Linux 2.6.36 Released

TFA by pinkushun · 2010-10-21 02:19 · Score: 5, Funny

The one post where 90% of /. users will actually read TFA

Re:TFA by ArundelCastle · 2010-10-21 07:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

But 80% of that 90% will only read The Full Changelog.

what i like about kernel releases... by underqualified · 2010-10-21 02:21 · Score: 4, Funny

linus trolling on everyone that disagrees with him...

Fanotify disabled in this version by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-21 02:25 · Score: 4, Informative

Because of desagreement in the ABI the fanotify is disabled in this kernel.

Re:Fanotify disabled in this version by schon · 2010-10-21 03:25 · Score: 2, Funny

That would be enabled by default in Mach. /me ducks

news for gnurds? by digitalsushi · 2010-10-21 02:25 · Score: 5, Funny

This is why I come here.

Actually, I'll come back in 4 hours and read the top comments not modded funny. That's why I come here.

They should make a slashdot that's just about linux projects, nasa/physics stuff, and DIY routers. Like slashdot vintage. It'd be classy. Elastic band jeans and plaid tie dress code. God I miss the good old days. *pours mad dog 20/20 on anti-static carpeting*

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Re:news for gnurds? by maxume · 2010-10-21 03:07 · Score: 2, Informative

Click the prefs button on the bottom left of the comments page. Unclick the 'Dynamic Discussions' and then click save.
That seems to be the only way to access that pref, and it is sort of fun that they went ahead and created a new pref, rather than continuing to respect the 'Enable classic comments' pref.

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Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:news for gnurds? by arielCo · 2010-10-21 07:21 · Score: 2, Informative

It's all Text!
Edit textareas using an external editor, because it's all text! Right click on a textarea, select "It's All Text!" and edit the text in the editor of your choice. Alternatively, click on the edit buttons added for your convenience.
Texto
Open textareas in an external application
Textarea viEditor
Enable to edit the textarea/input element by like vim operation
I tried the first two and kept "It's all Text". Although you can conceivably use Stylish to mod the textarea to your liking.

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Did you even read Linus' release notice? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-21 02:27 · Score: 4, Informative

fanotify syscalls are disabled because people still can't agree on the API.

Mirror here: by D4rk+Fx · 2010-10-21 02:28 · Score: 3, Informative

Mirror Here

Re:And yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-21 02:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

In other words, Loonix is not ready for the mainstream desktop user.

There, fixed that for you

Whether a file has changed = complex? by CarpetShark · 2010-10-21 02:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

What the hell is it with file notification? It never seems to be reliable or stable. There was inotify, dnotify, fsnotify, fam, gamin, incrond... and since fam/gamin always ended up using 100% CPU or causing other problems, I've just avoided the whole idea, even though I regularly think of situations that I could use incrond in.

I would have thought that setting a flag/triggering an event when a file was altered would be a matter of adding a small queue/bit system for events and about one line of code to vfs functions that modify files, but obviously not.

So... does anyone use incrond and get good, reliable results? Will fanotify help at all?

Re:Whether a file has changed = complex? by gratuitous_arp · 2010-10-21 03:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've used incron on production boxen heavily over the past couple years and haven't noticed any problems with it, personally.
fanotify looks pretty sweet, though. Eric Paris made a sort of introductory post about it last year, which is a good read:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/7/24/242
Particularly interesting is his idea of adding 'rename' events. This would mean you could implement something like 'updatedb' in realtime, and always have current results for 'locate'. Not sure if the rename events made it in or not, still digging around.
Re:Whether a file has changed = complex? by abigor · 2010-10-21 03:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

fanotify seems interesting because it allows you to watch for arbitrary events on a global basis without specifying which file descriptors you want to watch. It seems to pass the actual file descriptor back to the original object. You read events via getsockopt().
So, for example, it's very easy to say "notify me of all file open events", for example.
You can also do the opposite of a global watch, of course, and have it watch for specific file events, much like inotify.
As I understand it, fanotify came about because of vendor demand for an efficient, non-hackish way to watch for arbitrary filesystem events without ever specifying precise files, paths, etc. An example would be malware vendors.
Re:Whether a file has changed = complex? by Late+Adopter · 2010-10-21 03:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

