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Linux Kernel 2.6.32 LTS Has Reached End of Life

prisoninmate writes: At the end of January we reported the fact that the oldest long-term supported kernel branch, Linux 2.6.32, is about to reached its end of life in February 2016, as announced by Willy Tarreau, who said that there might be another point release in a few weeks if important things need to be fixed. Well, it took a little bit longer than two weeks, and on March 12, he published details about the last maintenance release in the series, Linux kernel 2.6.32.71 LTS, along with the official end of life announcement, recommending users to move to the Linux 3.2 branch.

76 comments

  1. Age? by zwede · · Score: 1

    Would have been helpful if the post had included how old 2.6.32 is.

    1. Re:Age? by TheReaperD · · Score: 3, Informative

      Looks like it was released on December 2nd 2009.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    2. Re:Age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's more mature than most of the people here.

    3. Re:Age? by Opportunist · · Score: 0

      Oh you crazy evolutionists.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      kinda sad. Linux does most things so well, yet their support life cycle doesn't come close to most commercial vendors. Organisations frequently having tech that stays in production for 10 or 15 years and then we wonder why so many don't make the switch to Linux, even MS has better support lifecycle.

    5. Re:Age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course, you have to pay MS for that privilege.
      Maybe if you pay a developer he will back-port security patches for you for the extra 10 years.

    6. Re:Age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

    7. Re:Age? by ttucker · · Score: 1

      The 2.6 branch of Linux was released in late 2003, so I am not really sure what point you are trying to make...

    8. Re:Age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know that your post is a bit of a troll/sarcastic post but the 2.6 kernel series was initially released in 2003. Windows XP was released in 2001 and EOL'd in 2014. So the 2.6 series was supported for as long as XP was (or longer when you consider that changes in the newer series of kernels were backported into the 2.6 series while XP had only security updates in the last 5 years of it's life).

    9. Re:Age? by TheReaperD · · Score: 2

      Yes, but you can upgrade to the next/current version free of charge. That makes a major difference between having to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on licensing to upgrade your systems versus just the time involved for the update. Having to spend the time to upgrade a server once every 6 years is really damn good, especially since you get to do it for free.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    10. Re:Age? by iggymanz · · Score: 2

      huh, the 13 years of Linux 2.6 compares well with 12 years of solaris 9 (released Mar 2002 - EOL Oct 2014) or AIX 5.3 (Aug 2004-April 2012). Even the IBM mainframe OS don't go that long for major/minor point release (includes kernel)

      yes the kernel version of each included with support compared to linux which is just the kernel

    11. Re:Age? by rhodium_mir · · Score: 1

      Yes, but you can upgrade to the next/current version free of charge.

      but enough about Windows...

      --
      You can't spell "oneiromancy" without "roman".
    12. Re:Age? by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      You got 7 years of backported fixes for free. What are you bitching about? Commercial vendors demand payment for those services.

    13. Re:Age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yep you have to pay MS, but sadly that is a tiny fraction of the cost of paying developers to maintain back-ports for an extra 10 years.

    14. Re:Age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have some misconceptions about what support means, or about how significant Linux major/minor version numbers are. The 3.2 branch is really just a minor version update of 2.6. For the lols, basically.

      The point is that nobody supports commercial kernels. They support systems. If a commercial system is supported for 15 years they'll have to update the kernel sooner or later, you won't know or care.

      How many Microsoft products have dropped support since Linux was released? Better support, what a joke.

    15. Re:Age? by toddestan · · Score: 1

      Well, one advantage with Linux is if you really wanted to keep using 2.6 for some reason, you have the source code and you could keep patching in for as long as you want to. With your commercial vendors selling closed source software, when it goes out of support you're left hanging.

    16. Re:Age? by TheReaperD · · Score: 1

      Only the desktop versions. If you're a company, you have to deal with Windows Server licences, Exchange, MS SQL server, MS Office, etc. The last major refresh we did cost over $700,000 to Microsoft in licenses, with the cost of hardware ($2.4 million) and labor ($??,???) counted separately. A linux update would have saved us over a million dollars between licences and hardware costs as the linux software equivalents had much lower hardware requirements to get the same performance. Exchange was the real hardware hog of the group as the system requirements for a 20,000+ user Exchange server was completely nuts.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  2. Well, that's it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    That's the last kernel that I as an individual was vaguely able to keep up with. Now it's such a bloated mess that unless you've been part of the development team for decades, you're really not going to be able to maintain an understanding.

    It seems nearly every project in computing goes this way. Oh well, sic transit and stuff.

