Linux 2.4.13

Lawrence Teo writes: "Looks like Linux 2.4.13 is out. You can get it at the usual place (kernel.org) and the mirrors. Check out the Changelog."

Re:Kernel 2.4.13 is out..yay....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I will hold off on installing until it's been tested without problem.

A Linus release is not like a normal commercial software release. If it compiles on Linus' box, he releases it without a formal test process.

Use a RedHat kernel, which goes through a QA and stress process and contains patches which haven't made it into the main branch (often for trival reasons such as coding style or that Linus can't read all of his mail).

Not to recommend RH specifically, just that their QA process seems to be the most robust. SuSE or Debian would probably also be good.

Re:Linux Rocks

[Billly Gates]

A little offtopic but quit correct. It turns out Bill Gates went even further and stated "..you need to look at other peoples code and improve upon it..". Hmmm Kind of sounds like un-american opensource doesn't it?

Re:Which releases are production stable?

[GigsVT]

This is not the way it's "supposed" to be. It might be true, but don't present it that way. Even versioned kernels are SUPPOSED to be stable. All of them. Patchlevel kernel revisions on the even number trees are not supposed to be anything but bugfixes.

Re:Which releases are production stable?

[ajs]

If you're grabbing the kernel-o-the-week, I suggest you're always going to be "less than production quality". Vendors like Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake, etc. spend a whole lot of time integrating new kernel releases with their operating systems. This can include bug-fixing, testing on a number of hardware platforms, retro-fitting patches from development versions that are required for certain business segments and even beta periods for certain cutting-edge features (e.g. Red Hat's long trails internally and externally of the ext3 filesystem).

You should probably think of the stable kernels as just that: stable. That doesn't mean they are ready for prime-time. It's more like a "stable branch". You expect this to be the branch from which the distributions will craft The Right Kernel for their platforms.

Should you use such a kernel, then? Yes, but only if a) you're in a non-mission-critical situation or b) you "must have" a certain bug-fix and are willing to put in the Q/A yourself.

Think of the linux kernel as released on kernel.org like Mozilla. This is like a milestone release. Netscape will come out with something based on it which has Java, Flash, some back-ported bug fixes from later nightlies, etc. The corporate user should probably wait and go with a Netscape release, but here I am submitting this comment from a nightly ;-)