There was inotify, dnotify, fsnotify, fam, gamin, incrond... and since fam/gamin always ended up using 100% CPU or causing other problems
Of those, only inotify and dnotify were userspace-facing solutions in the stock kernel. Fsnotify was a backend, intentionally preparing the way for fanotify, and it was never intended to be used directly. Fam and gamin are third-party, and unless you know you specifically need them, you should avoid. Incrond is a great userspace program to use inotify... but not an alternative to anything in that list.

Dnotify was something of an embarrassment, but inotify's been with us a while and it's worked well. Fanotify is an evolution of that, to fix architectural problems that have led to race conditions and scalability concerns. Inotify (and dnotify) is being reimplemented on top of it, so if the inotify interface doesn't cause any problems for you, plan to continue using it (and incrond if you like)!
Re:Whether a file has changed = complex? by GooberToo · 2010-10-21 04:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Is this a case of linux kernel developers copying features that are in the Mac OS X darwin kernel?
Doubtful. This is really an area of natural evolution. Meaning, first to market, if that is in fact really the case, hardly means everyone else is copying what is really an obvious and extremely simple idea.
For example, planes needed to go faster. Solution, make them more aerodynamic. When everyone started making planes more aerodynamic, does that really mean everyone copied the first to do so? Hardly. It means, they all understood the problem and someone was simply first to market.
Now if you have something which indicates the APIs on OSX are particularly clever in exposing this feature and that everyone is copying those APIs, you might have a point, but I don't see you arguing that position.
Believe it or not, humanity frequently, independently, suffers from a natural progression of ideas. The fact that this occurs more or less validates no one is copying.
Case in point: I want to know when a file changes. In what ways can a file change? Those are natural progressions in seeking a solution to an extremely common problem. If you answer my question, does that you too are copying?
Re:Whether a file has changed = complex? by XanC · 2010-10-21 04:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Have you tried using a distribution, instead of throwing random versions of different software onto a system and hoping it magically all works together?
"Linux on the desktop" will happen (and does happen) through distributions.
Re:Whether a file has changed = complex? by abigor · 2010-10-21 04:51 · Score: 2, Informative

Er, "for example...for example". Great proofreading there. And I meant ANTI-malware vendors, of course...

Re:And yet? by CarpetShark · 2010-10-21 02:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

But can it play fullscreen flash video smoothly yet?

The problem that prevents flash from playing fullscreen is that it's closed source crap, not that Linux is in any way incomplete.

But ... by Osgeld · 2010-10-21 02:48 · Score: 5, Funny

I thought linux was up to version 10.10? (Maverick something)

Re:But ... by Randwulf · 2010-10-21 03:00 · Score: 4, Informative

Ubuntu, a distribution that uses (some version) of the Linux kernel, is up to 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat). The latest version of the Linux kernel to be released is 2.6.36.
Re:But ... by CannonballHead · 2010-10-21 04:17 · Score: 4, Informative

most likely: woosh :)

Re:Great... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-21 02:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Hey. It's still me, Anonymous Coward. I take back everything I just said. Linux is awesome. And my penis is small.

Compressed RAM? by bluefoxlucid · 2010-10-21 02:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

Any updates to the Compressed RAM subsystem, and is this suitable for Android and XO yet? How about Desktop Debian/Ubuntu?

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Re:Compressed RAM? by zach_the_lizard · 2010-10-21 03:20 · Score: 2, Informative

I've run it under Lucid and Maverick, it seemed to fix a wireless connection loss issue I was having with the ath9k driver, though it could also be due to upgrading to Maverick. There are various DRM improvements, IIRC, that might help performance a bit.

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SSC

Re:And yet? by LingNoi · 2010-10-21 02:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

http://freshmeat.net/projects/loonix/

Loonix is a custom Linux distribution meant for server applications.

