Linux Kernel 2.6.4 Released

justinarthur writes "The Linux kernel version 2.6.4 has been released at 03:16 UTC. Included in the changes from version 2.6.3 are fixes to XFS support, Wide Area Networking, USB connectivity, and IEEE1394 connectivity. To download a copy, it is recommended that one utilizes a Linux Kernel Archives mirror. Linus Torvalds' announcement to the Linux Kernel Mailing list concerning this release is available here." Reader k-zed points out that Linux 1.0 was released in March 1994, ten years ago.

Why yes it does!

[Medievalist]

usermode linux runs linux on linux.

So, the answer is yes.

Re:new kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandrake 10 is (look for the story from yesterday) Also you can get 2.6 from gentoo and debian, though not default

Re:new kernel

[xheliox]

Mandrake 10, though it's Mandrake, so I woundn't recommend rush in. Fedora Core 2 will ship with 2.6 in April.

Re:new kernel

[xheliox]

PS - I've been running 2.6 for well over a month on most of my boxes without any issues. Though I have noticed that some obscure drivers tend to be missing or broken.

did you report it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Copy down the numbers from the kernel panic.
I know it's a pain, but we really need this.
If you're terribly lazy, just get EIP, ESP,
and any names you see.

Mail that to [e-mail] and
expect a few questions about your hardware.

That's not so difficult, is it? This gets the
bug fixed so that the next release will run on
your system.

Re:Oops!

[Anonymous Coward]

On a more serious note, maybe this was asked before many times, but whats the real benefit of upgrading from .2 to .4 for example? IE: Im running on 2.4.20 and everything works fine. For the kernel I apply the "its not broke, dont fix it" rule.. but Im just curious!

For me, I upgraded to 2.4 from 2.2 that Debian defaulted to, because 2.4 had USB peripheral support and 2.2 didn't appear to (maybe I could have compiled it in, but why bother when I can just get 2.4?).

There are good reasons to upgrade to 2.6, but no one is forcing you to (yet). I'm still sitting on 2.4 for now, but have used 2.6 a few times and GUI performance is indeed a lot smoother.

Think of it as version 26

[Chemisor]

In the OSS world, major releases are counted in the minor numbers, so 2.6 is what a commercial company would have called 26.

Re:In 94, I was using Windows 3.1

[Astatine]

Aren't you confusing kernel and distribution? Microsoft Windows is like a distribution (it's a complete running system). How different are Slackware 1 and Slackware 9 for instance?

If you looked at what's happened to the NT kernel during those 10 years, I reckon it would also look like "10 years of incremental patches". Apart from the graphics renderer turning up in it, that is ;-)

Re:Yes but...

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

He/She/It didn't apologize in advance, it was in hindsight. If the post read:

(Ok, sorry. I know its not funny anymore.)
Does it run Linux?

Then that would be in advance.

Re:Did you know that..

[Anonymous Coward]

For those that don't know this is the name of Oasis [oasisinet.com]'s latest album.

Re:new kernel

[DarkBlackFox]

2.6 does offer a number of improvements to 2.4 (as it should, being a later release), including native ATAPI (non-SCSI emulated) CDRW support (which a lot of new users get borked on and complain about), non-dangerous NTFS support (including writing, which is huge when migrating from Windows), much easier build process (simply 'make'), easier module selection layout, faster boot times, etc. etc.

I was happy as a clam switching to 2.6, and haven't looked back to 2.4 much since.

Re:In 94, I was using Windows 3.1

[dave420]

The NT kernel has changed a lot since NT 3.5, which was the concurrent NT version to Windows 3.1. If we're comparing Windows 3.1 with XP (as the original poster was), the differences are even more great (both in the kernal, which is completely different to the W3.1 kernel, and the GUI has matured incredibly)

Linux is fantastic, but has lots of flaws that really do need addressing before it goes mainstream on the desktop. The sort of things we can take in our stride but which would screw up a novice linux user. Microsoft has lots of technology in place to make sure the user doesn't screw their computer over. That's the sort of functionality that lets Joe Average sleep well at night. He doesn't care if his computer's making the most efficient use of its CPU, but he does care whether installing a patch will kill it or not :-P

Re:did you report it?

