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Linux Software

Linux 2.3.48 Released 222

Posted by CmdrTaco from the you-know-what-to-do dept.
Turambar let us know that Linux 2.3.48 is out. If you know where to get it, go for it. If you don't know, you probably shouldn't poke at it. Gotta be getting close to the release by now, right? I gotta say I'm really looking forward to the integrated PCMCIA getting released and hopefully put into woody.
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Linux 2.3.48 Released More

Linux 2.3.48 Released

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  • Comment removed (Score:5)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @05:42AM (#1243095)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Sure is, but I doubt it will go into Woody,
    does any1 know ?

  • 2.4 (Score:1)

    by dallas ( 38374 )
    Well it is great that the new unstable version came out, but I am still waiting for the wonderful 2.4 kernel. Is it just me or does the release date keep getting moved back. Does anyone know when we can expect 2.4? I would like to see it soon.
  • TPTB have done a pretty good job of limiting the release notes to software that's of interest to a majority of the SlashDot readers, and which will cause interesting and informative discussion.

    Many of us don't have the time or inclination to read through all of FreshMeat every day to find the one package in 100 that affects us, and are very thankful for the ultra-important software getting announced here. Chill out, 'kay?

  • Question about the feature freeze (Score:3)

    by tilly ( 7530 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @05:46AM (#1243101)
    The kernel is supposed to have been in a feature freeze for a bit. But we have had devfs added, I have heard talk of adding cryptography, and lots of talk about a journalled filesystem. (ReiserFS and/or Ext3.)

    Those are important features, but is there any danger that this feature freeze could be eroding?

    Thanks,
    Ben
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • news? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Uh, didn't you post this story last week? Oh, wait, that was *2.3.47*! My mistake.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Re:Interesting? How? (Score:3)

    by Foogle ( 35117 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @05:51AM (#1243106) Homepage
    Chill mofo homey-G.

    He's not saying "Leave it on Freshmeat". Like me, he's saying "Give it its own section." That way, we can have nice slashboxes and/or filter the stories out if we want to. Where's the harm in that?

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Yep, and the release anouncement on freshmeat is already couple-a-days old.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • First, this is not a flame. Please don't take it as such.

    Some people are going to dislike EVERYTHING that's posted on the front page. Your complaint is about this, another's complaint is about Gnome, another's complaint is about Microsoft, etc, etc...

    There is NOT going to be a way to suit everyone. It's time people just realized this. Give it up. No matter what you like, somebody else has to dislike it. And the same thing goes for your dislikes. No matter how much you dislike something, somebody is going to be happy that it was posted, on the front page no less.

    Anyway, I just think that it's time for people to realize that this is not their site, and that they really ought to just give this a rest. I hear Technocrat [technocrat.net] is much more discerning in its stories. Maybe you'll like it better over there.

    Again, not a flame. Just one man's (slightly twisted) opinion. Realize that there are things you can't control, and learn to accept them instead of whining about them like a 5 year old who didn't get the latest Pikachu.

    Later,
    -issue9mm-

  • Re:2.4 (Score:3)

    by Cb22 ( 30540 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @06:03AM (#1243115)
    I'd rather see it work than see it soon. :)
  • I'm not whining about it being posted -- dammit, I WANT to see this stuff posted. But I also want it to have it's own section so that other people (who seem to be complaining much more than I am) seem to want it gone. Where's the compromise?

    Give it a section for itself. That way, we can have pretty slashboxes for them, and no one can complain that they have no place here, because they can filter them out.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • ...supposed to have a restriction that you are not allowed to post more than one update for a piece of software within a 2 week period?

    In which case, Slashdot may be ideal. Software section?

  • Woody isn't the *next* one, as potato still isn't deemed 'stable'..
    It's frozen, so there's no way they would use a development kernel
    in potato. However, by the time woody has matured, I'm guessing
    2.4 will be ready, so there's no reason why they wouldn't include it
    in woody.
  • Of course some people won't like everything posted. That's the purpose of filtering out stories. A lot of Slashdotters strongly dislike Katz. Therefore they just filter his stories out.

    That's why he just suggested that they be filterable-- Put them in a "Kernel Updates" section instead of the generic "Linux" section. There are some things you can't control, this isn't one of them.

  • His post wasn't whiny at all. This idea is just a suggestion. And why not? Where's the harm in giving software releases their own subject? They can still end up on the front page, and everyone who doesn't want to read would also be able to filter them out.

    And you know what? That was a flame. There's no need to make a thread personal. Now who's acting like a 5 year old?

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Freshmeat sucks. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember when it started, it was a great place to go for news on really cool software. Now it is a complete fucking joke. The place is cluttered with 'ME TOO!' Gtk CTRL+ALT+DEL type apps, a shitload of Gtk/Qt/blah frontends to already existing software, and more useless perl scripts than I can count.