    1. Re:Well, that's it. by Kjella · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's the last kernel that I as an individual was vaguely able to keep up with. Now it's such a bloated mess that unless you've been part of the development team for decades, you're really not going to be able to maintain an understanding. It seems nearly every project in computing goes this way. Oh well, sic transit and stuff.

      According to this chart 2.6.32 had ~9.8 MLoC so I'd say you weren't doing too shabby. In fact if you can keep up with over half the current kernel at ~16.8 MLoC, Linus might be hiring...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Well, that's it. by ls671 · · Score: 1

      You are confusing the kernel and the system initialization process when the system boots ;-)

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    3. Re:Well, that's it. by fisted · · Score: 1

      2.6.32 had ~9.8 MLoC

      Most of which are device drivers.

      current kernel at ~16.8 MLoC

      Most of which are device drivers, and some more device drivers.

    4. Re:Well, that's it. by jon3k · · Score: 1

      As someone who is kind of a casual Linux system admin, I just make sure to read the Kernel Newbies on each kernel. It really helps me at least kind of keep up on what's going on.

  3. Damn, been a while since I worked on the kernel by Snotnose · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Last time I wrote a driver (PCI) we were deciding if we wanted to stick with 2.2 or upgrade to the new fangled 2.4 kernel. Last time I dug into the kernel guts (our hardware was really slow for some reason) 2.4 was still considered new.

    I'm just a user now using Linux to write software for embedded systems.

    1. Re:Damn, been a while since I worked on the kernel by ls671 · · Score: 1

      Well I played around with the kernel on the slackware 123 CD back in 1993 or something. Kernel must have been version 0.99.11 Alpha or something like that...

      Back then, it was considered new ;-)

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  4. Not bloody likely. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's out there in gazillions of embedded devices, some of them ours. If it ain't broke we're not going to fix it.

  5. Finally! by aralin · · Score: 4, Informative

    As someone having to develop complex drivers for 3 years for this particular version of kernel because Cavium would not port their SDK to anything newer until couple years ago, I can honestly say, it was time... for a long time...

    --
    If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
    1. Re:Finally! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      But why is it when XP goes EOL and MS is starting it ignore 7 we all SCREAM ANTI CHRIST

    2. Re:Finally! by cheater512 · · Score: 0

      Because the vast majority can go from 2.6.32 to a newer kernel without noticing any negative side effects?
      Version 4 didn't have in it's changelog "Now with spyware!"

    3. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because those were the last acceptable versions.

    4. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      out of curiosity, do you work for Ubiquiti? On the EdgeMax routers?

    5. Re:Finally! by FrankSchwab · · Score: 2

      And those who want to stay on 2.6 are welcome to, and if there's a big enough community they could even conceivably manage to make changes/apply fixes on their own.

      Try applying a Windows 7 security fix to Windows XP. Good luck with that.

      --
      And the worms ate into his brain.
    6. Re:Finally! by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      Proper analogy would be a windows 10 security fix to windows xp.

    7. Re:Finally! by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      Because windows 8+ comes with tons of caveats users don't want to deal with?

    8. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But why is it when XP goes EOL and MS is starting it ignore 7 we all SCREAM ANTI CHRIST

      Because thy are still putting out security updates for XP, but only if your hardware says, "I'm a point of sale terminal!". So, they're practicing Artificial Scarcity in order to create Planned Obsolescence -- And they charge for the upgrade to the newer version while lying about not supporting the older version. They still support the older version, they just want more of your money. With Linux, If there was a need for me to remain on 2.6 I can at least pay a coder to backport patches and build my own kernel from now on, and support it myself without worry that it will receive an update from the mother ship that will convert my machine into a spying device, like Windows 10.

      That's why.

    9. Re:Finally! by lastman71 · · Score: 1

      It's not like you're forced by Linux Genuine Advantage to upgrade your kernel.... Fell free to fix your kernel, if you really care so much.

    10. Re:Finally! by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      Well we paid for XP and 7, and we don't have source code to fix it. But Microsoft is taking our toys away from us.

      When Linux does an EOL, it means fewer people work on it. But there source code is there, and there is still some informal activity in the community when it comes to back porting security patches.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  6. CHange for the sake of change by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh here we go again! Linus wants more money and obsolete perfectly good computers so they can sell more apps on the Gnu appstore. THis is OUTRAGEOUS! We just upgraded from kernel 2.2 from 2001 last year and Linus ends support already?? Kernel 2.6.32 works just fine and is modern and well supported.

    I can't believe users put up with this vandalism and forced obsolence. All the icons are in the wrong spot and my users can't handle change so quickly

    1. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linus is being paid by hardware vendors, so of course you abandon good working kernal that supports real hardware running the world.
      GCC broke real systems from compiling their own kernal. 128MB of memory, becuase they cannot use pipes.
      systemd broke real working systems.

