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Linux Kernel 2.6.14 Released
digitalderbs writes "Linux kernel 2.6.14 was released on 10-28. OSnews reports on new features like 'HostAP, FUSE, the linux port of the plan9's 9P protocol, netlink connector, relayfs, securityfs, centrino's wireless drivers, support for DCCP (currently a RFC draft, PPTP, full 4 page-table support for ppc64, numa-aware slab allocator, lock-free descriptor lookup' and many other things. The changelog is also available."
Keep in mind the new kernel development model, where anything outside of major architectural changes is permissable in the Y of W.X.Y releases, and there is now the stable W.X.Y.Z releases to provide stabilized security patched kernels for those who want a slower moving target.
--Brandon
Obligatory "you must be a Gentoo user" response.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
The "comprehensible changelog" is slashdotted. Why is the high-level feature list of the release such a low priority, though so demanded? I know programmers prefer writing C to writing English (or Finnish, or Hindi, or German). But what good is code people don't install because they don't know what it does for us? There are so many people hanging around OSS projects who can't or don't contribute to the code. Surely some of those people can help by at least distilling the changes into a brief description. Release notes might not be the most important product of a release cycle, but they often control everything that product consumers do after the release is published.
--
make install -not war
Does anyone know if/when reiser4 will be included into the mainline kernel? I recall reading a kerneltrap interview a while back with Andrew Morton, in which he basically said "sure, why not?" to including it into the next release..
Best regards, A.C.
Hasn't the kernel pretty much reached the point where, for the average user, the only problems are those that just can't be fixed -- in other words, drivers for proprietary devices that haven't had their specs released by the manufacturers?
Find free books.
Because of this troll.
lol.
>Linux is not user-friendly.
It _is_ user-friendly. It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly.
How does that differ from ipw2200 drivers ?
BTW, here's a coral link for the kernel changelog.
"The problem's all inside your head", she said to me
The crap filter is annoying, I agree
You can defeat it if you do it logically
There must be fifty ways to troll on Slashdot
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The sensationalist titles are often misconstrued
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Fifty ways to troll on Slashdot
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Netcraft confirms that Wikipedia explains
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Well, this new kernel is great news for the http://klik.atekon.de/ service which allows you to directly run the latest experimental linux applications or stable debian packages in a user account by just clicking a link to run and install without messing up your installation (just like selfcontained Apple appliction folders).
The mounting of file systems without root permisson means klik will become even easier to install on linux distributions. And it already runs on several distributions without configuaration.
Released October 27, 2005 changelog
Numa-aware slab allocator: It creates slabs on multiple nodes and manages slabs in such a way that locality of allocations is optimized. Each node has its own list of partial, free and full slabs. All object allocations for a node occur from node specific slab lists (commit - benchmarks)
Lazy page table copies in fork() for VMAs without anonymous pages (the ones with anonymous pages are still copied): Defer copying of ptes until fault time when it is possible to reconstruct the pte from backing store, speeding up fork() greatly specially for processes using lots of shared memory (commit)
Add /proc/$PID/smaps: This file will shows how much memory is
resident in each mapping. Useful for people who want to perform memory
consumption analysis (commit)
Add /proc/$PID/numa_maps: This file will show on which nodes pages reside (commit)
Lock-free file descriptor look-up (commit) - (commit)
Four-level page table support for the ppc64 architecture: extends the usable user address range to 44 bits (16T). (commit)
Support hotplug cpu on 32-bit SMP powermacs: When a cpu is off-lined, it is put into sleep mode with interrupts disabled. It can be on-lined again by asserting its soft-reset pin, which is connected to a GPIO pin (commit)
Add TASK_NONINTERACTIVE task state bit to the cpu scheduler: It can be used by blocking points to mark the task's wait as "non-interactive". This does not mean the task will be considered a CPU-hog - the wait will simply not have an effect on the waiting task's priority - positive or negative alike (commit)
PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) support: RFC 2637. Used to implement VPN products (notably, Microsoft in all the Windows versions). Wikipedia article (commit)
DCCP: "Datagram Congestion Control Protocol". Datagram protocol (like UDP), but with a congestion control mechanism. (LWN article) Currently a RFC draft (commit)
Implement SKB fast cloning: Protocols that make extensive use of SKB cloning, for example TCP, eat at least 2 allocations per packet sent as a result. To
Yeah well being a Gentoo user, I got this news 2 days ago (and it seems it just finished compiling)
Does it let you determine offsets for open files yet? I'd really, really like to be able to run lsof -o under Linux.
Maybe with those centrino drivers we can get this thing running wireless in linux:
Centrino pumpkin pc
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
Just a quick scan of pages, though, so I could be off on some of these.
Check out FuseFS, for example (see why it's cool). Or encfs (see O'Reilly article).
Linux is starting to go beyond emulating the Unixes of yore, to create a whole new world of computing.
missing ) in parenthetical
(currently a RFC draft, PPTP, full 4 page-table support for ppc64, numa-aware slab allocator, lock-free descriptor lookup' and many other things. The changelog is also available."