    So I stopped reading it, and I can't say that I'm upset that /. posts this kind of stuff.
  • Why should it be moderated up? It cluttered up the conversation just as much as a "This belongs on Freshmeat" post would have.

    And I really resent that fact that so many people feel like anyone who doesn't like *everything* about Slashdot should leave. What's wrong with voicing an opinion about how it could be improved?

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Yes. A link to the Freshmeat info page with the rest of the info would be handy as well, on new
    software releases.

    What icon would represent a special at a butcher shop? USDA "choice" stamp? a pork chop?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Its increadible, I just managed to read 15 trolls in a row! Anyway, onto the matter at hand. People who are using the dev kernels, would you like to enlighten us about how they work so far? Is 2.4 going to be nice and stable when it comes out? Finally, its coming out soon, right? I remember hearing something about XFree 4.0 needing a kernel driver thats only in 2.4. On a slightly unrelated note, has anyone noticed that Linux is becoming more and more like a microkernel everyday? Stuff is being moved out into user space, and the whole XFree server in user space with small kernel driver is exactly how BeOS and Chorus graphics drivers are implemented.
  • Does anyone know what the status is of the raid v0.90 merger? i see in the config that raid-0 & liniear are supported, but on trying to compile them i get a ton of errors in md.c ... Is this work in progress, and will i be resqued from my standard 2.2.14 kernel! :)

    -- Chris Chabot
    "I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
  • Anyone know why the Cutting Edge [kernelnotes.org] Linux site hasn't been updated for Kernel 2.3.x notes in over a month and a half? I really loved that page...

    EraseMe
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • You know what... you're right... Maybe I got a little carried away. I did get a little personal. I was offset by the poster who started the thread saying that everytime one of these was posted, that he was going to keep posting about 'Blah Blah Freshmeat Blah Blah'. How dumb is that? To continue to complain about something instead of try and do something about it.

    Rob has NEVER tried to keep his email address hidden from us. Never. If you have what you feel a valid complaint, dammit, do something about it instead of just crying. At very least, maybe you'll get to hear Rob's explanation for NOT having done so already.

    Anyway, in regards to my previous post, I apologize. I should probably apologize for this one in advance, but I've never been all that great at tact, so I'll leave it be.

    I'll shut up now before I piss someone else off.

  • When he announced the feature freeze, Linus made clear that it only affects code that already is there - adding entirely new stuff (like new filesystems, or drivers for new hardware) aren't that frozen.
    devfs is the only thing that did change existing code a lot - but the patch has been around (and stable) forever.
  • I remember when it started, it was a great place to go for news on really cool software. Now it is a complete fucking joke. The place is cluttered with 'ME TOO!' Gtk CTRL+ALT+DEL type apps, a shitload of Gtk/Qt/blah frontends to already existing software, and more useless perl scripts than I can count.

    Perhaps Freshmeat would benefit from a few /.isms - particularly the ability to filter some categories of notice.

    So I stopped reading it, and I can't say that I'm upset that /. posts this kind of stuff.

    Me neither. But the sooner it gets it's own section so people can disable it and stop whinging, the better.

  • Try 2.3.48. It is tagged unstable, but it works reliably on x86 (it's still somewhat problematic on alpha though).

  • Re:2.4 (Score:1)

    by ceeam ( 39911 )
    IIRC, 2.2 was late but exactly a month... Now compare this with some 3 years of delaying you know what...
  • So... linux-2.3.48.tar.bz2. Exactly 15853813 bytes...
    Isn't it *a bit* too big yet? You know, I'm at home now and the only connection I got here is 33.6. Takes a while for it to fall down here...
    Please, any kind soul split it into modules so different alt. cpu sections and drivers for some rare h/w are separate from "core kernel"?
    Thank you!

  • Vegetarians Unite! Protest Butcher shop icon! Demand Slaughterhouse imagery to increase awareness of animal cruelty! RaRaRa!! =)

    Okay, I'm having a silly day....

  • I thought after the release of 2.2, Linus said that he thought there would only be about 20 revisions in the 2.3 line...any ideas why we have made it so high??
    Jordan

  • CmdrTaco himself brought it up.

    Do you mean to tell me there actually was a topic in the
    little brain-fart CmdrTaco felt so compelled to share?
    ------------------------------------------
    "The Internet interprets censorship
    as damage, and routes around it."

  • It's not old, it's matured :-)
    Do you want a stable distro that took a bit longer than planned to finish,
    or an unstable one that you can have every so-often, and then have to apply
    15 patches/month?

    This is why I use debian, it's stable, tested.
    (Plus, apt-get is just plain cool :-)

    Note: not intended as a flame. Nor am I saying that
    Debian's packaging system is "leet"-er than say, rpm.

  • XFree86 4.0 and LinuX 2.4 kernel on the horizon,
    what a wonderful world!
  • warning off topic

    The posting is fine the way it is. I think that people are upset because they think slashdot is encroaching on freshmeat domain. But sometimes new software is news also.

