Linux 2.4.18 Released 391
Kourino writes: "Marcelo
announced the release of 2.4.18 a couple hours ago after 4 release candidates, but the tree marked 2.4.18 on kernel.org is
missing the -rc4 patch that finally made the kernel releasable. Basically, what's marked as 2.4.18 is really -rc3, and what's marked as -rc4 is what should have become 2.4.18. According to Marcelo on #kernelnewbies, most users won't be affected, but people on SPARC systems should definitely grab 2.4.18-rc4. Your best bet is probably just to get 2.4.17 and patch to 2.4.18-rc4. Seems 2.4 is destined to be an "interesting" release branch ^_^; For the new release, head over to your favorite kernel.org mirror. (Marcelo will set things straight in 2.4.19-pre1.)"
Re:this is an enterprise ready os? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sience this patch seems mostly for the Sparc. (Score:2, Insightful)
Allow me (Score:0, Insightful)
Thanks, now that I've done that, I expect everyone else to show a little restraint and not clutter the board with your same old whiny bullshit. If you must post to get self-validation, try making up a story or something.
Version numbers. (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow. Now that's professionalism, eh? Good thing that this whole Open Source badge makes it all okay.
Would the fifteen second delay to rename a couple files before release really have killed anyone?
--saint
I can't trust this release... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've had enough kernel problems in the past. The degree of uncertainty presented around this latest Kernel doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence.
Think I'll hold off for a while, thanks.
Re:this is an enterprise ready os? (Score:4, Insightful)
Boy, everyone sure loves to jump on the "2.4.x sucks" bandwagon. Sure, there were some issues in the past, but I would like to know how many people reading slashdot right now are really seeing all of these problems.
90% of you who got burned and will "go back to 2.2.x" were probably being stupid and tried it on a production server and got properly burned.
Test your shit before you deploy, if you're not doing that then you're an idiot.
How about a new Slashdot feature. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Version numbers. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. What makes it OK is that the fix is out within 24 hours, that even 2.4.18-rc3 is very usable, and that people who run anything on Linux shouldn't be upgrading to a kernel that has just been released, even in the "stable" series.
Microsoft, just to pick one commercial example, releases a new version of Windows once every few years, and major service packs fairly infrequently. They also invest hundreds of millions of dollars in each release. And, you pay hundreds of dollars for Microsoft's software. That's what makes it not OK when Microsoft breaks a kernel release and users end up being stuck with it for months. And Microsoft releases packages with major flaws constantly, much bigger flaws than a forgotten rc4 patch.
Release frequency, release engineering thoughts. (Score:4, Insightful)
What is an ideal release frequency for one point in this space, is not at another.
At one point I worked at a DOS extender company (Rational Systems, not related to Rational of California), and we released the software every week. The system was small, the team was small, the customers were very sophisticated, and the value of adding new features was very high. We were praised for being responsive. Three years later, the software was much bigger, the release cycle was down to 2 times a year, and the value of not adding new bugs to the old features was very high. We still got good marks for technical support.
Unlike most commercial software, it's hard to point at revenue streams for Linux that justify the midlife software development expenses like full-time, paid-for, this-isn't-fun-but-it-has-to-get-done release engineering. Although there is a large virtual software team for this OS, I strongly suspect that there is less infrastructural support than you get with old fashioned, iron vendor supported systems like Solaris, HP-UX, et al. TANSTAAFL, folks.
Don't get me wrong, I use Linux daily, my servers run on it, and I depend on a variety of other open source software (particularly Python!). I even buy RedHat/KRUD releases just so that some value flows back into the release process from a happy recipient. But I sometimes feel like holding my breath while installing that next kernel release!
TANSTAAFL -- There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Thanks, RAH, wherever you are!
Why can't they fix it now? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, these people make operating systems, right?
Re:2.4.18 IS OK? (Score:1, Insightful)
--- linux-2.4.18/fs/binfmt_elf.c.orig Mon Feb 25 14:56:59 2002
+++ linux-2.4.18/fs/binfmt_elf.c Mon Feb 25 14:57:17 2002
@@ -564,6 +564,9 @@
interpreter_type = INTERPRETER_ELF;
}
+ } else {
+
+ SET_PERSONALITY(elf_ex, ibcs2_interpreter);
}
VIA and Cyrix III must have rc-4 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Linux Kernel 2.4.18 Changelog (Score:3, Insightful)
IT'S CALLED KNOWLEDGE. It's nice to be able to read a quick reply that tells me w/o going to an archive whether or not I am going to use the kernel on the servers. Especially when the following link is omitted from the article.
Kernel 2.4.18 Changlog [kernel.org]
Re:What a silly thing to do (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:2.4.19-pre1 is out now. (Score:2, Insightful)
We should also note the time that has gone past between 2.4.17 and 2.4.18 - more than two whole months. This is Marcelo's first real own kernel in my opinion. 2.4.16 was a bug fix for 2.4.15 - 2.4.17 came out only a few weeks afterwards, but this baby really had time to mature.
This is also why I don't mind reading this (commenting on all the "This is not freshmeat" discussions) on slashdot. This is a stable kernel, the first for a long time. It is not like in the times when a new "stable" kernel came out like every other day and people got annoyed.
I have 2.4.18-rc4 running for almost 9 hours now (basically since it came out) with setiathome, dnetc, tftpd, nfs, smbd, cups, pppoe, bind9, dhcpd3, tftpd (for remote booting clients) using huge reiserfs partitions and I like what I see. It is just my busybox DSL router, firewall and file server, so not really a production system, but it is in a server case, running a dual pentium II so hardware that while not fully up to date resembles that of production servers in medium sized companies. I don't normally pull a new kernel everytime one comes out, but I suddenly needed NFS support which I didn't have compiled in before, so I decided to upgrade to either
Re:2.4.19-pre1 is out now. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or you could simply use the current stable kernel that's running on your machine right now.
My production machines are all still on 2.4.5, perhaps the most stable of the 2.4 series. (In my experience.)
Re:amd cache coherency (Score:4, Insightful)
But I'm still scared over 2.4.18 missing the -rc4 patch, and both 2.4.18 and 2.4.19-pre1 are fresh. I'm not going to compile it even on my own system until 2.4.19 is released.
Oh Alan, where are you...
Support for announcing new kernels (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many people bitching about such pointless dribble; 2.4 sucks, BSD owns Linux, stop posting these kernel releases.(Despite the fact that it's clearly geek news, and being posted on a geek news site) And then we add capability to exclude topics from your slashdot homepage, and people still bitch.
This is a tech news site, Linux kernels are a perfectly viable news item. 2.4 does not suck. If you think it does, move on to something else. Ignore the topics. Stop ripping up people doing a perfectly good job.
Re:Why can't they fix it now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Version numbers. (Score:4, Insightful)
Open Source means that such bonehead blunders get fixed quickly and efficiently. In the meantime, this is the stable branch of the poster boy for Open Source. This raw egg everywhere certainly demonstrates the openness, but it doesn't do jack to demonstrate any professionalism.
Of course, nothing in life is perfect. But the whole 2.4 branch has been plagued by crap like this from day one. Frankly, Linux is starting to get a reputation, and it's not a pretty one.
Re:Just give me a kernel that turns off my compute (Score:2, Insightful)