Linux Kernel 2.6.0-test10 Released

antrix angler writes "Linus Torvalds released the 2.6.0-test10 Linux kernel today, tentatively calling it the "stoned beaver" release. Linus plans to hand the kernel over to Andrew Morton in a few weeks, and then it will be up to Andrew to decide when we see the final 2.6.0 stable kernel. Download it from a mirror."

problems in test9

[cft]

i had some serious problems with my usb mouse in test9 (while it worked in test4 and before), and i don't see any mouse related fixes in the ChangeLog, so for now I guess usb mouse users should stick with older releases.

i really hope this gets fixed before 2.6.0, especially since it worked before..

Re:problems in test9

[crimsun]

Hmm...it's a tad bit more complicated. Some of the possible issues are apic related. If you're the user of a VIA chipset, this particularly is the case. I append "noapic" to the kernel cmdline to use my USB mouse.

Re:problems in test9

[arth1]

Hmm...it's a tad bit more complicated. Some of the possible issues are apic related. If you're the user of a VIA chipset, this particularly is the case. I append "noapic" to the kernel cmdline to use my USB mouse.

It doesn't seem to be 2.6-specific -- I see the same problems with 2.4.20 and 2.4.21, where USB, serial and pseudo-serial works erratic at best if apic is enabled. For a single-CPU system, you might as well compile without SMP, and for a SMP system, it apparently helps to compile with CONFIG_X86_IO_APIC commented out.

Regards,
--
*Art

APIC

[Second_Derivative]

A new interrupt controller dreamed up by Intel to enable multiprocessing. It seems to cause a disproportionate amount of problems under Linux (a dedicated server I run would crash something like every 4 hours before I enabled noapic)

Unless you've got more than one CPU, it's more trouble than it's worth. The old 'legacy' 8259 interrupt controller (or the interface your system chipset supplies that emulates it anyway) works just fine for single-CPU applications.

What about CPU's with Hyperthreading?

[glrotate]

Is APIC needed?

Yes, unless...

[Ayanami Rei]

you want only one of the two threading ports to respond to hardware events. Not a good idea, it's best to spread that out... especially since a thread could starve the other on scarce shared processor resources on the PIV

Re:problems in test9

[descentr]

Just as an update to my earlier anonymous post, I compiled test10 and everything is working fine. Though I did compile without preempt enabled this time, as Linus recommended, so this may have made a difference.

Re:Linux will not go mainstream...

[javahacker]

He was talking about a pre-release test kernel (read ALPHA or maybe BETA release). You expect it to be broken part of the time. If you aren't ready to deal with that, you wait for a the final release. A distribution, as you pointed out, is a different thing.

I haven't had any trouble with my USB mouse or keyboard through the whole 2.6.0-test series. A difference in chip sets is probably to blame, and they will fix it if he works with them.

hey...

[Ann Elk]

...nice beaver!

Nice Beaver [Was: Re: hey...]

[fire-eyes]

...nice beaver!

Why thank you, I just had it stuffed.

OT

[bstadil]

I just had it stuffed. [garnersclassics.com]

You should always leave a link allowing the uninitiated to learn

FYI, I saw Naked Gun on ABC here a few years ago and they had removed that comment by Jane. What is the point of showing a movie like that and then censor out the jokes?

Works For Me(TM)

[fire-eyes]

It works for me. Upgraded from 2.6.0-test9-mm5.

This may become the final 2.6.0 :)

Rock on, Linus and team.

Re:Works For Me(TM)

[Master Controll Prog]

for anyone thinking of posting this type of post, perhaps this information would be a little more useful if you indicated the particulars of your system. the fact that this kernel "works" for a particular slashdot reader is not much to go on, by its self.

BitTorrent

[teofilo]

Here [the-geek.org]

Let's share our bandwidht!!

Re:BitTorrent (md5)

[teofilo]

BTW, I'm not faking Linus, here [kernel.org] is the signature :)

Honest Question

[twistedcubic]

Is 2.6 really noticably faster than 2.4 for regular desktop use (X responsiveness, etc...)?

Re:Honest Question

[fire-eyes]

Is 2.6 really noticably faster than 2.4 for regular desktop use (X responsiveness, etc...)?

Yes, it definately is.

Note that Linus says preemption should be turned off for now, there are odd problems.

