Linux 2.6.26 Out 288
diegocgteleline.es writes "After three months, Linux 2.6.26 has been released. It adds support for read-only bind mounts, x86 PAT (Page Attribute Tables), PCI Express ASPM (Active State Power Management), ports of KVM to IA64, S390 and PPC, other KVM improvements including basic paravirtualization support, preliminary support of the future 802.11s wireless mesh standard, much improved webcam support thanks to a driver for UVC devices, a built-in memory tester, a kernel debugger, BDI statistics and parameters exposure in /sys/class/bdi, a new /proc/PID/mountinfo file for more accurate information about mounts, per-process securebits, device white-list for containers users, support for the OLPC, some new drivers and many small improvements. Here is the full list of changes."
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Kernel debugger? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Real writeable NTFS? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
Not sure why it isn't in the kernel. But works great for me.
Good Featurelist (Score:5, Informative)
I wish every kernel release announcement included a highlevel featurelist like that. Not just a ChangeLog, as each bug is fixed or small feature is added. But rather a fairly highlevel list of new and improved (and fixed) features like the one in this Slashdot story. Best if in the announcement itself, but at the very least always in the release package.
That way most of us can decide whether to upgrade, or to wait (perhaps for the x.1 version, which is typically a higher quality bugfixed delivery). Since kernel upgrades require rebooting (and again to downgrade after test), knowing whether to ignore a release based on its highlevel upgraded features itemization is a very effective announcement feature, which makes all of us using the releases more productive.
Re:Real writeable NTFS? (Score:5, Informative)
Here: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/ [ntfs-3g.org]
Why is it needed in the kernel?
Re:Real writeable NTFS? (Score:3, Informative)
Also, blame Microsoft [microsoft.com] for not releasing the technical specs behind the FS. Reverse-engineering a filesystem (especially one that MS likes to change often) isn't exactly easy.
Finally, you can always reformat "larger USB drives" into a FS that's more efficient (ext3, reiserfs).
Translation please? (Score:2, Informative)
Some of these I know what they are, and some I can guess at. But what is:
read-only bind mounts
x86 PAT (Page Attribute Tables)
basic paravirtualization support
BDI statistics and parameters
per-process securebits
device white-list for containers users
And what might I see as a result of these improvements somewhere along the line?
Re:init post (Score:5, Informative)
Ugh, still no token ring support.
It had token ring support circa 2000 and you can probably resurrect the drivers if you need it.
OTOH if you're still using Token Ring you probably have Madge or Olicom cards whereas the best Linux support was for chipsets like the IBM Olympic.
Re:Translation please? (Score:1, Informative)
Ummm, I don't think you understand how Gnu/Linux works just yet... I'll point you to the right link: www.google.com
Re:Translation please? (Score:5, Informative)
Click the link in the story: http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_26 [kernelnewbies.org]
and it explains it all there
Kernel debugger considered harmful by Linus (Score:5, Informative)
Reading on it, it seems that Linus never has been a great fan of kernel debuggers. From a famous post [lwn.net],
I happen to believe that not having a kernel debugger forces people to think about their problem on a different level than with a debugger. I think that without a debugger, you don't get into that mindset where you know how it behaves, and then you fix it from there. Without a debugger, you tend to think about problems another way. You want to understand things on a different _level_. [...]
I agree that stepping with a debugger instead of thinking real hard about the code (and using abundant log statements) is generally a waste of time, and that expecting to catch rare occurrences of weird race conditions with a debugger is not worth the effort. Sloppy programmers don't take the time to think, and rely too much on fixing what they could have not broken. Unit tests, although more expensive to code, can be reused many times - debugging sessions are one-shot.
On the other hand, even good programmers can get stuck and benefit from a debugger every once and then. I guess this argument finally won the day.
Re:Real writeable NTFS? (Score:5, Informative)
Old NTFS stuff used to be really, really slow. Is ntfs-3g as fast as other filesystems on Linux, now?
Re:Is Linux kernel 2.6.26 == Linux 2.6.26 ? (Score:1, Informative)
it exist somewhere as a downloadable OS?
Fsck, no. It's a kernel.
-- feeding the trolls
Re:Is Linux kernel 2.6.26 == Linux 2.6.26 ? (Score:5, Informative)
Is Linux kernel 2.6.26 == Linux 2.6.26 ?
Yes. When people refer to entire distributions as "linux" they are being technically incorrect, as the GNU folks are kind to point out at the drop of a hat. The entire operating system is GNU/Linux - Linux is just the kernel.
Re:Good Featurelist (Score:3, Informative)
Er, that's why I was congratulating this featurelist. I'd like to see that kind of list in every release, and that link proves that it's possible. Great progress.