[pe1rxq]

Without the symbol map the EIP and ESP values are pretty useless since they vary on compile time options (and even the compiler).

What is usefull is the EIP (and call trace) with together with the symbol table, or easier the 2.6 kernels have a build in back trace that spits out the function names itself. (If you want some fun do it yourself for once with the call trace and a symbol table, bonus points for doing hex math on a piece of paper instead of a calculator)
Just write down this list of functionnames and send it, that way the developpers immediatly known wath code path your pc took before going boom.

Jeroen

Partitioning md devices

[rpozz]

Finally they've included mdpart. This means anyone with a SATA RAID motherboard can use its full potential. Excellent :-)

Re:Ready for the desktop?

[Knuckles]

I can't remember to ever have upgraded the kernel on my windows machine. Hm, thinking of it, this may be because MS does not allow me to download new kernels from their kernel repository. I they did, it wouldn't be newbie-proof either. Therefore, your comment makes no sense whatsoever.

"Normal people" wait (and rightly so) for new packages coming from their distributor (Fedora, SuSE, Mandrake, ...). Using the distribution's tool for software upgrades is, last time I checked, nearly as newbie-proof as possible for current distributions. At least each of them beats Windows' "Add/Remove software", which is a sorry excuse for a software manager, easily. I also find it more friendly than Microsoft's web-based update manager.

Re:new kernel

[damballah]

For MandrakeLinux 10, it is the default kernel. They also provide the latest from the 2.4 series, but you'll have to install that by hand. By "integration", they probably mean dropping devfsd in favor of udev... " I assumed the 2.6 was some addon I have to waste precious brain cells and time trying to figrure out how to install." Mandrake has had RPMs for the 2.6 series for some time now.

Re:Cumulative Change Log

[Kourino]

No.

There are separate change logs for each kernel release in the kernel download directory, though.

Re:Think of it as version 26

[Anonymous Coward]

1.0, 1.2, 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6. Maybe version 6, unless you're implying that commercial companies ship their dev trees, in which case you have to add 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 2.3 and 2.5 which makes it version 11.

Given the first scheme, this might be 6.4, or "Linux 6 service pack 4" if you're one of _those_ people.

Re:Why yes it does!

[beeblebrox87]

Yes, but you have to increment the nesting level in make menuconfig when you're building it, i.e. you need a UML specially compiled to run on other UMLs, or a UML compiled to run on other UMLs that run on other UMLs, etc.

Is ALSA still broken?

[unsinged int]

2.6.2 => 2.6.3 completely broke ALSA on my system. I haven't seen any ALSA patches go in after 2.6.3. Anybody have info on that? Is there another big ALSA merge coming soon?

How many have upgraded and then gone back?

[steelerguy]

So I went to the 2.6 series when they first came out. I was very happy with it at work, there was a noticable bump in speed...mainly in starting applications.

At home it was another story. Sure the speed increases I noticed at work were still there but there were some fairly large problems.

First, neither my DVD reader or CD burner were assigned /dev entries. So no reading CD's, DVD, or writing CD's. I honestly don't do it that much anyway, so I didn't spend a lot of time trouble shooting it. Plus after a day at work trouble shooting problems I don't feel like doing it at home.

Second, I have not been able to mount my USB flash drive. It is an MP3 player which I changed CD's on weekly so I am not listening to the same stuff at the gym every day. Well after a few weeks of Outkast it was time for a change so I sat down to fix the problem. Two hours later, I just went back to the 2.4 kernel.

I have gotten as far as getting the kernel to assign sda to my usb device but it never creates an entry in /dev and the /sys stuff is not mountable. Enabling USB debugging just shows me that things are messed up but does not really help much.