Re:Honest Question

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Preemption is one of those things thats great under ideal circumstances, but in something less it hurts more than it helps. Preemption, for anyone that doesnt know, allows one task to jump to the top of the runqueue whenever it needs to run anything if it has a higher priority than everything else. This works great until you run something like SoulSeek or Bittorrent(both wxwindows python apps..) which end up with a much higher priority than they deserve. This then preempts all of your other tasks making your system highly unresponsive.

Re:Honest Question

[PugMajere]

Preemption, as you describe it, has been there in every Linux kernel.

Preemption, as Linus referred to it in the release announcement, is Kernel preemption.

I.e, the kernel itself can be preempted. This has improved consistency for things such as xmms.

The problems you complain about are more likely the result of the new scheduler. Tell me, what nice level does X run at on your system? If it's -10, that's why your responsiveness sucks. Stop X from being reniced to -10 from 0 and you'll find that everything performs much smoother. The new scheduler does a much better job of actually respecting priorities, and as such doesn't need adjustements such as "nice" for everyday things such as running an X server.

Re:Honest Question

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Thanks for that tip about renicing the X server. It made a huge improvement for me (using 2.6.0-test9).

For reference here's how I fixed this, on my Debian machine: I edited /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config and removed completely the line which sets nice_value.

If you don't want to restart your X server to make the change have effect, then you can instead do:

renice 0 PID

where PID is the process ID of the X server.

Rich.

Re:Honest Question

[PugMajere]

There's a better way: dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

Err, I think that's right. Check the post-halloween document if that doesn't ask the right question.

Re:Honest Question

[GammaTau]

For reference here's how I fixed this, on my Debian machine: I edited /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config and removed completely the line which sets nice_value.

But the easiest way to change it is to simply type:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common

...and let debconf allow you to choose the nice value with the normal debconf configuration dialog.

Re:Honest Question

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

The only thing I run at -10 is games, but I have tried those at 0 also. From what I can tell the problem is the app is running with a ~36 priority (as shown by 'top', among other apps) which is much greater than it should be, but I've yet to find a way to correct it.

What are the "odd problems"?

[Hanno]

"Note that Linus says preemption should be turned off for now, there are odd problems."

Comments like these make me shy away from trying the kernel on my home box. Any rough idea what the odd problems are?

Re:Honest Question

[Stween]

No, he said for "maximum stability", it should be turned off.

People who want preemption turned on will turn it on, and will happily live with 99% stability.

Re:Honest Question

[PugMajere]

VM has been modified, mostly with some improved reference counting code (rmap).

The firewall code hasn't been rewritten this time, it's still iptables. Support has been added for using netfilter against a few more things though.

I just realized I'm putting a ton of effort into posting something when I can just link you to the official document: The Post-Halloween Document [codemonkey.org.uk]

Re:Honest Question

[crimsun]

I suppose the real answer is "it depends, but generally yes." I don't use kernel preemptibility, and it sure seems "feels" faster -- which is of course such a rambling description that it's difficult to qualify.

I'll point you to the response I made here:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=5208&off set=29&rows=30 [osnews.com]

(Mine's #29.) Yes, I know it's much more so the combination of XFS and mm than it is just mm. I should amend that comment...

Honest Answer

[abhikhurana]

Well, no it is not noticeably faster than 2.4.22-mm2 (multimedia patch), so in case you are scared to move on to a test kernel, you can try the mm patches for 2.4 (though they themselves are test patches). Theese include Ingo's O1 scheduler which is the biggest improvement in 2.6. But hey, for the sake of the community, why not move on to 2.6. I personally run both on my laptop and both seem to work fine. I had some problems with ACPI on 2.4 but 2.6 fixes that and also hotplug really works in 2.6.

Re:Honest Question

[arth1]

Is 2.6 really noticably faster than 2.4 for regular desktop use (X responsiveness, etc...)?

No, it isn't -- it's actually slower, as it spends more time in the core kernel than the older versions. But it *feels* faster, because it is better at giving time to processes when they need it.

Worst-case scenario: Start two CPU-bound tasks on a single CPU, and measure their performance.
Best-case scenario: Start a huge amount of small tasks with unpredictable CPU needs, but which all in all saturates the bus. You'll see a gain.

My guess is that the old kernel scheduler is a little better for games and single-application server-use, while the new one is much better for normal desktop users or overloaded boxes.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:Honest Question

[anthonyrcalgary]

oh fuck yes

2.4 was completely unacceptable. 2.6 is what allowed me to ditch Windows.