I'm guessing it doesn't play flash since it's a server distribution. Silly question really.

Re:And yet? by underqualified · 2010-10-21 03:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

linux doesn't have poor support for flash. flash has poor support for linux.

Re:The problem with Linux is not the kernel! by 0123456 · 2010-10-21 03:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem is in the fragmentation of distributions and the fragmentation in the GUI.

True. We should only have one auto manufacturer making one model of car too, because having so many companies selling so many different types of car is terribly confusing.

Re:And yet? by 0123456 · 2010-10-21 03:10 · Score: 3, Informative

But can it play fullscreen flash video smoothly yet?

Yes.

Well, Ubuntu 10.04 on my laptop certainly doesn't seem to have any problem playing full screen Flash video. However, flash does hog the audio so I have to kill the damn thing if I want to play sound from anything else.

If there's one valid complaint in your post it's the crappy state of audio on Linux.

Re:The problem with Linux is not the kernel! by at_slashdot · 2010-10-21 03:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

What makes you think that people who work on a distribution would work on another if there wouldn't be for the one that they work on? Since they are not doing it now it means they have reasons not to do it.

That applies in corporate world too, do you think that people who work for Apple would work for Microsoft if there wouldn't be Apple?

And here we were actually talking about a new version of the kernel, not about any distribution, why do you troll?

--
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore

Linux news AGAIN?! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-21 03:13 · Score: 3, Funny

How come Slashdot keeps posting stuff about Linux? Where are our Apple-related news? Lion, iLife '11, FaceTime for Mac and new MacBook Air notebooks were announced yesterday! We never speak about Apple it's always Linux, Linux, Linux! *

* for the slow-minded, this is a parody of the "Apple news again? We never get any Linux news!" posts. As long as it's not freakin' Microsoft, I'm fine with it.

Re:And yet? by Yvan256 · 2010-10-21 03:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

If it was a Microsoft troll shouldn't it be about Silverlight and mono?

Re:And yet? by xtracto · 2010-10-21 03:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

But can it play fullscreen flash video smoothly yet?

The problem that prevents flash from playing fullscreen is that it's closed source crap, not that Linux is in any way incomplete.

Yup, that's 100% Adobe's fault... and also 100% Linux problem.

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Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'

Re:And yet? by abigor · 2010-10-21 03:21 · Score: 3, Informative

Actually, all the relevant particulars of Flash are openly available (see Adobe's Open Screen project). The big exception is Sorenson Spark, but that's already available via ffmpeg. Basically, Gnash just isn't there yet.

2.6.36 compiles with intel c by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-21 03:34 · Score: 2, Informative

damn, just compiled 2.6.36RC8 to fix suspend issues on thinkpad x200.
ps it compiled out of box (no patches) with icc and intel libraries!

Re:The problem with Linux is not the kernel! by squizzar · 2010-10-21 03:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

I use my linux desktop at work every day, and my linux laptop at home every day. My wireless router runs linux every day, and the several embedded products I'm working on run linux every day (when I haven't broken something...).

I have a car and a motorcycle that I can use to get to work or wherever every day. Neither are suitable for transporting cattle, but then that's not an issue for me. Your reasoning is that because you presumably have some situation for which no distribution fits your needs then all distributions are not ready for daily usage?

Re:And yet? by rubycodez · 2010-10-21 03:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

it's the crappy state of both kinds of audio on Linux. that's the only place in the GNU/Linux realm where having choices don't seem to be a good idea (when they're both bad)

Re:And yet? by chrb · 2010-10-21 04:00 · Score: 5, Interesting

No, the problem isn't incompleteness it's the fact that one has to traverse a jungle of incompatible audio and video APIs to make sure it even works at all across the various distributions.

Then how come mplayer works on every common Linux distribution, and has been able to do smooth fullscreen video for as long as I can remember?

Re:2011 by frozentier · 2010-10-21 04:00 · Score: 2, Funny

It really is. By Dec 2011, 89% of computers will be running some form of linux, and Windows and Macs will be a distant memory.

