Linux 2.6.27 Out

diegocgteleline.es writes "Linux 2.6.27 has been released. It adds a new filesystem (UBIFS) for 'pure' flash-based storage, the page-cache is now lockless, much improved Direct I/O scalability and performance, delayed allocation support for ext4, multiqueue networking, data integrity support in the block layer, a function tracer, a mmio tracer, sysprof support, improved webcam support, support for the Intel wifi 5000 series and RTL8187B network cards, a new ath9k driver for the Atheros AR5008 and AR9001 chipsets, more new drivers, and many other improvements and fixes. Full list of changes can be found here."

Linux 2.6.27 Out

Linux 2.6.27 is out, OpenBSD 4.4 is in!

Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out

I've got some, what do you want moderated?

Oh, wait...

Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out

Not to worry, I can help!

No, wait...crap.

Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out

Okay, he can use my mod points because I'm posting AC. Now if only I had a Slashdot account...

Re:Linux 2.6.27 Out

One of these days, the admins should give Anonymous Coward some mod points.

Not in upcoming Debian

It's a shame this won't be in the upcoming Lenny release of Debian. The in-kernel support for heaps of webcams via gspca is a very nice user-visible element of this release.

http://release.debian.org/emails/release-update-200808 [debian.org]

Although, I guess they made the decision for 2.6.26 before they realised that a September release would be an impossible target.

Re:Not in upcoming Debian

It's a shame this won't be in the upcoming Lenny release of Debian. The in-kernel support for heaps of webcams via gspca is a very nice user-visible element of this release.

Debian never paid much attention to desktop features, may I suggest Ubuntu 8.10 [ubuntu.com]?

Re:Not in upcoming Debian

may I suggest Ubuntu 8.10 [ubuntu.com]?

You have my permission.

Re:Not in upcoming Debian

Not so fast. Has he signed form WQ-37 and initialed C12-B first?

This is a huge amount of work

In only 3 months, all of this code has been completed and reviewed by multiple developers. This happens *every* three months. The pace at which the Linux kernel is moving and yet still maintaining quality is incredible. It is clearly the case that the Linux kernel has hit a new kind of critical mass and is now a form of software development that has never been seen before. The sheer number of people involved changes what is possible. If you suggested that every single change to the codebase be reviewed by multiple developers in a traditional proprietary software development house you would be, rightly, laughed at. There simply isn't the resources.

Re:This is a huge amount of work

If you suggested that every single change to the codebase be reviewed by multiple developers in a traditional proprietary software development house you would be, rightly, laughed at. There simply isn't the resources.

Where I work, it's called "pair programming".

(If two programmers is enough to count as "multiple". Also, bug fixes are supposed to get an additional diff check.)

If you do it right, you not only save time by not-writing bugs you don't have to fix later, but you can also avoid wasting all sorts of time (writing the feature wrong, going down paths that could lead to disaster, or spinning your wheels and banging your head when you can't figure out something stupid like feeding rrdtool deltas when it expects raw counters...), and you can bring new developers up to speed on a code base very very quickly.

Re:This is a huge amount of work

In only 3 months, all of this code has been completed and reviewed by multiple developers. This happens *every* three months. ... It is clearly the case that the Linux kernel has hit a new kind of critical mass and is now a form of software development that has never been seen before.

Intel HDA audio still has static noise in the left channel since at least 2.6.20 kernel (probably before). This is a known problem and the solution is 'try random settings of some undocumented (outside the kernel source code) module parameters and hope it maybe works'.

This is on Dell hardware. model=dell3stack, position_fix=1(?). This hardware works perfectly under Windows, with no tweaking whatsoever. It worked under older linux kernels, which means they probably broke something.

The linux kernel is good, but just having a bunch of people look at the code means nothing unless they are actually finding and fixing problems people care about.

Re:This is a huge amount of work

Well, yes and no. The old LK dev model had unstable releases where bugs were expected. Now every release is stable, and bugs are truly anomalies.

Re:This is a huge amount of work

Now every release is stable, and bugs are truly anomalies.

Or so the theory goes. Some of the early 2.6 releases were a bit dubious and I had my doubts when they announced there'd no longer be a development kernel but it seems to have settled in nicely now, don't know if it's developers making better code before including it in the kernel, Linus being stricter, closer cooperation wtih distros or more testing feedback but all the later ones have been quite good from what I understand. At any rate, the kernel isn't the most exciting part for me as it seems to have all the parts to run a nice desktop already - it's userspace drivers, X+extensions, Compiz and Gnome/KDE that make up most of my improvement wishlist...

AR5008

Excellent! Macbook & Pro users can finally have wifi support.

Change naming scheme

W00t lots of goodies in this one. So... about time to change from the 2.6.infinity_and_beyond scheme to something else. What say you? I think the 2.6.x should have been left behind when the scheduler changed.

Re:Change naming scheme

Well, they can't release a 2.7, as SCO has already declared that that's the kernel that has the proprietary code in it. (Y'see, the Master, who cunningly disguised his alien identity by calling himself Darl, made an error in the time calculations and ended up traveling back in time too many years. Now's our chance to really screw up the space/time continuum.)

'pure' flash devices

Before you get all excited about running UBIFS on your USB drive, take note: UBI is not for consumer flash media [infradead.org]. These devices already incorporate hardware to hide their flash nature so they look like a plain old block device to your OS. UBI is for pure flash devices that directly expose the quirks and distinct characteristics of the underlying media.

So what kind of flash hardware is this for? Embedded devices, apparently. But maybe as flash storage becomes more common, more devices will support raw access?

Re:'pure' flash devices

So what kind of flash hardware is this for? Embedded devices, apparently. But maybe as flash storage becomes more common, more devices will support raw access?

Olympus' xD card format essentially specifies a direct connection between the NAND flash chips and its external interface.

It's weird and proprietary, yes. However, it's already being done, and there are arguments to be had for minimizing the amount of circuitry on the memory card itself. Interacting directly with Flash isn't as uncommon as you might think it, and can be of huge benefits for portable/embedded devices that require low power consumption.

Re:'pure' flash devices

It seems quite likely that OLPC will largely replace jffs2 with UBI [gmane.org] for the internal nand on the XO. Good news. Maybe this will apply to the Asus eee as and other solid-state drives as well.

Embedded devices for sure

Yeah, embedded devices definitely. It'll be awfully nice to see simple flash chips soldered onto a board rather than someone bolting an SD or compact flash socket onto them just so you can have a boot device.

Fragile, more expensive, and adds another physical item that can break. And not only that, but you can drop about 20-30 dollars worth of non-essential hardware from your design and still be on target. If you do any embedded work you know how big 20 dollars worth of hardware savings is. This new driver is *huge*.

ACPI

Any chance that this will fix some of the ACPI problems with Linux? I recently had a terrible time trying to install Linux on a new Intel motherboard, mostly related to ACPI problems. I'm not blaming any of the Linux developers for this mess. I get the impression that ACPI is a disaster area and even Intel is unable to get it right on their own boards.

Re:Barely on v.2.6.27? Sheesh, Windows way past th

what number is Vista?

666

Re:Did Bill Gates pay Shuttleworth to create Ubunt

If viruses were unique to Windows, we wouldn't have "root"kits. Instead, they'd be "Administrator"kits or perhaps "SYSTEM"kits.

Re:Current Limiting?

Here's a thought. If they're using Gentoo on a 386SX, using the -git kernel tree, and having it auto-rebuild whenever there's a change, they'd never actually get far enough in recompiling to ever be able to boot up a new kernel.