is out, I really want to ask Slashdot: if you are a vanilla 2.6 kernel user, how are your experiences with these plain kernel.org 2.6 kernels? Is it really as bad as some people claim, or is 2.6 only usable when using a distro from a large vendor like Red Hat, SuSE, etc? I really would like to upgrade to the new vanilla 2.6 kernel eventually, but I'm a little hesitant. Any advice?"

5 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Something doesn't add up here... by bergeron76 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're an LFS Linux user ("Linux-from-scratch like" Linux user as you put it), and you're concerned about upgrading your kernel?

    Since you cross-compiled and built your libraries, compiler, toolchain, etc from scratch, why are you worried about upgrading your kernel? Surely, you know that it's trivial to modify your boot loader so you can boot multiple kernels and try them out without consequence to your system.

    Second, why are you interested in using a Vanilla 2.6 kernel if you built your entire Linux system from scratch?

    Please pardon me if I'm mistaken, but you certainly don't sound like a 'tweaker'. Your question is analogous to: "I'm a die hard car tuner, I've modded my hotrod and tweaked my cam's, changed my gear ratios and added 2 inches to my manifold: Should I use premium gasoline in my new Hot Rod?"

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    1. Re:Something doesn't add up here... by ZosX · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You should just try it. Maybe it will run better. Maybe it won't. You won't know until you try. Different people will have vastly different experiences with the same things in life. I mean sheesh, just look at sex for chrissakes! People generally build a test server first and work it under various loads to see if it will perform as well. If you think you can squeeze a good 10-20% decrease in server load by going to a newer kernel you should likely be looking at buying new hardware anyways if your little box is heavily loaded.

      You won't get any good answers from us other than just try it out. Without even saying much about your serve, information on the processor, RAM size, what you are running on it, how many users, etc, an answer to your question is probably not going to materialize.

      That car analogy is terrible btw. Anybodoy that knows anything about how combustion engines works knows that you use the fuel that your car is tuned for. The average economy minded car is likely going to be tuned for 87 octane. Why spend $1.00 more a gallon for something your car will not even take advantage of? Cadillacs and generally performance oriented cars are rated for higher octanes. Read your manual. You will not see any performance benefit from using a higher octane gas without added air, for instance, though I guess the O2 sensor should compensate for that a bit.

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  2. Re:Seems ok. by extrasolar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But what's your uptime?

  3. Re:2.6 is nice, kinda, maybe... by cyclop · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't hotplug. I don't want to hotplug. Hotplugging is evil. My system shouldn't be doing anything with a device until I say I'm good and ready for it. Except for hotplugging, there's no real need for udev.

    I'm with you on this. That's why I'm pissed off at the lack of support for devfs from 2.6.13

    My god, the Linux kernel still supports dinosaur-era things like Minix file systems or m68k cpus (and it's good it supports them IMHO) but suddenly stops to support the device filesystem management it had until a week ago? Maybe udev will be a better choice in the end, but in the meantime, why am I forced to lose time switching to udev if I want to upgrade my kernel for, let's say, fix a buggy driver?

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  4. I do a lot of kernel hacking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
    I stay pretty close to tip.


    I think the 2.6 stability stuff has been blown way out of proportion, most of the "instabilities" out there are corner cases that don't affect that many people. No there are bugs and they get fixed and there are big change lists for Linus' tree but that's the case for 2.4 too, just not that many are getting fixed.


    Since 2.6 came out, I've seen exactly 1 bug that really mattered or affected any of my stuff and it was a memory leak that was pretty slow and I only ever noticed it because the machine it happened on is diskless. I've got a dual 250 opteron, a dual 242 opteron, a via C1 (diskless firewall with a flash), a P4, an older celeron, a dual PowerPC G4, and a couple machines at work. It has been awesome on somethings, noticably faster and more responsive.


    Now I don't know what the standard of stability you're using is, Debian's "it must run for a decade and then we'll ship it" policy? If you're running fairly vanilla stuff, it'll work great and you won't have problems, you'll have long uptimes and won't even be able to point at something lacking..