      My ISA cards are still working great.
      My 486sx25 is still running strong.
      My RPi is print server.

    2. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you certainly are a fool

    3. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      phwoosh

    4. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Trogre · · Score: 4, Funny

      Okay, everyone, say it with me now:

      WhooooOOOooooosh

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    5. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This warrants more than a regular WHOOSH. We need an onomatopoeic sound for a "jet fighter breaking the sound barrier" level of WHOOSH.

    6. Re:CHange for the sake of change by TheReaperD · · Score: 1

      If you want to run that dinosaur, more power to you. Just keep it the hell off the internet! Just like you don't want to drive a Model-T down a modern freeway, you don't want to run these dinosaurs on the information superhighway.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    7. Re:CHange for the sake of change by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      The icons have nothing to do with the Kernel. They're a product of the GUI.

    8. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry Mr.Fool the 3.2 Kernel has a fully working sarcasm detector.

    9. Re:CHange for the sake of change by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      *woosh*

    10. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ranty ranty ranty rant..Even Windows is now on 10 and XP is dead.

      XP?, Dead?, but that means...that means...that means I'm running my DAW on an undead OS!
      Oh bugger, quelle horreur..etc. I just hope the machine doesn't catch on about it's existentially challenged state.
      (Thinking about it, would explain the ghostly braaaaiiiinzzz! noises I've been occasionally catching in the background on vocal tracks I've been recording recently..)

    11. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you really are running a 486sx25 for actual usage instead of some retro game or application nostalgia (and emulation just doesnt cut it) then you are a moron.

    12. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The parent forgot their "sarcasm" tags. Calm down, it was funny.

    13. Re:CHange for the sake of change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      relax, just switch to debian unstable and you'll be fine.

  7. Longer than BSD, Windows of the same time period by raymorris · · Score: 3, Informative

    In 2009, three kernels were released, Linux 2.32, FreeBSD 7, and Windows 7. FreeBSD 7 went eol four years later, in 2013. Windows 7 service packs also ended in 2013, Windows 7 mainstream support ended in 2015, Linux 2.32 will support will (somewhat) end in 2016.

    So other operating systems have support for 4-6 years, Linux for 7 years.

  8. Linux kernel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hmm mine was installed 06-Apr-1994 ver 1.1 should I upgrade now?

    1. Re:Linux kernel by TheReaperD · · Score: 1

      I know this is in jest but, the reality is that if it is not connected to the internet and it still runs, whatever. Leave it as it is unless you have another reason to upgrade. If you want it on the internet, then it needs to be up to date to deal with all the craploads of malware out there.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    2. Re:Linux kernel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm mine was installed 06-Apr-1994 ver 1.1 should I upgrade now?

      Why needlessly reboot and reset the uptime?

    3. Re:Linux kernel by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      It's unlikely the craploads of malware currently in play would be able to target such an old kernel.

  9. Implications for Centos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My Centos 6 installs are at 2.6.32-573.18.1.el6. Will these continue to be community-supported for some time to come? Centos 7 is not an option for me due to systemd. If 6 will go EOL, what do folks suggest as an alternative (init based) server distro?

    1. Re:Implications for Centos? by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      Didn't they backport systemD to that Kernel?

    2. Re:Implications for Centos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      systemd works really well in CentOS 7 much better than the rocky start I had with it on Arch. It had time to age somewhat before CentOS 7 released though.

    3. Re:Implications for Centos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe this person wants to keep using Linux rather than the new SystemD operating system.

    4. Re:Implications for Centos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes thank you. I like Linux, I'm not interested in running Leonnartpoetteringux.

  10. Re:Why is science racist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do people consider some scientific facts to be racist? For example, it's considered racist to point out how people of African descent have better athletic ability and Europeans have higher IQs? This is science, though, a result of natural selection. If having a higher IQ confers a significant survival advantage, the IQ of the population will increase. This has clearly happened in Europe. If athletic ability is more important to survival, as is the case in Africa, athletic skills will win out. Saying that Europeans have higher IQs and Africans are better athletes is a matter of genetics and natural selection. Why do people consider it racist to point out scientific facts? Why is it wrong to point out that white people make better CEOs and scientists while black people make better athletes, facts that are backed by science?

    Because there's a great deal of variation within these subpopulations, so it's racist to assume that white people make better CEOs and scientists while black people make better athletes. Better to inquire into people's individual abilities than their skin color. Further, IQ tests are ethnocentric: geared to the curriculum and expectations of the European education system, making the tests inherently biased. Finally, why do you think that a high IQ has anything to do with being a better CEO? - perhaps you should be looking for people with "borderline personality disorder" or some of these nine attributes (note that intelligence doesn't make their top nine): http://www.russellreynolds.com...