I also started to get annoyed with all the SCSI emulation needed to mount a USB storage device. I don't understand how Linus can hate SCSI emulation so much when it comes to burning CD's yet it is perfectly acceptable to use it to mount a USB disk. Seems a bit hypocritical, but then again...he did sort of invent Linux so I guess I can cut him some slack.

So all in all, I have been disappointed in the 2.6.x series of kernels and if they are the one's that are supposed to take the desktop market by storm then I think Linux on the desktop is in trouble. It is no wonder Redhat and SuSE are staying away from it for the most part right now. It is going to take both of them a lot of work to get everything working properly I would imagine.

Am I the only one who went back?

Re:In 94, I was using Windows 3.1

[jd]

Linux has 10 years of incremental extensions, there are relatively few patches. (Indeed, even version 0.01 has only got one actual bugfix released for it.)

There is a difference between extension and patch (bugfix) in that extensions are entirely optional. If you don't need anything in Linux 2.x, then you are perfectly able to run Linux 1.x or even 0.x.

"But I can do that with Windows!"

Not really. You cannot (in general) run a Windows NT program on Windows 3.11, as Windows 3.x is a 16-bit OS, whereas NT, ME, XP, CE, 2000, 2003, etc are all 32-bit. 32-bit applications don't run well on 16-bit OS'. The 32-bit support for 3.x is OK, but far from perfect and is totally unmaintained.

"Early versions of Linux are unmaintained, too!"

Not entirely correct. Linux 2.2 and 2.4 are under active development, and people occasionally submit bugfixes for earlier kernels.

Innovation - what has XP got, really, in terms of innovation? The GUIs are just front-ends to functions that largely already existed. QoS was in Linux before Windows, and in FreeBSD before Linux. The same is true for IPSec and IGMPv3.

Filing systems - Reiserfs and Reiser4 are vastly superior to NTFS or FAT32. LustreFS wipes the floor with CIFS/SMB, and CODA is without parallel. Unfortunately, CODA is also without any real development work, these days, but that may change precicely because it's Open Source. If CIFS was abandoned by Microsoft, who could take it over?

Terminal Server offers very little that the "R" tools (rcp, rsh and rlogin) didn't provide 20 years ago. The "S" tools (scp and ssh) are slightly more flexible and a lot more secure.

I can weight certain classes of application on XP's scheduler, but that's it. Under Linux as-is, I can specify the exact weight of each application. I can even choose between different schedulers (standard, real-time, heirarchical, etc).

Do you have to tinker? No. These are all options. Virtually every distro can run out of the box, and remain running without any alteration, upgrade, patch, or even a reboot for years.

Linux isn't perfect. There is much that it needs to really rework. (The TCP stack has a lot of rats-nest coding, for example.) There are some GUI issues that need resolving (XFree, Berlin with an X layer, or either KGI or GGI with an X layer?), better drag-and-drop, shadow passwords with a wider range of hashing options, etc.

However, none of these are serious obstructions. They are things that need to be done, but they are not show-stoppers. A typical Windows user, who primarily wants Office, can switch to Open Office or KOffice, MySQL and a decent MySQL interface, and either Gnome or KDE.

Where is tinkering necessary or even desirable for the average user???

Re:new kernel

[MeanSolutions]

The problem with Linux lately is the annoying lack of stability and binary backward compatability.

I have noticed very little, if anything, breaking when I moved from 2.4.21 to 2.6.x on SuSE 9.0, a distro compiled for and shipped with a 2.4 kernel.


For example, the new threading libraries break all sorts of applications until you recompile the apps against the new library. This is particularly painful with commercial applications or for companies that need to provide support.

Sun, IBM, HP, etc have all been able to enhance the functionality of their proprietary Unix systems without breaking binary compatability. It is a shame that the linux kernel people do not care to do so.


That has absolutely nothing to do with the kernel "Linux". That has to do with updates to glibc and pthreads libraries. There is nothing preventing you from running a glibc2.1 with a kernel 2.0.5, 2.2.10, 2.4.18 or 2.6.4 running on top of it.