Apple Version by neoshroom · 2010-10-21 04:21 · Score: 5, Funny

How come Slashdot keeps posting stuff about Linux? Where are our Apple-related news? Lion, iLife '11, FaceTime for Mac and new MacBook Air notebooks were announced yesterday! We never speak about Apple it's always Linux, Linux, Linux! *

* for the slow-minded, this is a parody of the "Apple news again? We never get any Linux news!" posts. As long as it's not freakin' Microsoft, I'm fine with it.

Here, I'll make an Apple user feel right at home:

The newest version of Linux, Snow Penguin, has been released and this changes everything! This version includes support for the Tilera architecture, a beautiful new filesystem notification interface called iNotify, Spacewarp local caching, support for Intel Intelligent Power Sharing so your computer will otomaticaly [spelled correctly] turn off unused appliances in your house to save you thousands of dollars in power bills every year, developer improvements and a revolutionary AppArmor security system. It's speedy. It works–better. See the full keynote for more details.

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Dammit... by neoshroom · 2010-10-21 04:24 · Score: 3, Funny

How come Slashdot keeps posting stuff about Linux? Where are our Apple-related news? Lion, iLife '11, FaceTime for Mac and new MacBook Air notebooks were announced yesterday! We never speak about Apple it's always Linux, Linux, Linux! *

* for the slow-minded, this is a parody of the "Apple news again? We never get any Linux news!" posts. As long as it's not freakin' Microsoft, I'm fine with it.

Here, I'll make an Apple user feel right at home: The newest version of Linux, Snow Penguin, has been released and this changes everything! This version includes support for the Tilera architecture, a beautiful new filesystem notification interface called iNotify, Spacewarp local caching, support for Intel Intelligent Power Sharing so your computer will otomaticaly [spelled correctly] turn off unused appliances in your house to save you thousands of dollars in power bills every year, developer improvements and a revolutionary AppArmor security system. It's speedy. It works–better. See the full keynote for more details.

Dammit...I forgot to call it "magic."

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Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.

Re:And yet? by BrokenHalo · 2010-10-21 04:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

flash has poor support for linux.

Exactly. And, to be honest, I don't really care. I wouldn't even consider taking the time to view a full-length Flash movie. Flash support for Linux is more than adequate for viewing crappy YouTube movie clips, which is just about all Flash is good for in the first place.

Many site designers seem to think it's cool to embed the entire content of their webpage into a Flash presentation, but I find this irritating enough that unless I have already decided I am really keen on investigating the content for some compelling reason, I will usually just pass the site by.

Re:And yet? by fishbowl · 2010-10-21 04:41 · Score: 2, Informative

>Basically, Gnash just isn't there yet.

Some real progress was made in the early development of Gnash. There were people underwriting the project who were willing and able to pay a living wage to developers who could finish it, but that talent didn't really come forward. Those people have pretty much moved on to other projects. (You know who you are, and I know way more about this than I'm going to say in a slashdot post.) I was plugged into the Gnash project for a while, and I thought it was really interesting. But even a commercial venture will fail if it can't acquire talent.

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Re:Great... by wagnerrp · 2010-10-21 05:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

Since when is Linux an operating system?

Re:Great... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-21 06:14 · Score: 2, Funny

Hahaha, disregard that, I suck cocks.

Re:the right to be scared by not-my-real-name · 2010-10-21 06:25 · Score: 3, Funny

...Anant Agarwal...

Is this the new Ubuntu distribution, or what?

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Re:Great... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-21 07:05 · Score: 3, Funny

Give it up, Richard...

Re:Great... by mcgrew · 2010-10-22 02:00 · Score: 2, Informative

"Microsoft announces Windows SteadyState will no longer be available after December 31, 2010. Microsoft will continue to let users to download the software through December 31, 2010. Support for Windows SteadyState will continue to be available through the Microsoft Knowledge Base portal through June 30, 2011."

From the article you linked, it looks like it's part of MS's network software, not Windows. AND they're killing it in two months.

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