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Sig Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Wow, there's not a single thing on that list of features that I understand.
Much of what is on that list is a bit esoteric, but I think you might be exagerating. If you don't know what these are, you don't deserve the title of ``geek'':
PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) support: RFC 2637 [ietf.org]. Used to implement VPN products (notably, Microsoft in all the Windows versions).
IPV6: Support several new sockopt / ancillary data in Advanced API (RFC3542)
FUSE: Allows to implement a fully functional filesystem in a userspace program
9P support: Linux port of the Plan9's 9P protocol
Suspend support for CIFS filesystem
HostAP: Adds support to work as "Wireless Access Point"
Driver for the IBM Hard Drive Active Protection System (HDAPS), an accelerometer found in most modern Thinkpads (LWN article)
Add Apple USB touchpad driver for the USB touchpad which can be found on post-February 2005 Apple Powerbooks
Largefile support for accounting: The accounting subsystem in the kernel can not correctly handle files larger than 2GB. This fixes it by adding the O_LARGEFILE flag
It's time, IMHO, for Linus to pull rank and just order it merged.
you had me at #!
Sorry - this isn't the MPPE patches. This is support for PPTP packets being tracked through iptables. What I believe this will let you do is have multiple PCs behind a Linux firewall be able to use PPTP at the same time (prior to this PPTP through a Linux iptables firewall would work for only one PC at a time.)
You've always been able to mount filesystems as a normal user if you set up your fstab correctly. You will never be able to do so without some sort of prior configuration because it's a massive security risk if any user can mount/unmount any FS.
FUSE has nothing to do with security or user permissions for mounting. FUSE allows filesystem drivers to be run in userspace (most likely still with root permissions) rather than forcing them to be compiled into the kernel or loaded as a kernel module. (Similar to binfmt_misc for "executables", where the kernel does not directly execute certain executable files, but can be told which userspace program it can call in order to execute it.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If it's anything like 3 was when it came into the kernel please leave it out. 3 was only let into the kernel because reiser bitched and bitched, but it was unstable and buggy. I have been much happier with ext3.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
If you're running an SMP AMD64, you need this version to avoid random segfaults. It turns out that 4-level page table support on all but very current AMDs tickles a processor bug. See this discussion on the kernel Bugzilla for more detail than you ever wanted to know.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Linus won't order it in since Andrew Morton (his right-hand man) has already indicated that it will go in. There are a few concerns raised by Christoph Hellwig (lkml's resident pitt-bull) that Andrew Morton has asked to be fixed before it goes into vanilla. Mostly these issues have only held up inclusion (a filesystem would normally have got merged with just those style issues) because of concerns that after inclusion the code would be abandoned and even cleanups being opposed by the original developers as allegedly happened with reiser3.
features and performance are *not* the top priorities in Linux, the top priority is maintainability. The rate at which features and performance improvements are added is a consequence of the maintainability, which must not be compromised for the sake of a slightly cool filesystem.
and I'm not blaming Hans.
Reading that thread, I'm not sure why. ReiserFS may be the bees' knees, but that's no excuse for that kind of behavior. Kernel style is kernel style; if Reiser thinks they should change kernel style, that's a reasonable thing to discuss, but the fuck-you-my-code's-better-than-your-crappy-code routine sure isn't the way to go about it.
If these work, this is BIG news. IMHO these make Linux into a completely new operating system, not just a Unix clone. Everything a computer process can think about should be named in a single hierarchial namespace. Until now all operating systems except Plan9 have been bogged down by concepts that think that only blocks of bytes on a disk are eligable for this naming scheme.
Expect vast numbers of FUSE programs. In the future I expect *most* non-trivial programs to actually be FUSE programs.
I think reiser 4 should be delayed untill it's ready this time, instead of burning a bunch of users, like 3 did.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
This is great, now that HostAP and Centrino are in the kernel. We've needed this to be in the mainstream kernel for some time. But Atheros support is still missing, and it's just as important, if not more important, than either of those chipsets. Most people are aware of the MadWifi drivers with closed-source HAL (i.e. part of the driver is closed source), but there's also a project by OpenBSD to make a completely open source driver for the Atheros cards, called OpenHAL. It's been ported to linux: http://cvs.pdos.csail.mit.edu/cvs/roofnet/release/ openhal/ - but needs testing. Please work on it!
The vfs already has modularity, and the vfs is *the* Linux filesystem where the filesystems are modules that implement separate storage backends but all the same semantics.
One problem with reiser4 (now addressed in the code proposed for inclusion at this time) was that it changed some of the defined semantics of the vfs. This bit won't go in until it is thoroughly discussed and user-space has subsequently been prepared for it (and deprecation of the old behaviour widely expected).