  11. Re:Implications for Centos & Scientific Linux by elwinc · · Score: 2

    Scientific Linux 6.0 thru 6.6 also use kernel 2.6.32. I'm seeing kernel-2.6.32-573.12.1.el6.x86_64.rpm dated 15-Dec-2015 as the newest SL6 kernel, The Upstream Vendor says they'll be supporting EL6 for 10 or 11 years, so roughly until 2020. Perhaps they'll be backporting changes from newer kernels to 2.6.32?

    --
    --- Often in error; never in doubt!
  12. Re:Implications for Centos & Scientific Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't be fooled by the 2.6.32 in RedHat EL6 kernels. That was only the base level. RedHat constantly backports important updates from newer kernels. The latest version is 2.6.32-573.18.1 and still counting (N.B. 573 is somewhat higher than the 71 on the LTS). Mind you I do find the EL7 kernels to be more responsive, so there is always a good argument to upgrade, but no rush 2020 is still a few years away.

  13. Re:Longer than BSD, Windows of the same time perio by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

    Win 7 is in extended support till 2020. it isn't really end of support till it leaves extended support which is all an enterprise requires to have access to hotfixes and security patches. So that is 11 years vs Linux 7

  14. Re:Longer than BSD, Windows of the same time perio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2.6.32 is just the kernel, though. What was the EOL on the then-current C library, OpenSSL version, etc.?

  15. Re:Longer than BSD, Windows of the same time perio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except that you are comparing Linux kernel with COMPLETE operating systems. Which linux distro version released in 2009 was supported till 2015? oh wait, none...

  16. Re:Longer than BSD, Windows of the same time perio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Which linux distro version released in 2009 was supported till 2015?
    RHEL 5 and CentOS 5 are on extended support until 2020.

  17. Kernels? by phorm · · Score: 1

    That seems to be a fairly misleading statement

    Windows 7 isn't just a "Kernel", it's an Operating System. Ditto for FreeBSD 7. While the kernel may be the core of an OS, userland certainly plays a significant part as well, particular for a desktop OS. For example, on a Win7 64-bit machine, the actual kernel would probably be something like "6.1.7601.17592"

    So comparing those three, it would be more fair to use something like a Linux distribution/version from that era, such as
    * "Ubuntu Jaunty Jackelope" (EOL Oct 2010)
    * "Debian Lenny" (Archived Feb 2011)
    * RHEL6 (Production good until 2020, extended life-support not listed yet).

  18. Re:Longer than BSD, Windows of the same time perio by afidel · · Score: 1

    Bingo, RHEL 5+ matches the 10 year support lifecycle for Windows with the same ongoing support past that mark at $Millions per year. That hasn't always been true but as their customer base has grown into the same enterprise markets that Windows has existed in for some time they have had to match the same customer needs/wants/demands. The two support lifecycles even look largely the same with 5-6 years of feature changes followed by 4-5 years of security only patching. Again this matches the general desires of the customer base, they don't want a new OS to grow stale too quickly but in the last few years of the lifecycle they don't want disruptive changes as they are usually focused on preparing the rollout of the new platform, the crossover phase, and the eventual decommissioning of the old systems. Fewer disruptive changes during that period eases the support burden during that period freeing up resources to work on these other projects. I'm currently living that lifecycle as we work on a multi-year project to transition off of Office 2007/Windows 7 and onto Office 2016/Windows 10 (and will be doing the same with the servers once Windows 2016 finally ships this fall). Being able to just quickly test Windows security patches and being relatively confident that they will not break anything frees up admin, QA, and patching resources to focus on new platform.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  19. Re:Why is science racist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IQ tests are correlated with the income of your parents, and not so much with the IQ of your parents. It's not strongly genetic.

    Maybe if blacks weren't poor they would do better on these tests. And I would go as far to argue that if there wasn't systematic racism that blacks would have higher IQ scores.

  20. POS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All my friends say that I have POS hardware.

    1. Re:POS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      James, is that you?

  21. Re:Longer than BSD, Windows of the same time perio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think you know what this "extended support" until 2020 really means. Go check on redhat site, it is so called "Extended Life Phase" support and as redhat puts it means "For versions of products in the Extended Life Phase, Red Hat will provide limited ongoing technical support. No bug fixes, security fixes, hardware enablement or root-cause analysis will be available during this phase, and support will be provided on existing installations only". Don't believe me, go and check yourself.