Wait until your distro provides it

[Anonymous Coward]

Its very obvious that you should be waiting for your particular distro to put out a pre-tested version that has 2.6 in it. So you had problems with CD burning and your USB device. Stuff happens. Many others have moved to 2.6 and have all of their devices working and are enjoying a nice boost in speed.

"if they are the one's that are supposed to take the desktop market by storm then I think Linux on the desktop is in trouble"

I'm sorry but your particular experience doesn't mean what you think it does. Just because you had issues isn't the litmus test for Linux desktop use.

"It is no wonder Redhat and SuSE are staying away from it"

They aren't "staying away from it", they are currently testing it and will have distros with 2.6 out this year.

I know how it can be annoying when things don't work, but in this case regardless of your linux experience it very much sounds like you should stick with what works for now and wait until your distro vendor or community puts out a fully tested 2.6 release.

Re:new kernel

[Aneurysm9]

Gentoo has defaults?!? The last Gentoo box I built used 2.6.2 from the first boot (ok, not from the liveCD, but once I built the base it never looked back).

Re:How many have upgraded and then gone back?

[Anonymous Coward]

Supposedly, USB Mass Storage is basically SCSI protocols piped over USB, so it requires SCSI emulation.

Re:yup, agreed.

[Paladin128]

Depends on your hardware. If you're using SMP, it will help; the scheduler is a bit better. Also has better support for the P4/Xeon's Hyperthreading. Overall lower latency operation as well. udev is a nice upgrade from devfs. No need to use proprietary sound or ethernet drivers on an nForce platform. If you're dealing with LOTS of traffic, it will perform better under stress.

What hardware do you have?

Re:10 years?

[TheTomcat]

According to this [dsl.org] , GPL v1.0 was released in 1989. RMS released the GNU Manifesto in 1985.

So, it HAS been around a long time, but not 20-30 years.

(and yes, I know it was a joke).

S

Re:Think of it as version 26

[kwanbis]

sun only removes the 2. in front of their number, so sun 9 is 2.9, etc. (this is true)

Re:How many have upgraded and then gone back?

[Abcd1234]

Are you using devfs? Did you try to migrate to udev (since devfs is deprecated)? Did you try to manually create those device entries and just use them, so you can at least make sure the device drivers work?

As for /sys, you compiled sysfs into the kernel, right? If so, it should be automatically mounted (well, at least, it is on my box). You also need the following fstab entry, in order to mount usbfs:

none /sys/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0

Re:Ready for the desktop?

[MrNybbles]

drwtsn32 wrote,

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

That is not normally enough to get a 2.6.x kernel working correctly with the rest of the system.

Debian Distros Only!

First edit your apt sources file so you are upgrading to unstable. (Insert Windows Joke Here!) (I don't know offhand if any other Debian branch has the right stuff for Linux Kernle 2.6.x)

apt-get update && apt-get install module-init-tools && apt-get upgrade

apt-get upgrade may not upgrade module-init-tools for some reason. You might also want to run "apt-get install udev" if you have the hotplug stuff built into your kernel. Other things may need to be done for your system. This was enough for mine.

The debian command dselect may do a better job of Upgrading your debian system as far as conflict resolution is concerned, but I really don't like the user interface to it. If you want to know more about debian packages check out http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages.

A complete Debian 2.4.x to 2.6.x upgrade guide would be nice. Anyone know of one?

Re:new kernel

[TheTomcat]

- A responsive scheduler and preemptible kernel (sure, most users won't have a clue what it DOES, but they'll notice the difference).
- ALSA (in-kernel) -- for the first time I can remember on Linux, the mixer (non OpenSoundSystem) labels my inputs/outputs properly.

S

Nforce2 APIC issues still not resolved :-(

[motown]

Even Kernel 2.4.6 still locks up frequently on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard unless I specify the options "noapic nolapic" at boot time. Then the system runs flawlessly (even with ACPI-support).

