Linux 2.6.38 Released

darthcamaro writes "The new Linux 2.6.38 kernel is now out, and it's got a long list of performance improvements that should make Linux a whole lot faster. The kernel includes support for Transparent Huge Pages, Transmit Packet Steering (XPS), automatic process grouping, and a new RCU (Read/Copy/Update)-based path name lookup. '"This patch series was both controversial and experimental when it went in, but we're very hopeful of seeing speedups," James Bottomley, distinguished engineer at Novell said. "Just to set expectations correctly, the dcache/path lookup improvements really only impact workloads with large metadata modifications, so the big iron workloads (like databases) will likely see no change. However, stuff that critically involves metadata, like running a mail server (the postmark benchmark) should improve quite a bit."'"

Comments

Re:Enough of this!

[Jon Stone]

Is that you, Tanenbaum?

Re:200-line patch

[Anonymous Coward]

Figured it might be like that.
Personally I look for ways to peg the CPU. 8 cores at 2.8 GHz running web browsers ain't doing it most days.
I wonder if there's a patch for that.

That's what the System Idle process is for. So it looks like you'll have to move to Windows if you want to utiize your system to the maximum.

Minor Update

[Anonymous Coward]

2.6.36 to 2.6.38? Tell me when there's an actual update.

(Fair turnaround for the bitching about Apple's "minor" 10.x.y updates.)

Re:A now untrusted source of information

[anon37]

Incorrect. The term "operating system" refers to software written by Richard Stallman and GNU. The "Linux kernel" is not "the heart" of anything! It is merely a component in the Emacs software suite.

As always, XKCD seems apropos

[mhotchin]

http://xkcd.com/619/

Re:200-line patch

[AvitarX]

Doesn't BeOS lack things that one expects from an OS though, like users?