But a link in a Slashdot story to a KernelNewbies.org wiki page isn't the same as the actual kernel release announcement pointing to such a featurelist in the actual kernel package. Which would be the even better progress that I asked for. Which I think practically everyone would like to see happen.
Re:802.11s can run on generic WLAN hardware? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:is the bug with 20+k interrupts on dual core (Score:3, Informative)
Did you file a bug report? Did they mark it fixed? If you answered no to either of these questions, you may be a whiner. You also may not know what you're talking about as you said "20+k interrupts" without actually specifying an amount of time or what type of interrupts they were, and you came and posted here rather than checking the change logs for things like, "dual core", "interrupt storm" or any other keywords.
Re:Real writeable NTFS? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:is the bug with 20+k interrupts on dual core (Score:1, Informative)
nope :(
Wakeups-from-idle per second : 26035.8 interval: 5.0s
Linux localhost 2.6.26-080714 #1 SMP Mon Jul 14 23:53:58 JST 2008 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7250 @ 2.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
Re:Kernel debugger considered harmful by Linus (Score:5, Informative)
With high level code, a decent debugger is really really useful. With low level code, not so much.
(It's amazing though how many high level programmers don't understand the way debugging changes program behaviour (variable initialization etc - don't even mention heisenbugs)).
The best ever debugger is the "cardboard man". If you really get stuck you explain the code to anyone (including the cleaner). That way, (even though the cleaner doesn't understand anything) you exercise another part of your mind and *see* the problem (... well here we shift left (wtf? right?) oops).
Andy
Re:Kernel debugger considered harmful by Linus (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, even good programmers can get stuck and benefit from a debugger every once and then. I guess this argument finally won the day.
Actually after programming in C the past five years I find a debugger completely worthless. Pretty much all problems boil down to:
1) memory / pointer errors
2) usage errors (bad casts, unset variables)
3) code too complicated to follow by reading
The first is covered by valgrind, or if your system doesn't have valgrind then first writing for x86 then porting. The second is covered well by gcc warnings. The third is covered better by logging than a debugger, or better yet just not writing complicated software in the first place.
Before that, in Java the first problem just did not exist, the second was covered by compiler warnings (and no such thing as unset variables), and the third was the same, logging.
So except the kernel, where there's no valgrind, what do you actually use a debugger for?
Re:Clever new tools for kernel config (Score:2, Informative)
You aren't following at all; the concept is that the modules havent been compiled and linked yet. More classic development distributions like Slackware don't provide 2 gigs of precompiled modules for different kernels (it usually comes with enough to pick up your hard drive, chipsets, etc and boot. That's where the kernel source comes in. you take 3 minutes and set it up and another 3 minutes (or hours, if you prefer the good-ol 386) to compile it. It's always been a ton faster than fighting with precompiled module dependency hell. So custom compiling the kernel requires experience and skill, something a good ol' linux user has and loves.
Re:802.11s can run on generic WLAN hardware? (Score:3, Informative)
It's part of the mac80211 layer, so it in theory supports any mac80211 driver, that is a 'soft MAC' WiFi chipset. There are minor driver changes required to support mesh (basically adding mesh beacons) and right now the zd1211rw and B43 drivers work. We have more details here:
http://o11s.org/trac [o11s.org]
B43 is your best bet at the moment, if you have a few of those, give the HOWTO on the o11s website a try and you can have your own mesh network.
Eventually other soft-MAC chipsets can work, such as Intel's iwlwifi, Ralink, etc. At the moment beaconing is broken in rt2x000 so Ralink won't work, but that will probably be fixed soon.
Re:Intelfb still broke (Score:5, Informative)
It's coming in 2.6.27 along with the GEM branch that was merged into master. Read Phoronix if you're into this sort of thing.
Re:Is Linux kernel 2.6.26 == Linux 2.6.26 ? (Score:2, Informative)
There's no such thing as GNU/Linux, because I've never ever seen an .iso labeled like that.
How about a purchasable CD labeled GNU/Linux?
http://www.agnus.com.ar/site/agnus/debian/ [agnus.com.ar]
Re: does it come with MPX ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Does it come with MPX? (Score:3, Informative)
You're looking for the next version of X.org, not Linux.
Re:Good Featurelist (Score:1, Informative)
You're looking for this: http://kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges [kernelnewbies.org]
Re:Ah but does it run Linux?!? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kernel debugger? (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. XML is case-sensitive, not lowercase. XHTML uses lowercase XML elements [w3.org], but in general XML elements are not lowercase only.