I read somewhere that the problem currently lies in the BIOS, rather than in the kernel, and that some vendors have already released proper BIOS updates that add a "C1 disconnect" option, which supposedly does the trick.

Unfortunately, Asus has released no such update as of yet.

Does anyone here (perhaps one of the kernel developers involved) have any more details on this?

Can this problem eventually be solved in the kernel, even without any BIOS updates?

After all, as far as I understood it, the BIOS pretty much takes a back seat as soon as the kernel is running, right?

Re:Nforce2 APIC issues still not resolved :-(

[RShearman]

Yes, it is a hardware problem but there was a workaround that added some delays so that the bug was not triggered.
There was a patch floating around for this. Try googling the archives. It may have gone into 2.6.4-mm1 so you could try that.

Re:remove SCO code

[neurojab]

>has there been any talk of removing the alleged SCO code?

If there were any SCO code, I'm sure Linus would love to remove it. The only code SCO has shown has been header files specified by POSIX and IBM copyrighted code. Never any SCO code.

Repeat after me: There is no SCO code in the Linux kernel. There never was. There never will be. Darl McBride and Chris Sontag are trying to take money from the gullible.

Reply to my own post: looks like 2.6.4 might be OK

[schon]

Looking through the 2.6.4 changelog, it looks like there were problems with 2.6.3's e100 driver (which I have.) As my machine uses the network heavily (I've got about a dozen NFS mounts) this could be the reason that I was experiencing problems.

Re:new kernel

[TheTomcat]

O(1) basically means that each "operation" takes the same amount of time, no matter how many processes need a slice.. (at least that's how I understand it -- I'm no kernel hacker). Helps in responsiveness.

The preemption + the scheduler is what makes it, IMHO. When I click buttons, they click IMMEDIATELY, now (as fast, or faster than windows).

S

Re:Just when...

[Winter]

Could not find it in 2.6.4, but a patch to kernel/kthread.c to 2.6.1-rc1-bk6 shows these lines:

+/* "to look upon me as her own dad -- in a very real, and legally
+ binding sense." - Michael Palin */

Which is from the Holy Grail

Re:Anyone know what Rusty is talking about here?

[Svennig]

And the quote is:

/* "to look upon me as her own dad -- in a very real, and legally binding sense." - Michael Palin */

X nice level

[steveha]

Are you sure about the X nice level? Your symptoms sound exactly like what happened to me when I ran 2.6 for the first time, and my problem was the X nice level.

For 2.6, you want X to run at nice 0. Many Linux distros set X to nice -10 for kernel 2.4 and older, but for 2.6 that gums up the works.

Debian users can fix it like so:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common

Then, when it asks you what X nice level you want, set it to zero.

steveha

Re:I tried it last night..

[SQLz]

Make sure you have the RTC compiled in and that ALSA has RTC timing on and that should fix it.

Damnation!

[ttsalo]

The synaptics touchpad driver for my HP xe4500 seems to be quite broken in 2.6.4. Looks like I'm still stuck using my 2.4.21-pre3-ac5-acpi... Shame, 2.6.4 seemed noticeably faster or maybe I'm just imagining things.

--

Re:Is ALSA still broken?

[BillyBlaze]

Between kernel 2.6.2 and 2.6.3, ALSA 1.02c got merged, and that broke stuff. (I was having problems too.) For me, upgrading to to ALSA 1.03 worked. This would have been in time for 2.6.4, but the -rc kernels were already out, so no big patches could be accepted. Unzip the alsa tarball to /usr/src, and do

cd /usr/src
cp -a alsa/alsa-kernel/* linux/sound
cp -a alsa/alsa-kernel/include/* linux/include/sound
cp -a alsa/alsa-kernel/Documentation/* linux/Documentation/sound

before configuring and compiling the kernel. And if 1.03 doesn't fix it, do the above with 0.9.7.