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Linux 2.6.39 Released

Posted by timothy on from the domo-arigato dept.

Rainmaker2006 writes "The latest iteration of Linux kernel is out. The kernel 2.6.39 is listed in kernel.org, ready to be yours!" Linux for Devices has a short overview of what you can expect in the newest kernel; an article at Phoronix (complete with obnoxious pop-out advertising) points out a few bugs, as well.

19 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. About that Phoronix article... by SheeEttin · · Score: 5, Informative

    And for those of you who would like to actually see the Phoronix article mentioned in the summary, it's here

    (Yes, there are obnoxious ads, but only if you turn off your ad blocker and Flash blocker and mouse over the double-underlined blue words.)

  2. Re:So when is 2.8 due? by kthreadd · · Score: 2

    It has been stated repeatedly that it will be out by Christmas. We just don't know which year yet.

  3. Re:So when is 2.8 due? by blair1q · · Score: 2

    2010.

  4. Re:Links in summary are bad by blair1q · · Score: 2

    You have to get the latest kernel for it to work right.

  5. New acronym needed by LighterShadeOfBlack · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I really wish they wouldn't refer to Direct Rendering Manager as DRM. I know it's clear that it isn't that DRM but those letters are forever tainted, it's distracting.

    --
    Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
    1. Re:New acronym needed by dkleinsc · · Score: 2

      Yeah, WTF is with those overlapping TLAs?

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    2. Re:New acronym needed by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 3, Informative

      A company I used to work for decided to use the initials "AOL" to refer internally their online product. seriously. I'm pretty sure they still do. I'm amazed that nobody ever pointed out to them that those initials were pretty much already spoken for, especially as an online product.

      Names stick. Say what you will, once a name is taken, it is taken, and you can't appropriate it unless you are pretty much in a completely different business (e.g. Apple computers vs Apple records, and that didn't blow up for a good 30 years!).

      Hell, if you want an example of name longevity, "whammy bars" on guitars are still called "tremolo bars" by most guitarists even though it is more specifically producing a vibrato effect, not a tremolo effect. Some early guitarists couldn't tell the difference, and the name stuck.

    3. Re:New acronym needed by causality · · Score: 4, Funny

      Direct Rendering Manager seems to be a more straightforward (and therefore honest) use of language than Digital Rights Management; so, it is the latter that really ought to change.

      Michael Bolton: "Why should I have to change my name? He's the one who sucks!"

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    4. Re:New acronym needed by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Funny

      You don't get it. This way you can sell Linux to big business, because if they ask if it has DRM, you can answer "it doesn't just have it, it's right in the kernel!"

  6. Mod that man up, up and away! by WaroDaBeast · · Score: 2

    After all, we still talk about vocal cords even though they're actually muscular folds, and as such should be called vocal folds.

    --
    "The body may heal, but the mind is not always so resilient." -- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
  7. Quantity over quality :P by billcopc · · Score: 2

    Didn't 2.6.38 come out just a few months ago ?

    I'm a bit concerned at the rapid rate at which these new kernels are minted. We're seeing more and more regressions and critical bugs while people ravenously add new, unrefined functionality to the kernel. Over the past year, I've spent (wasted) more time fixing crashes and data corruption than actually deploying new boxes. This isn't the Linux I used to know and love.

    Me, I just want a 2.6 that's freakin' stable, so I can have one week where none of my servers throw a panic. One week! Older kernels aren't being properly patched, not even by downstream distro maintainers, so the result is a bunch of awesome gear that's not safe to use with Linux, because someone was in a hurry to make $SHINY_GADGET play nice with lspci. It's great that we have people interested in current hardware, but the whole project is now suffering from ADHD.

    What was once the stable branch is practically beta, and beta is now bleeding edge nonsense.

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
    1. Re:Quantity over quality :P by hitmark · · Score: 2

      There was the opposite issue before the release of 2.6.0. 2.5.x went on virtually forever, resulting in Red Hat and others backporting more and more to their 2.4.x builds and making issue tracking a mess.

      If you want stability, go with a Ubuntu LTS or Debian stable. In either case one will see patches to issues given priority over shiny new features.

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
  8. Major power consumption: an overlooked issue by feranick · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Considering how vocal Linus has been in some very technical issues in the past, I am appalled to see how underplayed the power consumption issue has been. It's a *major* issue, 30% more power consumption is a deal breaker for many users. And instead, what do we see from the kernel list: Nothing. The regressions that lead to these came in since kernel 2.6.38, and they went by in 39. At this point, I seriously doubt about the QA going on at kernel level. For example do they keep track of these kind of regressions in first place? It seems that Phoronix is doing the admirable job, but it seems it's going completely unheard. I am hopeful that 2.6.40 will fix this mess.

    1. Re:Major power consumption: an overlooked issue by nukem996 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The bug will be fixed but its a very very complicated bug. All that is known is that somewhere between 2.6.37 and 2.6.38 some patch or patches caused the kernel to increase machine power usage. Finding the patch or patches that caused this is very difficult and thats just finding the bug. It then has to be debugged and fixed. One bug can't be a show stopper for everything else. Just give them some time.

    2. Re:Major power consumption: an overlooked issue by feranick · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, I will give them time. The point though remains: For the user this is a major step back, that should be a game stopper. The bug got into the system two releases back, and wouldn't be for Phoronix, it would pass unnoticed. This is what I mean by QA. Making sure that patches actually have no major regressions. If they do they should not belong to the main tree, but remain in stage until fixed. Instead, and in the meantime, the kernel evolves, and it becomes more difficult to identify, untangle and correct the regression.

    3. Re:Major power consumption: an overlooked issue by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

      One bug can't be a show stopper for everything else.

      Actually, yes, it can. It depends on the seriousness of the bug.

    4. Re:Major power consumption: an overlooked issue by nukem996 · · Score: 2

      Yes it is a big bug(I use Linux on my laptop and phone so I'm effected as well) but alot of people are also not effected. Its unfair to hold them back because a subset(even though it may be large) of users are effected by a bug. There is no requirement to upgrade either, they can just stay at an older version.

  9. Re:If you think about it for a moment, by rubycodez · · Score: 2

    the major non-commercial distros are still very solid and stable, Debian and Slackware you mentioned first in your list, they're doing just fine...it's those others that are getting wrapped around their own axle.

    Less stable than other Unix? The only major ones left are Solaris (costs money, except for OpenSolaris which is now zombified), HP/UX (won't run too well on your x86), and AIX (ditto)

  10. Re:If you think about it for a moment, by celle · · Score: 2

    "Less stable than other Unix? The only major ones left are Solaris (costs money, except for OpenSolaris which is now zombified), HP/UX (won't run too well on your x86), and AIX (ditto)"

    You know there are also the various BSDs. (FreeBSD, PCBSD, OpenBSD, ...)