I understand there are patches to 2.4 that can give you most of the same stuff, but I really didn't feel like dealing with that.

Re:Honest Question

[PugMajere]

Assuming you run everything at the default priority (0), the only thing you'll notice is that when you do use the gui, it will be slightly more responsive, due to your cpu-bound application being automatically given a lower priority.

In other words, you probably won't notice any change in behavior.

Re:Honest Question

[kinnell]

If you are only running a single threaded simulation, it shouldn't make any difference. If, however, you are using a GUI a lot at the same time, it may impair the simulation significantly.

Stoned Beaver?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this name confirms Linus's rockstar-like role in the open source world, as it shows he is now addicted to both drugs and sex.

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[iabervon]

The name might, instead, indicate how he got enough time away from his family life to actually release test10.

Since, as you must know, he has a wife and kids. And he is sufficiently absent-minded to forget about the kids, but the wife might be more difficult. (According to a Wired? interview recently)

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[Tin Foil Hat]

And what's wrong with drugs and sex, anyway? I mean I could understand being against sex addiction, but drugs?

Oh wait, that came out all wrong...

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[jd]

Ah, but what if you take several stoned beavers and roll them down a hill...

Udev

[secondsun]

I was just wondering who here has used the new udev device loader as opposed to devfs.

*Note: Udev is a user space program that manages device nodes by interfaceing with the kernels' hotplug functions. Devfs was a different implementation of this running in kernel land. By 2.6.0 devfs will be completly depreciated for udev.

Re:Udev

[crimsun]

First, to answer your question. No, I have not yet used udev. When the semester finally wraps up, I plan on taking a look -- hoping that 2.6.0-final has not been released yet (a nice long "-rc"ish plan sounds best imo). My impression is that there's still a fair amount of configuration to be done, both documentation- and code-wise (of course not forgetting conffiles), so the more eyes looking at it, the better.

I highly recommend reading Greg's OLS paper Re: udev. Go here [theaimsgroup.com] for quick links. ...And in the off-

Re:Udev

[pldms]

These explained a little:

udev presentation (PDF) [osdl.org], Google HTML version [216.239.37.104].

Detailed paper on udev (PDF) [linuxsymposium.org], Google HTML version [216.239.37.104].

devfs works fine for me, but since some people (see second link) want thousands of disks I guess I'm not the target market. I mean ... thousands?

Re:Udev

[silvaran]

I'm running 2.6.0-test10 at this very second, and have been running every test version since test2 except for test8 (screwed up my sound system for some reason). I gave udev and hotplug a try but found hotplug to be straying behind. They had a few notes on their web site about patches for pciutils and usbutils to add something that probed all the devices (especially for coldplugging), but also said that you won't need them for 2.6.x due to the new sysfs filesystem (mkdir /sys; mount none /sys -t sysfs). But then doesn't say anything else about hotplug utility support in 2.6.x. So without a working hotplug, udev is kind of useless (since it interfaces with the hotplug).

ATM I'm using murasaki [dotaster.com] as my hotplug facility, as I've personally had the best luck with it (that's really the only reason), especially on the 2.6 test kernels. I'm also still using devfsd (which will be obsoleted by udev).

This is the extent of my knowledge about new things like udev, etc. in the new kernel. So anyone should feel free to correct any innacuracies, omissions or blatant stupidities :).

- Sil

Re:Udev

[Brian Blessed]

From what I've read, udev is being ushered in because the main devfs maintainer is awol/unpopular.
It is a shame to switch in some ways because udev does not have all the features of devfs.
Makedev is required for udev and device modules aren't auto-loaded when the device is accessed as with devfs.

- Brian

Re:Udev

[iabervon]

The reason that devfs is not yet deprecated in favor of udev yet is that udev depends on the kernel using the new driver model for everything that gets a device. Of course, that's not udev work per se, but it means that, for example, input devices (IIRC) don't yet work quite right with it.

The kernel having explicit knowledge of what it's doing in a uniform format is a new feature in 2.6, and it's not completely universal yet. Once that all works correctly, udev should work perfectly, and it is a better design than devfs, because it puts device naming in userspace, but device numbering comes from the kernel, and the kernel tells userspace what each device actually is. This is how the division of labor is supposed to be: the kernel has internal information, which it maintains, and an API, which it defines, but userspace can use that API to specify policy.