    A different section would actually be more like encroaching on freshmeat domain. If slashdot and freshmeat merged then a different section would be appropriate.

    If people don't like it posted here they can simply ignore it like I do with articles that I don't find interesting.

    Personally I very much like to get kernel updates posted here because I don't follow the unstable releases as closely as I'd like to. This allows me to listen in and get some ideas about what features are in there and how stable the kernel is becoming.

    my 2c anyway.

    -P

  • Freshmeat whiners, let me see if I get this (Score:5)

    by Stalemate ( 105992 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @06:56AM (#1243163)
    OK, here goes:

    1) Slashdot != Freshmeat (I'll go along with this one)

    2) Slashdot should not post any of the same stories as Freshmeat.

    OK, now number 2 lost me. I don't see what the reasoning is that makes #2 follow from #1. Let me use this argument in some more examples.

    Slashdot != StarWars.com, so no stories about star wars movies should be here.

    Slashdot != Suse != RedHat != Debian, so no stories about these should be on slashdot either.

    Slashdot != GoHip.com, so no information that is at GoHip.com should be on Slashdot. Since GoHip.com has a license agreement that tells what their "browser enhancement" does, it should not be on Slashdot.

    So, do you people think that slashdot should only contain news about things that aren't on any other website? Most of the news posted here has a link to some other site, so most of the news could be found somewhere else on the internet.

    Personally, I look at Slashdot as a repository for news. It gives me one place to look instead of having to go to 100 different pages to find interesting stories. I just don't get why you people are so upset about this. I don't like every little story that pops up on here, but I don't have to read every one of them either.

    I think a lot of the problem is in the assumption that all Slashdot readers are also Freshmeat readers. I haven't heard anyome come right out and say this, but it is the impression that I get.

    OK, I'm finished now.


    --
  • This topic comes up on linux-kernel every couple of months, and the answer is always the same. Download the patches instead of the whole tarball every time.

    Scott
  • They have a place and a box for this...its the freshmeat slashbox...I think it defaults as being on there. And if you will note...the 2.3.48 was before slashdot...i think Rob and others may post these things for input on the kernel...not just to announce it. Hence the reason for his commenting on the integrated PCMCIA... just my $.02
  • I thought linux 2.4 was supposed to ship with Windows 2000 ? I don't want to be a stick in the mud, but it seems like when windows and windows software is late, people yell "MICROSHAFT SUCKS!@)#(@!", but when linux is late, its because "we're working out the bugs".

  • Some of it is already stable... (Score:4)

    by Ami Ganguli ( 921 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @07:04AM (#1243172) Homepage

    DevFS, for example, has been stable for ages and Richard has dutifully been releasing updated patches against current kernels. It was just a matter of convincing Linus that it was the `Right Thing'.

    The softnet stuff is, in my mind, too radical a change for a feature freeze, but if it's really as good as people say then it might be worth it. I'm sure it will push the stable release back a month or so.

    The most exciting new feature for me is the Logical Volume Manager included in 2.3.47. I've spent a lot of time administering AIX systems and the LVM is a Godsend for the harried system administrator. I don't know yet what the Linux LVM can do, but on AIX you can expand volumes while the system is running. I've heard that on HP you can shrink volumes as well. Even if the Linux LVM doesn't have all the bells and whistles, you can bet they will appear quickly now that the feature is in the mainstream kernel.

    It looks like 2.4 will be a really nice release all-around. Not a lot of radical changes, but lots of performance improvements and useful little things.


  • Possibly a good idea would be to put all software/kernel/etc releases/updates/etc under a common topic so that those who don't think they belong here on slashdot don't have to see them (ie can turn them off in their user prefs.

    Just a thought.

    Mike
  • Since I didn't know what devfs was, I looked it up. [csiro.au]

    It stands for Device File System. It seeks to make the naming of devices more like the naming of files, so that users no longer need to create a link to the device.

    Apparently this feature has been in new kernels since kernel .46.

    There is some concern that it creates unneccesary overhead. However, users and authors of device drivers don't need to utilize or even know about this feature if they don't want to.

  • You said it! That's exactly how I feel. It seems like if we followed these guys advice, everything would be in a slashbox and there would be no more stories but for Katz posts... But did they know that they can filter out storys that they don't want to see? I don't know how that's news to anyone here, but all you gotta do is look at the preferences page and there you go! People should lighten up around here...

    --We are among you...
  • I think, the whiners are really complaining about it, because
    it's a point release, if it were a major thing, then I don't
    see how or why there would be a problem.
    If it's intended for the developers, they don't need it here,
    they're developers.. they generally know about this stuff
    (before slashdot/freshmeat does).

    But then the idea of a software section on slashdot is very cool,
    just as long as it doesn't end up as freshmeat did..

