I have been using Linux since July of 1998. My first install was Slackware 3.5. I fell in love with it almost immediately. I watch closely for new kernel releases and was always happy to install and compile the newest kernels, until 2.4 came out. Kernel 2.4 has been a disaster on my laptop, one problem after another. Most of the problems have been about power management. I tried many times to help diagnose the problems but it seems that the people working on the kernel are to busy to deal with my problems for now. Each minor release of the kernel fixes a few things and 2.4.17 is almost as reliable as 2.2 was on my laptop. Some day it will work good but until then I will keep hoping.
Many of the problems I had with the kernel relate to the radical changing of features in the kernel between minor releases. Example, between kernel 2.4.8 and 2.4.10 the modules for PCMCIA where renamed, that is very poor project management. These kind of problems would not have happened if there was a better form of project coordination between the kernel developers. I would like to see a set of rules for the development of the kernel that clearly define what changes are allowed and what must be reserved for different branch of the kernel version. I would also like to see a better effort on the part of the distribution makers to insure flexibility when installing a kernel from source that is not part of the distribution. I run Mandrake on my laptop, I can not use the Mandrake kernel RPM's because they brake more then they fix. I consider Mandrake inflexible as to the kernel because for me to download the kernel source (not from Mandrake) then compile it and use it I have to change a lot of scripts that Mandrake adds to my system.
I run 2.4.17 on my new server and it works great, so far. It started with 2.4.7 and I upgraded it. I found that it now runs about 50% faster and uses about 60 MB less RAM, just from changing the kernel.
Linux has problems, nothing that can't be solved. It is light years ahead of that other OS, what ever the hell it is called this week.
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I have been using Linux since July of 1998. My first install was Slackware 3.5. I fell in love with it almost immediately. I watch closely for new kernel releases and was always happy to install and compile the newest kernels, until 2.4 came out. Kernel 2.4 has been a disaster on my laptop, one problem after another. Most of the problems have been about power management. I tried many times to help diagnose the problems but it seems that the people working on the kernel are to busy to deal with my problems for now. Each minor release of the kernel fixes a few things and 2.4.17 is almost as reliable as 2.2 was on my laptop. Some day it will work good but until then I will keep hoping.
Many of the problems I had with the kernel relate to the radical changing of features in the kernel between minor releases. Example, between kernel 2.4.8 and 2.4.10 the modules for PCMCIA where renamed, that is very poor project management. These kind of problems would not have happened if there was a better form of project coordination between the kernel developers. I would like to see a set of rules for the development of the kernel that clearly define what changes are allowed and what must be reserved for different branch of the kernel version. I would also like to see a better effort on the part of the distribution makers to insure flexibility when installing a kernel from source that is not part of the distribution. I run Mandrake on my laptop, I can not use the Mandrake kernel RPM's because they brake more then they fix. I consider Mandrake inflexible as to the kernel because for me to download the kernel source (not from Mandrake) then compile it and use it I have to change a lot of scripts that Mandrake adds to my system.
I run 2.4.17 on my new server and it works great, so far. It started with 2.4.7 and I upgraded it. I found that it now runs about 50% faster and uses about 60 MB less RAM, just from changing the kernel.
Linux has problems, nothing that can't be solved. It is light years ahead of that other OS, what ever the hell it is called this week.