The problem with the modularity of reiser4 is that is implemented fully inside reiser4 instead of being designed as a modification of the vfs where reiser4 simply provides one storage backend. The reiser4 modules should have been put right up behind the vfs as a proof of concept for the first integration, where the new modularity features could be moved bit-by-bit into the vfs, where all filesystem are then just a storage backend and all could be easily made to support the transaction and query facilities expected.
Some of the style problems included things like generic datatypes being implemented in the reiser4 directory instead of as a general facility for the kernel as a whole. Most of these were fixed, I believe, but AFAIK the problem of the level at which the modularity is implemented, and the failure to distinguish between semantic/feature modules and storage backend is not a good design.
I'm pretty sure patent concerns are part of it.
Reiser3 is FAR from abandoned by Namesys. Anyone can post patches to it and get them in the kernel, Hans has no control over that, and it has been proven because SuSE developers have gotten patches in to the kernel against Hans wishes.
ReiserFS3 is "version 3" of the Reiser filesystem. Hans wants it to be deemed "stable" and free from new FEATURES, and only bug fixes be applied. Any new features he wants to put in the next version of ReiserFS, v4. Rarely do you see MAJOR features from Kernel v2.6 being backported to v2.4, there is reason for that, because with features comes bugs.
For some reason people consider this to be abandoning Reiser3. When it is quite the opposite.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
I think this release of the Linux kernel is the final straw for me using FreeBSD.
Their failure to implement a fully functional ext3 makes it impossible to find a decent FreeBSD hosting company that offers virtual file partition management via web interface. Even with upcoming Xen3, most providers will be using Linux hosts and the inability to mount/resize FreeBSD partition is just another barrier for making FreeBSD available customers.
This latest release of Linux kernel is just another example of how difficult it will be for other OS to catch up in terms of continuously improving performance and features.
Here I come Debian. A formerly loyal FreeBSD fan since 3.x that is reminded of how Amiga lost out by failing to do simple things.
Reiser4 is very stable, except for the recent releases. The recent releases became unstable due to the changes requested by lkml, but I believe that it's getting back to its previous level of stability. (When you make large scale design changes like what was requested on lkml, you're bound to get some bugs.) But before those changes, Reiser4 was extremely stable. The developers stopped being able to find bugs, and users stopped being able to crash it. I've been running Reiser4 since last February, and several people have been running it for longer than that, and I've never had any problems with it. When the current users have stopped being able to crash it (and it's already been in the -mm tree for some time), it's time to put it into the mainline kernel, so that other users can start pounding on it.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
There goes the last *BSD user...
So if 2.4.x doesn't float your boat, try something a little behind the leading edge such as 2.6.10
You haven't said the 2.6.14 kernel is unusable, you hint that it could be. You say that it _may_ be totally unstable, not that it is. What is the actual problem? You smell very troll-ish to me.
I'm more than happy with the pace of development and I can stick with an older release if I need to. History shows that if you wait a bit your hardware will be supported. Whats the problem here? Sounds like a lot of complaining over nothing to me.
I presume your OpenBSD firewall is not on such modern hardware. Linux is the UNIX-like system that is most tolerant of this brave new world of hot-plug hardware.
As for your software RAID, you'll need to file a proper bug report. I have a guess though: your BIOS, via ACPI, is playing with power management settings or doing something related to suspend and resume. This scrambles the drive. Send BIOS settings info with your bug report to linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu please.
For illustration, let it be assumed that the version number is composed thus: A.B.C[.D]
A D number first occurred when a grave error, which required immediate fixing, was encountered in 2.6.8's NFS code. However, there were not enough other changes to legitimate the release of a new minor revision (which would have been 2.6.9). So, 2.6.8.1 was released, with the only change being the fix of that error. With 2.6.11, this was adopted as the new official versioning policy. Bugfixes and security patches are now managed by the fourth number, whereas bigger changes are only implemented in minor revision changes (the C number).
So, if you want stability go for the 2.6.13.4, it contains all bugfixes since 2.6.0 release (dec. 03), and the newest features are released already for 2 months and therefore tested.
But I do agree that it looks like the older stables are not maintained very long, e.g. when I look at the changelog to the 2.6.12.[1..6], none of the patches is available for the 2.6.11, also I'm pretty sure some of the fixed bugs are there as well.
So basically, if I want the latest bugfixes, I also need to accept features which are only released for two months and therefore might be unstable. I think, it would be a very good idea to pick one stable release p.a. and maintain it a bit longer, e.g. the 2.6.11.
Trolling is a art!
It could still be refused or delayed for valid technical reasons. But if Hans' comments on the list offend people to the point where they reject his huge contributions, that's worse for Linux than a few strongly worded posts on Reiser's part.
I agree that outright refusal of ReiserFS code would be a mistake. But neither do I think the jerkiness, which goes beyond mere strong words, is trivial.
The Linux kernel isn't just a complex bit of technology; it's also a complicated social mechanism. As a kernel user, I don't just want new features now; I want the platform to say viable for decades. Politeness is a social lubricant that reduces wear, and mutual respect repairs personal strain.