    I would still want to hear about major 'stuff' on the main page though :-)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion



  • > If you do not like Slashdot don't visit
    > Slashdot...


    Possibly.


    Or, possibly, if CmdrTaco ignores the legitimate complaints of his readers -- he will lose them.



    > Clue... CmdrTaco wasn't making a Bevis and
    > Butthead comment and short attention span
    > brainfart posts like that ARE off topic..


    Agreed.


    So why did CmdrTaco post it, then?
    ------------------------------------------
    "The Internet interprets censorship
    as damage, and routes around it."

  • People yell "MICROSHAFT SUCKS!@)#(@!", because of their reputation.
    People know the end product is going to suck, so why don't they just release it already?

    Plus, Linux releases are released closer to the date it was intended than MS does, (as far as I know), and it actually shows that they were working out the bugs. (ie, it's stable).

  • Heaven forbid they *revolve* the stories and just show the 10 most recent....

    They do, crackhead. If more stories are posted in a day than are meant to fit on the front page, they go over in the "Older Stuff" Slashbox. Duh.

    The rest of your post was fine, though. Stock watching indeed.

    I am the Lord.

  • I've heard that on HP you can shrink volumes as well.

    Sure you can. HP LVM can resize volumes if they are unmounted. You just have to remember that the volume and the volume container are two seperate entities, and you can easily truncate a volume and corrupt the data inside if you resize things out of sequence.

  • I WANT to see this stuff posted.

    Yeah. Me too. I love this sort of stuff! But what happened to the Kernel 2.3.47 announcement? We haven't had a new kernel release article for over a week goddammit!
  • You are welcome to build your own site, perhaps that one will be better...

    *I* like Freshmeat, and Slashdot. I don't think it's necessary to rebuild or replace either.

  • The PCMCIA intergration is not as easy as it sounds.
    First, you still need the userland tools: cardmgr, cardctl etc...
    These do not ship with the kernel. Thus you still need to get the card services package from pcmcia.sourceforge.org
    Second, for 2.3.x kernels you need get the devel snapshots of the cs package. (found on the pcmcia-cs page)
    Once you have that, everything you be working nicely.
    I was also a bit confused by 'PCMCIA in the Kernel', but a bit of playing showed what it really ment.

    see ya
  • nope, you can release as often as you want...I released mine 3 times in one week, and all they did was edit the little blurb I put up for changes to make it a little shorter..
  • The fact it's out now doesn't mean it's any less late.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine [nmsu.edu].
  • From CEL:

    • [ 2.3.36 ] - Released 04-Jan-00 14:00 (patch [bz2]) (source [bz2])

      Notes: I'm not dead, just slow.

    Seems reasonable enough to me.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine [nmsu.edu].
  • That's the way :-)
    Everything is Microsoft's fault, they're the distruntled readers, who want a section for Linux.

    So this is how all the sections came to be? Big corporations hiring people to post on slashdot, about how there should be another section for subject X?
    Never would have guessed :-)

    Not that I'd put it past Microsoft...
  • h, but there's the difference... Microsoft isn't "working out the bugs"
  • Be careful when you play around with the new kernels and PCMCIA/APM. Those two don't like each other (yet). If you would like to avoid troubles: Never change a running system...
  • If you follow the recent discussions on linuxl-kernel, you'll probably know this already, but to those of you who don't, the 2.3.4[2+] have some performance problems due to imbalances of some of the new modifications made to the system. The pipe performance has shrunk considerably, and only today was a possible optimization fix posted by Martin Schenk on the list. Anyway, just thought it was important to point out that 2.3.x is not nearly done yet, there are lots of problems to work out.
  • Xfree doesn't require Linux, but DRI requires a small kernel driver that is supposedly easily portable to different Unicies.

  • Re:Question about the feature freeze (Score:3)

    by tao ( 10867 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @08:21AM (#1243213) Homepage

    The feature-freeze effectively means that Linus won't accept anything completely new and unproven into the kernel (unless it's a new platform or just a driver for something; these do not harm the stability of the rest of the system in any major way), not that no new features will go in. And sometimes even new code HAS to go in; to solve unexpected problems and to add support that simply can't wait. The name is a bit deceiving, I must admit. But DevFS and the crypto-patches have both been tested extensively for a long time by others. The journaled file systems will probably not make their ways into the kernel; mainly because they don't work together with the RAID-system in a nice way. Fixing this is a question for the v2.5 development series.

    Oh, this release introduced another platform, for those of you that are interested; Mips64. It's time to bring forth your long forgotten SGI Origin...

    If you want a horizon to judge anything with, wait for the code-freeze. It should be a signal that a new kernel is upcoming within the month.

    Oh, and those of you who wondered: the talk that v2.4 was supposed to be released at the same time as Win2K is simply bs; Linus hasn't said anything such at all. He's smarter than that. What Linus has said, is that he'll release v2.4 when he consider it to be finished and ready to be released, not a day sooner.

  • These messages are OFFTOPIC. Whoever moderates this stuff up should go back and read the moderation guidelines. People who don't like these stories can filter them out. Everyone else should be able to read the comments without "Slashdot is/is_not/should_be freshmeat!!" crap clogging everything up.
  • is there a bug in the kernel? xfstt(a true type font for X) would only run once when i try the development kernel. With 2.2.14 it works as hell. anyone having the same problem? or is it just me?
  • Uhm, the date is not getting moved back as there has not been a date specified... 2.4 will be released when 2.3 is stable and totally functional. there is still quite a bit to be done and there are many bugs reported each day. It will probably still be a little while before 2.4 pops up. Course this is all covered on the lkml. People might want to actually figure out whats happening in kernel development instead of asking countless questions that are already answered.

  • New kernels are coming out weekly/biweekly, so where is the news in that?

    True, hardcore nerds already got the new kernels before it is announced at ./, so who would found it interesting enough to put it on ./, except wannabees that is...

    Bjarne, who wonders when small changes to CVS's starts to be announced at ./....

  • I'm sorry to interrupt your troll fest, and I guess I'll be moderated down for not mentioning grits or statues, but ..

    The compile of 2.3.48 fails with ac97_codec.c:103: warning: `mixer_defaults' defined but not used

    I patched it up from 2.3.46. Any idea what if could be? I don't want to bother the l-k list if it's a trivial problem.

  • Linux 2.2 Service Pack 14 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Patches are released for Linux daily, yet OS zealots claim this is a good thing, as it demonstrates the Linux developers' commitment to improving the code.

    When a certain Redmond, WA-based company releases a patch (bugfix, Service Pack, whatever), this shows how buggy their product is.

    Open Source, closed minds. We are Slashdot.

  • I pasted the wrong line. It failed with

    In file included from ac97_codec.c:31:
    /home/nico/src/linux/include/lin ux/ac97_codec.h:135: parse error before `u16'

    ... and dozens of lines of error.

  • No, you don't get it. Stories about Freshmeat and stories that are the same as on Freshmeat are not equivalent. I don't see myself as a Freshmeat whiner, but new unstable versions of Linux really don't belong here IMHO. If you care about the unstable series, you'll know about new versions anyway.

    Gergo

  • Re:Raid 0.90 status? (Score:3)

    by Oestergaard ( 3005 ) on Sunday February 27, 2000 @09:49AM (#1243228) Homepage
    RAID 0.90 is in the process of being merged.

    Linear and RAID-0 should compile and work (I've only tried RAID-0 myself, on 2.3.47). There was a little hazzle with autodetection/boot support, but other than that, it worked.

    The other RAID levels should be on their way.

    Oh, and the HOWTO should be on it's way into the LDP now.
  • Interesting that a large proportion of the posts on this thread are addressed to the issue of whether the article should have been posted or not. Does no one have any comments on the article itself?

  • Re:Linux 2.2 Service Pack 14 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do you really want a standstill at 2.2 (not release any new drivers and corrections to that drivers after 2.2.0 was released.) I think no one complains about microsoft releasing service packs. But about service packs breaking system consistancy and service packs which have to be reinstalled after every bigger software installation... (Basically why didn't they relase Windows NT 4.01, 4.02...4.06)
  • on my HPUX box (11.00 - 800 series server A9000 - 180Mhz) i can allocate volumes as fixed size or variable (min and max - it seems to shrink and grow automatically) using the SAM tool...but can it resize a fixed volume ? if so, how ?
  • All you people keep bitching that the Slashdot folks shouldn't post software announcements. How about you all stop sending the software announcements in to them? They only post what we send to them, so if you all stop sending these in, they won't get posted.
  • Not exactly. Devices already look like files (thats part of the whole UNIX thing that we all know and love). This is basically a virtual filesystem (kind of like /proc) that gets mounted on /dev that has all the device files for the devices in your system in it and no more. This means no more mknoding when you add a new device to your system and no more random cruft in /dev (like hdg27) to confuse programs. There was some concern a long time ago about performance but the fact that the device lookup table is smaller and the fact that the device files no longer have anything on the harddrive to represent them (ie no hard drive lookup to find the major and minor num) more than makes up for the dynamic creation of the devices. Only problem I had heard of was maintaining the permissions on the devices after a reboot (since theres nothing written to disk there's nothing preserved), and someone said this was going to be done with a userspace daemon. But oh well. There was also bitching about straying from the unix standards, but personally I think this is outdoing the unix standard and is a feature that could push linux past the status of being a "unix-like os". Ok I've babled enough.
  • The most exciting new feature for me is the Logical Volume Manager included in 2.3.47. I've spent a lot of time administering AIX systems and the LVM is a Godsend for the harried system administrator. I don't know yet what the Linux LVM can do, but on AIX you can expand volumes while the system is running. I've heard that on HP you can shrink volumes as well. Even if the Linux LVM doesn't have all the bells and whistles, you can bet they will appear quickly now that the feature is in the mainstream kernel.

    Yes but will it include support for large files (> 2 GB) on 32 bit machines? I've asked this before but have yet to get an absolutely definitive response :(

  • Isn't the official name of PCMCIA PC Card for a long time already?
  • You called?
  • It's annoying the way Taco says "if you don't know where to get it, then I'm not telling you". How does anyone know if no-one tells them? Everyone's got to start somewhere.

    I'd say it was a very Microsoft-esque phrase, except that would probably get me instant "flamebait" moderation :)

  • I see your point about stories about Freshmeat and stories the same as on Freshmeat not being the same. However, I still think that it's OK for something like this to be on Slashdot, mostly b/c it can't be assumed that people who read Slashdot read any other site.




    --
  • I think the main problem is that recently Slashdot has been announcing alpha versions of software (gnome, xfree, kernel). Xfree86 might be fine, since it's so close to a release, but especially the 2.3 of the kernel can be a bit flaky at times. Now that slashdot is so widely read, it can lead to a lot of people trying out alpha software without realizing what they're doing. This can be bad for the reputation that this community has of releasing quality software. And it can lead to too many 'newbie' questions when there is no reason this to happen yet.

    Anyway, my point is that it is ok if we see announcements like 'kernel 2.2.xx is out', or 'gnome 1.2 is out', but 2.3.xx can cause trouble.
  • Are you sure he didn't say there would only be about 20 revisions to 2.2 instead? I'm just saying, did you look at this fresh before posting your comment? That's all...
  • Torvalds begins work on Linux 2.3.48.9.2.7.43, possibly
    Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday February 27, @10:36AM
    from the rob-sucks-tarballs dept
    Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, accidentally hit his keyboard with his elbow today. We have yet to receive confirmation that the resulting code will be be included in the next development kernel, but we can never be too sure. Here is the code in full:
    kjnlkmf ,m58u45knm ,9804
    8v793oy5n9*(&V(*N&

    This won't compile under GCC, so we can only assume the code is pretty experimental. Look for the tarballs to be released this evening.

    Torvalds comments, "What? Oh, yeah, I accidentally hit my keyboard with my elbow when I reached to get my tea. What? Is it part of the new kernel? You're kidding, right?"

    We'll update the article as soon as we get more information. The Linux world hasn't been in such frenzied anticipation since the release of kernel 2.3.48.9.2.7.42, which was about ten minutes ago.


    Interview: Alan Cox farted
    Posted by Hemos on Sunday February 27, @10:34AM
    from the whats-that-smell dept
    Linux guru and hacker-extrodinaire Alan Cox farted earlier today. What do you think this says about the future of Linux development? Alan's ass will respond to the highest moderated posts later this week.


    ESR and JonKatz to participate in "Zealot Deathmatch"
    Posted by Roblimo on Sunday February 27, @10:33AM
    from the die-bitch-die dept
    Open source proponent Eric S. Raymond and Slashdot nutcase JonKatz are reportedly organizing a "Zealot Arena Deathmatch" to raise money for the Apache Software Foundation. The fight is expected to be a tough one, because while Katz is genuinely insane, ESR has the power of girly, elfish looks. A spokesman from Apache says that, "while we don't encourage violence, we'll do anything for money."


    VA Linux aquired by Klingons, Rob bows down to new alien masters
    Posted by emmett on Sunday February 27, @10:32AM
    from the star-shit-enterprise dept
    VA Linux Systems, owner of Andover.net, owner of Slashdot.org, owner of Rob's ass, was officially aquired by the Klingon Empire earlier this morning. The Klingons, who have recently taken over Kellogs, GM, and Disney, are looking forward to absorbing more major corporations in the near future. The US Government is discussing investigating the Klingons for holding a monopoly over "every aspect of our lives", to which the Klingons responded, "Puny human scum! I will crush you like a bug and feast upon your steaming entrails." Finally, some competition for Microsoft!


    Red Hat and VA stock at all time high!
    Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday February 27, @10:31AM
    from the i-am-so-rich dept
    Dude, have you heard the market reports today? I am so fucking rich! If this keeps up, I'll be able to stop doing this Slashdot crap! Hell yeah!

    I am the Lord.

  • ... REALLY sucks ... AND I can't use my PnP modem all the sudden.

    That's all I know.
  • how? moderators all seem to be the biggest idiots of us all
  • I've used 2.3.41 and 2.3.47.

    When I first got usb support working in 2.3.41 I had to update my motherboard bios so that it would assign an irq to usb (worked in winbloze without). To get 2.3.47 to compile I had to change a line near the end of mtrr.c from ifdev to ifdef.

    Other then these two small things I have had absolutely no other problems. My usb mouse/keyboard are both working great and I even have the usb mouse mixed with the ps/2 mouse so either can control things simultaneously and wheels on both work.

    -idealego

  • "> You CAN do something about it.

    No, I cannot.

    Neither can you.

    Neither can a Posters' Liberation Army.

    You see, the solution to Slashdot's moderation and troll problems is both, at once, simple and impossible: prevent illiterate, ignorant trolls from posting articles -- i.e. CmdrTaco, Jon Katz, Hemos, etc.

    They set the tone.

    That tone, in addition to being ignorant and illiterate, is adolescent. It therefore attracts and encourages the same.

    The ridiculously baroque moderation system in place here is absurd. It is only necessary because the posters most in need of moderation are the ones posting articles."

    Well you are entirely wrong. You CAN do something about it. Dont read Slashdot. If it gets yer panties in such a bundle pal, why the hell do you continue to make the kind of postings you say you dislike, ie ignorant, illiterate, and adolescent. Stop wasting my time with your idiotic postings.
  • Yeah, you know what: I expected it to be moderated down. Isn't that crazy? Now I guess that tells you what slashdot is all about: mental masturbation about free software, but not actually working on it.
  • Of course I patched it to 2.3.47 first ... the patch applied cleanly. Thank you for assuming my stupidity ...
  • These are normal ext2fs filesystems.. Even despite the fact that e2fsck isn't fully parellelizing the checks, I have clocked a full bootup at 7 minutes.

    Among the other partitians, I have a 23, 16, and 20gb partitians. (on seperate drives). I have about 75gb of disk space total, with 46gb of that currently in use (723484 files/directories). My trick is twofold:

    First, the default inode allocation is a bit insane.. Inodes are 128 bytes each and there's one inode for every 4kb of diskspace. So for every 10gb of disk, the default format uses 320mb of inodes, capable of storing over 2.5 million files! And e2fsck has to scan each and every byte in each and every one of these inodes. So why not drop that to 1/4, or one inode for every 16kb? Then for every 10gb of diskspace e2fsck only has to scan 625,000 inodes or 80mb worth. Can you say 4 times faster? :)

    Some might claim that they could run out of inodes with an allocation that small? Unless the server has lots of small files (mail, news, proxy), its highly unlikely that you'll have even 500,000 files on the whole thing. You can get this info very quickly by using 'tune2fs -l /dev/foo'.

    If you're like me and you notice that you're using only 1/8 or even 1/15 the total number of inodes, and you don't the file charactaristics [number of files, directories, average size, ...] that you're going to store on that partitian to change radically. Then get rid of 3/4 of them and speed up the fsck.

    In my case, I've got a total of 4.2 million inodes, with only 700k used, had I formatted normally, I would have had around 19 million. (multiply by 128 bytes/inode to see how much storage they need, and how many hundreds of megabytes e2fsck would need to scan.) I also tuned my partitians seperately. Based on how they were currently being used and on the risk of that changing radically. (For instance, /tmp has the stock 4kb/inode.. I never know if I'll suddenly stuff lots of small files in there.)

    Ok.. That's trick #1.. The second trick is the default blocksize. Changing this speeds up every filesystem operation, from allocation to fsck to reading to writing to unlinking. This trick does waste more diskspace.

    Normally, ext2fs allocates storage in 1kb blocks. But changing that to 2kb has many advantages. First, a file requires only half the number of drive transactions, which will improve speed. Second, since all allocations are now done in 2kb sizes, I can allocate (and remove) twice as fast. Finally, due to the subtletly in I, II, III blocks that form the allocation BTREE, (These are diskblocks which point to diskblocks that point to diskblocks containing data.) Having twice the size of allocation means that the btree has twice the fanout AND each leaf holds twice the data. I'm not sure how much impact this factor has on speed.

    For those of you who don't know how ext2fs inodes are layed out.. They're actually curious.. The inode itself points to the first 12 blocks of the file directly (normally the first 12*1024). Then it points to an I block that contains pointers to the next blocks in the file. (normally, the next 1024/4 = 256 blocks, or 256kb). Then there's the II block, which contains pointers to I blocks. Finally, there's the III block that contains pointers to II blocks. You don't need an IIII block because with only an III block, you can handle files up to about 16tb, which is larger than the maximum possible filesystem size.

    Now, the reason to get into this big long explanation is to make a fascinating point about diskspace usage.. If you have a blocksize of 1kb, then files less than 12kb in size don't require any I blocks. While if you have a blocksize of 2kb, files less than 24kb in size don't require any I blocks.

    So, if your filesystem has files between 12kb and 24kb in size, if you compare the disk usage between a filesystem of 1kb blocksize and 2kb blocksize, The worst you could do is waste an extra kilobyte in the last block, but that wasted diskblock is made up for the fact that you don't have an I block. :)

    And that's the worst you could do. In fact if you have luck, you can actually come out pretty far ahead! Formatting with a blocksize of 2kb may actually waste LESS space AND require fewer seeks! :)

    Now combine this with the tidbit that the average file tends to be around 13kb. If the majority of the files on the partitian are between 12 and 24kb in size, you can't lose with this!

    As files get bigger than 24kb, the relative size of wasted space in the last block becomes much less relevant, (for files around 24kb, the maximum percentage of wasted space is 2kb/24kb ~~ 8%. For 128kb, its 2kb/128kb ~~ 1.6%) So a 2kb blocksize has a decreasing affect on wasted space, while at the same time increasing the bandwidth and speed of handling large files. So at files >24kb in size, you start winning, for files >1mb, you start winning a whole lot.

    If the partitian is only intended for very large files, (Ones where any wasted space in the last block is irrelevant with respect to the total size.), then a 4kb blocksize makes perfect sense. I don't suggest this idea too strongly because its not as applicable as a 2kb blocksize.

    Those are just a few characteristics of ext2fs with regard to blocksize. There's no magic bullet for speeding up ext2fs, but depending on how the filesystem is used, you can frequently speed it up. Look at your drive, the average file size, and the filesize distribution. ``find /foo -size +12k -size -24k | wc ; find /foo | wc ; find /foo -size +24k | wc ; find /foo -size +128k''. Then decide if changing the blocksize makes sense.

    For my personal system, the overhead of increasing the blocksize to 2kb is around 3-7%, 3% in most places and 7% where there tend to be many small files (/home/http).

    Closing remarks:

    If you use both tricks together, they almost cancel themselves out. The overhead of having 1 inode for every 4kb is 128b/4kb, or about 3%, if you format with 16kb/inode, the overhead drops to .75%. You save 2.25%. And as it just so happens, the overhead of the bigger blocksize is loss of about 3%. So overall, you break even; within one or two percent of the origional disk usage. This is how I formatted most of my system.

    And if you actually need millions of 4kb files, well, unjourneled ext2fs is not the filesystem I would reccomend.

    So, a quick summary. My system takes 7 minutes to boot. It has 723484 used inodes, out of a total of 4.2 million inodes. I have 46gb of drivespace used, out of a total of 75gb. A boot with a full filesystem check takes 7 minutes and requires reading about 500mb worth of inodes. A boot without a full fsck takes one minute (about 20 seconds of that just mounting).

    Had I formatted it normally, I would have saved 500-1500mb (1-3%) of drivespace, had 18 million inodes. Fsck times would probably take 4x-8x as long and requrie reading about 2.3gb worth of inodes.

    I considered the trade well worth it for me, and I suspect that it would be well-worth it to many other people. (Excluding those who's boxes have multi-year uptimes. :)

    [PS: I may turn this into a mini-faq.]

  • The difference is: Linux is a volunteer effort, Microsoft makes billions from their software.

    If you are a paying customer and don't get what you have been promised, you can complain. If you get free software and don't get what you have been promised, you can volunteer.

  • Read this [cnet.com].
    Look in the middle of the page. He said he would release 2.4 pre as soon as he got home. I guess he didn't go home yet ;)
    Actually I would rather see more development than an unstable release, but it would be good to get a new approximate time for the 2.4pre from linus. Maybe March, April, RSN.. etc
  • Yes but will it include support for large files (> 2 GB) on 32 bit machines?

    Yes! The support has been there for a couple of months now.

  • Doesn't bother me a bit, because after all, if
    you're 'starting' somewhere, that somewhere should
    not be with development kernels. Besides that,
    there are plenty of references to kernel.org here
    and elsewhere, so it's not like anyone is actually
    hiding anything, Rob was just quipping and making
    a change of phrasing. (He usually says something
    like 'you can get it from the usual places' with
    usual places being a link to somewhere, or
    whatever.) So... chill. Or read linux.com instead.
    --Parity
  • That doesn't discard my discussion on block size..

    And maybe.. The thing is that I REALLY don't want to have drive corruption. I don't mind it it blows up a drive, I've got my data duplicated between drives.. What will destroy me is if I get corruption. I'll use ext2 until about 3 months after a newer filesystem becomes the 'standard' in redhat or debian or some other major distribution.
  • With respect, it sounds like you don't have much of a clue about development processes.

    Microsoft probably do a new internal build of their current OS-in-development every day with loads of broken features. You don't get to see this unless you are a Microsoft employee.

    The difference in the Open Source model is that everyone gets to see these incremental releases. You are free to test them out, improve them or make constructive criticism if you have the skills and inclination to do so. There will undoubtably be bugs, as there are in every single large software prooject during development.

    Nobody in their right minds would use a patched development release to run a production system and expect it to run flawlessly. Hence the "development kernel" numbering system. But lots of people are interested in these releases, either because they are actively interested in making them better or just like having the latest and greatest features to hack around with.

    It's much more sensible to compare NT service packs to stable kernel releases, but even then the analogy isn't perfect.

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