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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"
does it run Linux?
"Comprehensible"? I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Any point in me upgrading the kernel from 2.6.14? My suspicion is for myself is "no" since everything still works as usual. Alright, maybe I'll just go download and compile it.
support for the Cell processor
I guess the PS3 HDD with Linux was true...
Ryan - http://www.thecosmotron.com/
Well, I've been using it for a few minutes, but it seems that there are a few bugs, like whe8#@4!n;)NO CARRIER
Slightly OT, but have Linux and Schilling decided to let cdrecord work right when acting as an IDE device yet? Last I checked, it's still been broken since 2.6.8.
I thought the 2.6.x series of kernels was stable ? Shouldn't all of these new features being showing up in 2.7.... ?
I don't understand the need for all these new calls. Why not make chdir thread-safe? Is there any reason not to have a per-thread working directory?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
When will 2.6 be the default kernel for Slackware?
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
... is PF_KEY reliability!
My Linux-based VPN concentrators will thank you.
-=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-
everyone get together and create 1 really good filesystem instead of 20 halfassed bugridden ones?
But just what in the hell is a 'High Resolution Timer'?
I would like to know other peoples experiences with upgrades on 2.6.x. BTW, I run the debian testing kernels and the hotplug to udev switch has given me problems as well.
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
Give Gentoo a try. You can keep a stable kernel and experiment with a number of new ones. Slackware is hopelessly outdated.
an ill wind that blows no good
Well, you basically have two options:
- Use the STABLE-tree (2.6.15.2 for example)
- Use a vendor-kernel. Vendor-kernels are the ones that are considered stable these days.
As for me.... I haven't had any issues with the kernels. But I use vendor-kernels mostly, not vanilla-kernels.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I'm just writing this to congratulate and thank the Linux developer community on yet another innovative release.
That's all there is to my post - nothing interesting to say, just express my gratitude. Mod me down if you wish.
What would an upgrade to the Linux Kernel have to do in order to be ordained 3.0? ;)
3.0 Looks better than 2.6.16.3.14159265eeee+ IMHO
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
You have linux installed on your toilet? And you need to upgrade it the minute a new release is available? You really are l33t!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Yes- becuase I guarentee you that every existing program that supports threads and makes use of chdir() calls it once and expects the program to function. Call it within a master thread and you expect it to affect all other threads.
The way to do this is to introduce a new function that wraps it and does it only in the thread it was called in, but that's a pain.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
When it will be included at vanilla? Any idea?
It has changed: http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/msg /a1224d9cced09617
"support for the Cell processor"
What do I need to do to recompile my P4 OS and apps to run on my PS3? Or some other Cell box that doesn't lie beyond the Magic Gate?
--
make install -not war
In order to install them you must use a patch here, or they won't work.
~ Jim
Looks like a lot of general updates to the EHCI and USB BIOS interfacing, doesn't specifically mention SiS USB chipsets but I'll have to try this kernel in the hopes that my laptop USB ports will finally work, having been useless since kernel 2.4 and all bug reports falling on deaf ears.
Are the kernel source files permissions part of a new security policy? rwxrwxrwx!
Yes this is indeed an issue, but if I am not wrong, 2.6 kernel can be compiled with support to load modules compiled with pervious 2.6 kernel, though I haven't really tested this out.
For any one who is insane enough to compile their own kernel, the least you can do is copy the config file from the previous kernel and do make oldconfig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how well "make oldconfig" works.
And then if all goes well that POS integrated audio card won't break and still works instead of breaking your hotplug USB support since sometimes it can work in 2.6.11, break in 2.6.14, work in 2.6.12, break in 2.6.16, work...well - you get the gist of it.
I personally have never had USB hotplug problems, for sometime now, but then again I am not a QA person, so my tests are rather limited.
And once again, if stuff doesn't work, nothing is broken, just boot back in the old kernel . And of course it would be silly to try this on anysort of production machine.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
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
I have a dual Opteron 265 (dual core) server running AMD64, which, so I understand, uses the NUMA architecture. I am no expert, but I understand that my 4GB RAM is split between the two processors on this architecture, at 2 GB each. Thus I have always wondered how exactly the OS can move tasks efficiently between processors if the memory for each task is so tied to a particular memory bank. For example, if you happen to have some tasks that are on one of the CPUs and they all suddenly start taking up more processor and more memory, was it possible previously for the kernel to move some of the tasks over to the other CPU, given the two separate memory banks?
Is this what the new kernel is addressing, or am I way out here? Anybody who knows about this stuff? Thanks in advance.
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
I have a laptop with an ATI mobility (X600) chipset. I've consistently had issues compiling the ATI-provided drivers in various 2.6.x kernels, but I've heard from many that it should compile cleanly under 2.6.16. I'll try to update this post when I know more, as the kernel is currently compiling as I write, and the driver will soon (hopefully) follow.
I can't wait for NCQ support. Hopefully 2.6.17.
ayottesoftware.com
NetBSD has had Toilet support for the past 4 years! Nothing new here, move along...
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitution for Caffeine.
Great, that's just what Linux was lacking.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
(Janitor) "Ah, not again! I hate wiping brains off the monitors.. someone block this slashdot site!"
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
if only the bloody kernel devs would accept it
The kernel devs actually accept it, as long as the bloody reiser devs fixes the obvious defiencies the code has. It has been more than one? two? years since reiser 4 "was ready to be merged" according to hans reiser and the haven't even tried to submit it in the 2.6.16 time frame - a sign that there is not a lot of work to do, for sure (they last time reiser tried it people pointed out him a list of things that haven't been fixed - yeah, reiser sure "was ready to be merged").
Maybe we should accept low-quality code in linux just because it's...reiser and it's c00l? Hey, that's the Microsoft Way, and it works for them! Apparently some people thinks that just because reiser 4 has plugins and plugins sound cool it mean it has zero bugs and all the design mistakes are magically fixed by some sort of magic.
Are you aware that lots of "cool features" were rejected in the past in linux?. Being able to use 1 GB of memory, 64-bit processors, SMP, rmap-based memory management: Those features that sound "natural" today were rejected by Linus because the implementation was HORRIBLE and they weren't merged until someone implemented them in a cleaner way. Why reiser should be different? Linux developers are not going to allow people to fuck up everything because something is "great". It has taken a lot of hard work to take linux where it's now and make it work in 512-cpu SGI beasts, lowering the bar is not going to make linux any better.
I agree, it's less stable. However, you're free to use your distro's more stable tested and patched kernels (assuming your distro maintains its packages like Debian does). Unless you're deliberately running the latest and greatest GNU/Linux desktop, or trialling new hardware setups, then you should certainly be doing that.
What the new 2.6 development model gets us though, is much faster turnaround between kernel developers and kernel users. I think in the end, this will give us more features and a generally better kernel, without too much sacrifice.
Sadly, I think DRM is coming to Linux soon, so I'll probably have to jump ship to Debian GNU/Hurd or Debian GNU/kFreeBSD before Linux efforts bear much (non-DRM) fruit.
upgrading my toilets kernel has always been a crap shoot.
I haven't had any problems with Debian testing kernels, other than the fact that the most recent is still 2.6.8.
If you want to talk about problems in Debian testing, look at X.org (6.9 freezes many radeons) and PAM (tally still broken).
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You are using an unstable release of the kernel. Linus had made sevral lenghty posts addressing this and has made it abundantly clear that 2.6 is not stable and it will be under development.
I was not aware of this. I simply assumed that 2.6 was the current stable release. Considering it spawned from 2.5 and it has been out for a couple of years now. *shrug*. I am getting conflicting information in this thread. Some people say 2.6.15-2 is stable.It has some hardware bugs for me that did not exist in 2.6.4 through 2.6.7. Since 2.6.8 various parts have gone between the working and non working states (usb, orinoco, framebuffer). As you see upthread I am not the only person to have experienced these.
Quick and dirty: the kernel.org kernels aren't "stable" like you're wanting. Get a kernel from your distro if you want a stable kernel. If you want bleeding edge stuff (they call it bleeding edge for a reason), then be prepared for those kinds of problems.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I'd say I'm an open source advocate, but the Linux kernel hasn't made me very happy with the quality of Linux. When someone says "So is Linux more stable than windows?" I have to answer with they're about the same.
In my opinion its coming down to version-o-phobia. Everyone is so scared to incrament a version number that they pushed the problem farther down the number set. I've become really impressed with the quality of FreeBSD releases, which dropped the ball initally in the beginning of 5x, and now have gotten into a more steady release schedule - that also means increasing version numbers. On Linux we arbitrarily screw with the current version and dump the problem of stablizing them on the distros. What in the hell sort of solution is that? Linux needs to get back to developing far away from the stable tree. Linux needs to start with a real testing/release cycle on a regular basis. You don't need to break compatability when you increase version numbers. As Linux has developed into a stable non-hobbiest OS, it needs to step up to the plate and stablize itself. Using the stable version (2.6.x.x.x) or whatever isn't really fooling anyone. No distro is going to maintain ALL kernel versions, sooner or later you have to bite the bullet and upgrade and accept all the new garbage that has introduced bugs in THIS version of the kernel.
And it's sort of funny that everyone shuns the BSDs because they are some sort of "leet" club, yet the reason for the messed up situation is because the finall word must always come from Linus. And this time Linus is wrong. Get the hell out of the stable branch!
should they delay ubuntu 6.04 (dapper) a couple of weeks more and try to squeeze in the 2.6.16? last i know dapper rides on 2.6.15.8 so it would probably be worth it if they stretched the release date a little bit more to bring out an Ubuntu on par with the coming SuSe and Red Hat releases (which are going to have 2.6.16).
My sig has been answered.
Agreed. I had a hunch that I wasnt alone with these problems. People upthread and you have described exactly the problems I have with various versions of 2.6 breaking different things. 2.2 and 2.4 kernel releases didnt scare me but 2.6 ones do.
I was actually trying previously with 2.6.15, which has missing links in regards to ATI_AGP (and thus causes crashes etc when the main ATI driver loads on top of the normal AGP driver).
Perhaps others have had some luck, but I haven't had any success with 2.6.16 either..
First of all WTF? second of all, even if you were right... who cares? I run Linux because it doesn't suck quite as much as everything else that actually supports my hardware (I'm currently toying with FreeBSD, but you have to admit that the hardware support moves a bit slower). I don't give a crap if major corporations like it, that's not my goal, why should we care? I just want something good, that I can modify and customize if necicary, and is policed by a large populatin of zealots so it's usable, free and stays that way. If people are too stupid to use it, that's their problem.
People predicted that this would happen when they announced the new 2.6.x development policy a long time ago, and lo it has come to pass.
Stick Men
Last time I saw it come up, the only remaining objections were coding style (to which Reiser responded that his style was better, and another flamewar started) and Hans' attitude. Sure, Hans was being an arrogant asshole, but so were many of the kernel devs. There really didn't seem to be any real, non-cosmetic problems with reiser4 - sure, there were a bunch when it was first submitted, but it was a huge chunk of code, and they were all fixed pretty quickly. And given that it was still rejected, what would be the point in submitting it again for 2.6.16?
Maybe we should accept low-quality code in linux just because it's...reiser and it's c00l? Hey, that's the Microsoft Way, and it works for them! Apparently some people thinks that just because reiser 4 has plugins and plugins sound cool it mean it has zero bugs and all the design mistakes are magically fixed by some sort of magic.
Not at all. But the reasons it was rejected seem far more political than technical.
Are you aware that lots of "cool features" were rejected in the past in linux?. Being able to use 1 GB of memory, 64-bit processors, SMP, rmap-based memory management: Those features that sound "natural" today were rejected by Linus because the implementation was HORRIBLE and they weren't merged until someone implemented them in a cleaner way. Why reiser should be different? Linux developers are not going to allow people to fuck up everything because something is "great". It has taken a lot of hard work to take linux where it's now and make it work in 512-cpu SGI beasts, lowering the bar is not going to make linux any better.
The attitude has changed so much in other respects with 2.6 though. Look at the time any of the new additions took to be accepted - and look at the code quality - and compare it with reiser4. And tell me they're being judged equally.
I am trolling
How is OCFS2 comapred to, say, Redhat's GFS? ( http://www.redhat.com/software/rha/gfs/ )
Thanks.
Simpy
Get the hell out of the stable branch!
Vanilla 2.6 kernels are _not_ considered stable by Linus, the kernel devs, or anyone else important for that matter.
If you want a stable vanilla kernel, use 2.4.. 2.6 is bleeding edge.
Let the bug hunt begin.
It is an joke... just smile...
Rico, bug hole, nuk'm.
lol...nicely done. The subject line of your post should have been "How to say the same line of BS 10 times in somewhat different ways." You must be a political speech writer...or a marketing exec for M$.
"All those moments, will be lost in time...like tears in rain..."
in general makes life difficult for anyone *not* using a SCSI drive, which 3) is 90%+ of the population
That's being generous. SCSI CD Burners are now rare. Even "all scsi" Sun boxes use IDE CDROM drives and have for several years. SCSI DVD writers are nearly hypothetical. There are, I think, a few very expensive (kilobuck) professional drives and that's all. You will see a few reasonable looking units advertized on Pricewatch. But look closely and you will find that they are IDE drives with IDE SCSI adapters tacked on.
The SCSI command set was a big success. It is used for ATAPI, FireWire, and USB. Linux is meant to operate with this. There are no problems here.
/dev directory. These names can be arbitrary and user-defined, like /dev/QueFire or /dev/HP-burner, so apps should not expect to parse the names.
The SCSI card-bus-target-lun addressing scheme is as dead as the old IDE cylindar-head-sector addresses, except for cdrecord. Linux devices are NOT to be addressed by 3 or 4 integer values that pretend to be old-style obsolete parallel SCSI addresses. Linux devices are to be addressed by the ASCII filenames found in the
Using user-defined names is way better for modern hot-plug busses like USB and FireWire. It also makes more sense for IDE/EIDE/ATA/ATAPI/SATA stuff.
The cdrecord documentation is delibrately misleading, and the code delibrately spews misleading warnings. Get a patched version from a Linux distribution, never use ide-scsi, and always use the dev=/dev/whatever syntax.
You forgot CLONE_FS. This causes sharing of the current directory, the umask, and the chroot() data. (CLONE_FILES is for the file handles, and CLONE_NEWNS is an inverted flag for the view of filesystem mount points)
Unfortunately, the POSIX standard mandates that threads share the current working directory. Thus when pthread_create() calls clone() it includes the CLONE_FS flag.
The user might want that even, but the C library might want to do something else for an internal (hidden to the app programmer) use of threads.
The *at() interface comes from Solaris, which is a real UNIX in every way. (including SVR4 code, which BSD is lacking)
The *at() interface is now being accepted by The Open Group for the next revision of the UNIX and POSIX standard.
Soon enough, UNIX branding will be denied to any OS without these interfaces.
Oh my. The CPU is not anywhere near fast enough to handle that. USB chips are fed with linked lists of packets. The chip follows the list and sends out the data, using a timer built-in to the USB chip.
Reception is typically similar. Both transmit and receive are in fact similar to Ethernet or SCSI.
We do bit-bang I2C busses (in video cards, RAM chips, temperature sensors, fan RPM sensors...) and various automotive and factory automation busses. These busses are way slower than USB.
3.x
4.x
2.0
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
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..and Gnome and udev and millions of others I don't have time to list.
8 6
...err.. something very stupid and idiot
slackware dont even have gnome include right now, so how can be outdated?
i'm runnig the latest udev, but as slack wants to support 2.4 kernel, cant use the latest, because new udev cant work with kernels below 2.6.15
Which one? 2.6.0? Are you sure you want to compile from scratch? Wouldn't you like to leave it to someone more knowledgable, like your slackware masters? It will be more user friendly that way.
i'm runnig the 2.6.15.4...no problem whatsoever compiling... and anyone with a pair of eyes, capable of reading english and with a little of brain can compile the kernel...
but wait... you want pre-compiled binaries? check this url:
http://slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=i3
search for 2.6 and you will find this:
kernels/*.?/*: Recompiled 2.4.32 kernels with gcc-3.4.6, upgraded
test26.s kernel to 2.6.15.6.
for someone pointing to gentoo, not wanting to compile the kernel in slackware is
Given the glacial Slackware release process (isn't it one guy?)
what, 2 release a per year aren enough for you? how many gentoo releases?
gentoo have more updated packages? great, i prefer stability and cpu time for my apps, not for compiling
and yes, its oficially one guy only, but he have many people that helps him, just check the changelog... even gentoo people that also run slackware
at least the slackware original founder still works in its distro and never worked for MS (if you know what i mean 8)
I would think you would have learned more patience.
what a troll... you complain that slackware is outdated, now you ask us for patience for gentoo not being so updated as it should... decide your self please...
Higuita
The latest stable version of the Linux kernel is: 2.6.16
</quote>
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
Oh, very nice. "Accept that the kernel is unstable and distro maintainers now have to do a lot of work to make it otherwise, or do a technological time-warp back to 2003."
You know, I remember when Red Hat's deep-dicking the 2.0 and 2.2 kernels was frowned upon and made fun of and the first thing a lot of people did to get a sane kernel you could add patches to was compile a stock kernel from kernel.org. So now everybody is required to use distro-custom kernels or expect random half-assery, and that's a good thing?
-- Old Man Kensey
Emacs would be implemented as a filesystem, not a syscall. Screen would be a virtual framebuffer device. GCC would be an executor, in the same way we've "elf", "a.out" and "misc" at the moment.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Don't feed the trolls.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Agreed.