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Linux 2.6.16 released
diegocgteleline.es writes "Linux 2.6.16 has been released after two months and two weeks of development. You can check the comprehensible changelog (text mirror of the site). The new features include OCFS2, a clustering filesystem contributed by Oracle, new unshare(), pselect()/ppoll() and *at() system calls, support the moving of the physical location of pages between nodes in NUMA systems, support for the Cell processor, cpufreq support for G5s plus thermal control for dualcore G5s, improved power management support for many devices and subsystems (libata, alsa...), a new mutex locking primitive, high-resolution timers, per-mountpoint noatime/nodiratime, 64-to-32-bit ioctl compatibility for the v4l2 subsystem, IPv6 support for DCCP, the TIPC protocol (Transparent Inter Process Communication, ACL support for CIFS filesystem, HFSX filesystem support, new configfs filesystem (which complements sysfs, not replaces it), support for running executables from v9fs (plan9 9P distributed filesystem), support for many new devices, improved support for others and lots of other changes. Check it out from kernel.org"
Nope. The kernel no longer has a stable release. 2.6 is unstable despite the even number, 2.4 is deep maintenance don't touch it, and anyone wanting to release a distribution has to stabilise the kernel themselves, ruling out the hobbyists. I suppose linus' corporate masters are happy.
I am trolling
My experience is exactly the same. 2.6 sucks, quite frankly, and doesn't deserve the even version number. It should have remained 2.5 until it was stable, which it certainly isn't at the moment.
I am trolling
Agreed, stability has suffered. I have regular OOPSen at this point, something I've NEVER had in Linux before. No, it's not memory or hardware failures. They're bugs.
For example, I can reproduce an OOPS immediately on my laptop with Orinoco-based wireless simply by using EHCI (USB2) at the same time. Either one alone = great, no problem. Start a download and copy a file over USB2 = immediate OOPS (within fifteen seconds, guaranteed), and the system must be rebooted before Orinoco will work properly again.
I spent half an hour trying to post to the development lists for these projects but thanks to our SPAM-enabled world, I never got past "we only allow posts from list subscribers." I couldn't get their subscription confirmers to reach me and thus I couldn't post to them.
The solution has been what? "Always bring the network down if I need to access my external USB2 devices, then bring then network back up when I'm done." That is a crapass solution for what is supposed to be an industry stability leader.
Other OOPSen include the Linux video subsystem (I used to do video editing in Linux, but I'm giving up on that for a while) and something to do with framebuffer drivers that I don't have a good sense for yet but that has happened several times on a machine that was rock solid in the 2.4 days.
Linux is unfortunately becoming more like Windows: a user-friendly desktop that "just works" -- when you can get it to work. I preferred the old model: it needs to be configured for six hours using sixty shell scripts and config files, but once you're done, it won't need to be rebooted for six years while you do your work.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW