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Linus Announces the 2.6.25 Linux Kernel
LinuxWatch writes "'It's been long promised, but there it is now,' began Linux creator Linus Torvalds, announcing the 2.6.25 Linux kernel. He continued, 'special thanks to Ingo who found and fixed a nasty-looking regression that turned out to not be a regression at all, but an old bug that just had not been triggering as reliably before. That said, that was just the last particular regression fix I was holding things up for, and it's not like there weren't a lot of other fixes too, they just didn't end up being the final things that triggered my particular worries.' There were numerous changes in this revision of the OS. The origins of some of those fixes is detailed in Heise's brief history of this kernel update."
Great. Now that the engine is all fixed, can we get a decent looking chassis with working accessories?
Running a pre-release of Fedora 9 on his wife's computer, Linus Torvalds was not able to view YouTube videos with Swfdec, leading him to send a comical error report in which he makes an ardent appeal for help to Fedora developers, "This is 'high' priority because the wife will kill me if she doesn't have her videos."
;)
LOLZ
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
http://kerneltrap.org/
no no they invented this new thing called modules, which you can load and unload. It's really neat! ;D
To boldly mod where no one has trolled before.
"Every time" as in .... ? Most of us don't load drivers into kernel space on a yearly basis. Correct me if I'm wrong but this sounds like a terrible argument against a monolithic kernel.
Under the kernel for Mythbuntu 7.10, that getting that remote control to work is next to impossible...even after tinkering with all sorts of text configuration files. To cut it short, getting the remote control to work was an exercise in frustration.
If this kernel fixes this, I will be happy.
Also kernelnewbies.org seems to be very slow at the moment. Here is a copy of the important changes section from their 2.6.25 changelog page:
1.1. Memory Resource Controller
Recommended LWN article (somewhat outdated, but still interesting): "Controlling memory use in containers"
The memory resource controller is a cgroups-based feature. Cgroups, aka "Control Groups", is a feature that was merged in 2.6.24, and its purpose is to be a generic framework where several "resource controllers" can plug in and manage different resources of the system such as process scheduling or memory allocation. It also offers a unified user interface, based on a virtual filesystem where administrators can assign arbitrary resource constraints to a group of chosen tasks. For example, in 2.6.24 they merged two resource controllers: Cpusets and Group Scheduling. The first allows to bind CPU and Memory nodes to the arbitrarily chosen group of tasks, aka cgroup, and the second allows to bind a CPU bandwidth policy to the cgroup.
The memory resource controller isolates the memory behavior of a group of tasks -cgroup- from the rest of the system. It can be used to:
* Isolate an application or a group of applications. Memory hungry applications can be isolated and limited to a smaller amount of memory.
* Create a cgroup with limited amount of memory, this can be used as a good alternative to booting with mem=XXXX.
* Virtualization solutions can control the amount of memory they want to assign to a virtual machine instance.
* A CD/DVD burner could control the amount of memory used by the rest of the system to ensure that burning does not fail due to lack of available memory.
The configuration interface, like all the cgroups, is done by mounting the cgroup filesystem with the "-o memory" option, creating a randomly-named directory (the cgroup), adding tasks to the cgroup by catting its PID to the 'task' file inside the cgroup directory, and writing values to the following files: 'memory.limit_in_bytes', 'memory.usage_in_bytes' (memory statistic for the cgroup), 'memory.stats' (more statistics: RSS, caches, inactive/active pages), 'memory.failcnt' (number of times that the cgroup exceeded the limit), and 'mem_control_type'. OOM conditions are also handled in a per-cgroup manner: when the tasks in the cgroup surpass the limits, OOM will be called to kill a task between all the tasks involved in that specific cgroup.
Code: (commit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
1.2. Real Time Group scheduling
Group scheduling is a feature introduced in 2.6.24. It allows to assign different process scheduling priorities other than nice levels. For example, given two users on a system, you may want to to assign 50% of CPU time to each one, regardless of how many processes is running each one (traditionally, if one user is running f.e. 10 cpu-bound processes and the other user only 1, this last user would get starved its CPU time), this is the "group tasks by user id" configuration option of Group Scheduling does. You may also want to create arbitrary groups of tasks and give them CPU time privileges, this is what the "group tasks by Control Groups" option does, basing its configuration interface in cgroups (feature introduced in 2.6.24 and described in the "Memory resource controller" section).
Those are the two working modes of Control Groups. Aditionally there're several types of tasks. What 2.6.25 adds to Group Scheduling is the ability to also handle real time (aka SCHED_RT) processes. This makes much easier to handle RT tasks and give them scheduling guarantees.
Documentation: sched-rt-group.txt
Code: (commit 1, 2, 3, 4)
There's serious interest in running RT tasks on enterprise-class hardware, so a large number of enhancements t
And a collective orgasm was released from the entire Lunix community.
"numerous changes in this revision of the OS"
Asking people to call it GNU/Linux is one thing, but it's not much to ask Slashdot not to call a kernel changelog an OS changelog.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
It seems to me they should add a dns cname of slashdotnewbies.org.
Has anyone noticed the forced CIFS migration warning yet? Do you have some links on how to do that? I mean just the obvious two things of being able to mount a remote windows share (preferably without being root), and setting up CUPS for printing to a windows-shared printer. All I see on Google are technical articles about the protocol.
Anyone else notice how far the network namespace work has come? Me likes the prospects of having virtual routing and forwarding in the mainstream kernel.
Ok, so is it still a big monolithic kernel that we need to recompile every time we need to load a driver into kernel-space?
You're the proof that time travel is possible.
I'm confused. I thought Linus worked on Linux, not Lunix
A quick search would have revealed that patches are readily available.
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=110088
Was interesting - apparently it turns out that it's been there since the Sparse Memory Model was implemented but had never tripped before.
There was no range check on memory_present() so if you called it with a start/end range outside outside the scope of MAX_PHYSMEM_BITS it would overwrite areas of memory causing very weird and random effects during boot. Tracking it down was apparently a major effort by a good few people because the effects were so random.
Good that it's been found and cleaned up!
Rational thought is the only true freedom
Is it SO MUCH to ask that someone caches the links on coral cache before they get slashdotted? Just append .nyud.net to the hostname.
It's an option in your system profile (usually /etc/profile).
Just add 'exec true' in there, and it'll start using the prefetch code. OK, so it's not a huge performance boost, but I'll take a free 5-7% any day of the week.
I think you can do it as a non-privileged user by adding it to your 'personal' profile (.profile or .bashrc typically) but obviously it's not then affecting the core system processes.
When it comes to the remote control, I tried. Trust me. It just did not work. I know about lirc. I tinkered all I could but it did not work! There is community support for the WinTV-PVR-150 at http://ivtvdriver.org/ and I can tell you that it did not work for me. By the way, I am no Linux newbie but I must admit I failed on this.
Linux can now be used to debug your car's network - provided a hardware interface exists.
If it doesn't, I bet it will not be long before someone implements one. And since CAN is used in pretty much every automation in modern cars, who knows. "An open firmware for your Passat", anyone?
No one runs "just a kernel" on their phone. Look at OpenMoko, they use GNU libc just like Debian and Fedora do.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
I thought I'd heard somewhere that the new (fully OSS) Atheros drivers were going into the kernel with 2.6/.25, but see no mention. Does anyone have any information on the Atheros/DadWifi kernel merge plans?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Never mind. Found it on kernelnewbies, under "ath5k", I was searching "atheros".
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=fa1c114fdaa605496045e56c42d0c8aa4c139e57
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
No. Why should they? Do the shoppers pay them? Do the makers of the wifi cards pay them? Answers: no, and no. The developers are doing it for fun - their fun, not your fun. If no-one else wrote a driver for the card you bought, write it yourself and contribute it back.
If Linus had one hairsbreadth of concern for a users' ability to discern compatibility while contemplating hardware purchases, then his group would have setup an HCL years ago. But instead he leaves that horrid little task of dealing with the unwashed to the distros, who produce pathetic nearly-empty HCL databases with some of the most unpleasant web-search design imaginable.Why should Linus do anything for you? When did you last do anything for him? You have a really weird idea about how the world works.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I see your point, and don't mean to troll; but I think this is one reason Linux doesn't get as much use as it would. There is no real helpful Linux community. Linux nerds are a bunch of DIY guys, who expect everyone else to be so too. But the novice doesn't have the wherewithall (or knowledge) to hit up man pages, and start digging through arcane forums littered with snippets of code.
Of all three of the OSs I use, Linux has the least helpful community. This isn't saying that the Mac and Windows communities are perfect, but there are people out there who genuinely want to help users. I'm sure there are some Linux folk out there with this mindset, but not nearly enough.
The most common phrase of help offered in Linux forums is: "write it yourself". Which is completely not helpful to anyone outside of someone who can actually write their own device driver (who thus wouldn't be asking).
Linux's community works very well for the Linux community, but if Linux ever truly becomes popular, this is going to work against it. Not everyone, then, would be a developer, or other flavor of code monkey. In this sense, I still doubt that the much fabled Year of the Linux Desktop is actually ready to come. Most Linux people seem to absolutely HATE novices. They ask stupid questions. Which is a valid complaint, until you realize that stupid in a Linux forum means "hasn't been using it since 1843", or "can't code".
Don't take this as an attack on you personally, or on Linux in general. As I said, this community ethic works very well, and has contributed to Linux being as robust as it is, since it is actively aimed at developing Linux further, but it just neglects helping users of Linux who are not aimed at developing Linux. I don't know how to rectify this. Linux, not being generally for-profit, doesn't have the customer support incentive of the other venders, and being that it was an operating system of misanthropic geeks for so long, misanthropic geeks are the totality of the community.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I don't think we're disagreeing very much. The people who make Linux what it is don't need it to become popular, and, in particular, aren't terribly worried about making the system friendly to non-geek users. We are geeks, and we're also elitists. If Linux gets to be a 'user oriented' operating system, then it won't suit us, and we'll probably all decamp - to the Hurd, or something new.
If you want a user friendly operating system, and you don't have the skills to do it yourself, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates will be perfectly happy to take your money and sell you one. And that's perfectly OK, if that's what you want.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
We agree around 50%. I don't think that this is necessarily a good thing, and think that it shows that the community is at cross purposes.
To a large degree Linux needs elitist geeks, their what makes it tick. But at the same time we speak of "The Year of the Linux Desktop", which leads me to believe that some subset of these elitist geeks want their pet OS to be adopted by the masses. Being elitist geeks is at good for Linux as a project, but bad for Linux as a pay OS alternative.
There needs to be some balance. I would be doubtful, but I have been wrong about these things before. I always thought that Linux devs couldn't make a good GUI to save their lives, but I'm slowly being proven wrong (not 100% yet, but 60% is better than 0%) by Ubuntu, and the KDE and Gnome teams.
If you want a user friendly operating system, and you don't have the skills to do it yourself, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates will be perfectly happy to take your money and sell you one. And that's perfectly OK, if that's what you want.
This is where we're going to disagree. I always saw Linux and the OSS community as somewhat an ethical stance as well. The MS and Apple's of the world are not good for OS development, and are guilty of some ethically wonkey actions. To combat this Linux must be viable enough to change their practices (i.e. a threat).
I would like to do with Linux what I did with Firefox, give it to all my novice friends for their own good, safety, and enjoyment. This point is somewhat in the future still, in part because of the communities ethos. I sometimes have a bad taste in my mouth recommending people switch to OS X, to escape Windows problems. I'd rather hand them a nice Ubuntu disk.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Granted X11 has improved in the areas of 3d acceleration and such. But compared to OS X it is lacking
If Apple cared about 3d acceleration in OS X, they'd put decent graphics cards into their computers.
They don't.
In fact they sell you graphics cards which are crap for 3d applications, compared to what is available.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
In order for the module to be loaded, the Kernel has to be aware of it. It isn't, it has to be patched.
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
It would be interesting to know where Volkswagen use this in Linux. Can I buy a car "powered by Linux"?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Finally i can have suspend support for the sis 650 in my travelmate (yeah its acer crap but i couldn't argue with free).
OTOH there are any number of people other than me who would like to know the purpose behind this. If the userspace coders have to document their software interfaces for the sake of distro interoperability, then why doesn't the kernel group document the supported hardware interfaces?
The LSB Desktop spec is supposed to play a role in all this. But the effort is looking pretty anemic so far. After years of sitting there it has achieved near-zero mindshare even among application developers.
But creating a list would add pressure for them to stop that practice.
I think the 'we' who speak of 'the year of the Linux desktop' is a different 'we' than the 'we' who actually build free software (and, for the record, I don't any more as my contract of employment prevents me). The people who speak of 'the year of the Linux desktop' are mostly - not entirely - journalists and media pundits. The people who build free software mostly - not entirely - don't care.
There needs to be some balance. I would be doubtful, but I have been wrong about these things before. I always thought that Linux devs couldn't make a good GUI to save their lives, but I'm slowly being proven wrong (not 100% yet, but 60% is better than 0%) by Ubuntu, and the KDE and Gnome teams. If you want a user friendly operating system, and you don't have the skills to do it yourself, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates will be perfectly happy to take your money and sell you one. And that's perfectly OK, if that's what you want. This is where we're going to disagree. I always saw Linux and the OSS community as somewhat an ethical stance as well. The MS and Apple's of the world are not good for OS development, and are guilty of some ethically wonkey actions. To combat this Linux must be viable enough to change their practices (i.e. a threat).OK, I partly agree. MS in particular and Apple to a lesser extent are driven by motives which are, in the end, inimical to the interests of users. Basically both want to lock in their users and turn them into perpetual sources of repeat revenue. There is an ethical case for providing an alternative that breaks monopoly power and gives users choice. But I don't think that Linux - at least in it's present development model - either is or can be that alternative.
Why not? Linux is build by geeks for geeks. The needs that a geek has of an operating system are different from the needs a non-computer-literate user has of an operating system, and I think it would be difficult to the point of impossible to design one user environment which suited both. But if you design a user interface which suits the ordinary user and doesn't suit the geeks, the geeks won't use it so it won't cause them itches so they won't maintain it... so it will die.
I think that is inevitable. I think it is in the nature of the software ecosystem. I'd like to be wrong, but I don't think I am. I think if you want a 'user friendly' - to mom and pop users - user environment, someone is going to have to pay to build it, and to pay to maintain it.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I agree with you.
I don't, though, think that making a powerful OS precludes making an easy to use one. OS X comes close to this, with all of its shiny features (and most of its aesthetics at least started as functional) hiding a nice, albeit slightly gimped, BSD/Unix terminal underneath. I'm not saying the internals should be this obfuscated (my GF has been using a Mac all her life, and didn't know OS X even had a terminal).
I think that is inevitable. I think it is in the nature of the software ecosystem. I'd like to be wrong, but I don't think I am. I think if you want a 'user friendly' - to mom and pop users - user environment, someone is going to have to pay to build it, and to pay to maintain it.
You may be right. But the Mozilla Foundation, and Ubuntu does give me some hope. All it takes is a group of geeks to make it a pet project. I doubt that a majority of the community will care too much, outside of the point of pride issue.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Hardware compatibility is a continually shifting target so a definitive list is difficult to maintain. It has been tried before but never with much success. I know Fedora have projects trying to use the smolt project to get people to report which hardware they have works and which is problematic.
WiFi cards are especially problematic. There have been several cases of manufacturers changing the underlying hardware used on a Wifi dongle whilst keeping exactly the same model number. Suddenly you have two identically labelled pieces of hardware, one of which works under Linux and one of which doesn't, and there's no way to tell without buying it and plugging it in.
please, speak for yourself... there's plenty of people contributing to Linux in particular and F/OSS in general who are actually working a lot to make it as user friendly as possible (which doesn't have to mean non geek friendly).