2.6

[rf0]

Well I've been using the 2.6 series for about the last 3 months on my desktop. Not had one crash and its been under heavy load. Definitly shaping up well.

Now if I could just get iptables working right

Rus

Final?

[fstanchina]

Now it's fun to think about it as "the final 2.6.0 stable kernel". I would rather call it the *initial* 2.6.0 stable kernel.

Re:Final?

[TeknoHog]

While you're at it, drop the 'stable' as well. Remember how final and stable the 2.4.0 was?

mem=nopentium option

[olethrosdc]

Hm.. I remember I had used to have stability problems with my nvidia card and the VIA K133 motherboard with an Athlon CPU some time ago, which required to use mem=nopentium as a kernel argument. Do I still have to do this in the newest kernel releases?

Re:mem=nopentium option

[crimsun]

No. This was fixed in 2.4.19 (well, /really/ fixed in .20 since .19 really just disabled it completely) and in 2.5. See this page [minion.de].

I'd Love To Run It.

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

So... is the nVidia 'drivers' going to work with 2.6? What about the hcf modem 'drivers'? I can't see anything or even connect outside localhost on my test of -test9 on this machine. I'm running 2.4.20 on this box because the hcf module doesn't seem to work well with anything higher.

perhaps I need to do more testing, but, 2.6 seems to break a lot of things that are very important for my machine.

Am I alone?

uname -a
Linux aragorn 2.4.20-gentoo-r8 #9 Mon Nov 17 14:59:22 EST 2003 i686 Intel(R) Penti

Re:I'd Love To Run It.

[asv108]

nvidia drivers aready work with 2.6.

Re:I'd Love To Run It.

[Lispy]

http://www.minion.de
They claim to have a working solution. But I wasn't man enough to get it working yet. Maybe I'll give it another shot now that I upgraded to Slack 9.1 wich claims to be 2.6 "ready".

Are there known issues?

cu,
Lispy

/dev/sequencer on emu10k1

[Dimensio]

I got the Nvidia drivers working after very little tooling around, and I'm usually clueless when it comes to high-level configuration like that.

I've had audio problems, specifically with /dev/sequencer support with my emu10k1-driven card. I finally discovered that the only way to make it work was to build the sequencer support in as a module. If I build the sequencer driver into the kernel, it doesn't work (/dev/sequencer gives me no such device any time I try to access it).

Yes, you are alone

[Gothmolly]

Nobody else has a dorky hostname like 'aragorn'.

Re:I'd Love To Run It.

[CJ Hooknose]

So... is the nVidia 'drivers' going to work with 2.6?

The evil binary-only nVidia kernel module works OK with 2.6.0-test9 when you apply the patches found at www.minion.de/nvidia.html [minion.de] to an official nVidia tarball and then build the nVidia module. I've been using it for the last 4 days, no problems running OpenGL-intensive stuff like mupen64.

What about the hcf modem 'drivers'?

Good question. I found the minion.de patches by Googling for "nvidia 2.6 linux", so try the same thing, substituting the na

Re:I'd Love To Run It.

[Anime_Fan]

As already stated, the nvidia drivers already work with Linux. I get good enough framerates in Enemy Territory ;)

You don't even need to apply any patches yourself since you use Gentoo.

Use the following command after symlinking /usr/src/linux-2.6.0-testX to /usr/src/linux:
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge nvidia-kernel

Note that some of the test kernels wouldn't play well with the nvidia drivers (in particular TV-out). My sollution was to play with older test kernels (2.6.0-test2), patched sources (-mm or -lov

Re:I'd Love To Run It.

[caluml]

No, don't turn it off. Moan at the brain dead idiots that run OSs that don't support it. See the notice on www.kernel.org for more info.

Framebuffer

[bruthasj]

is still broken [lkml.org]. Please fix it, so i can see the pretty graphical boots that are floating around now a days. [IBM T30 Laptop ATI Mobility M7 with boot options: vga=0x316 video=radeon:0x177:ypan]

Re:Framebuffer

[srussell]

The fix is a tiny one-liner.

===== drivers/video/radeonfb.c 1.30 vs edited =====
--- 1.30/drivers/video/radeonfb.c Fri Aug 1 01:58:45 2003
+++ edited/drivers/video/radeonfb.c Tue Sep 9 13:18:36 2003
@@ -2090,7 +2090,7 @@

}
/* Update fix */
- info->fix.line_length = rinfo->pitch*64;
+ info->fix.line_length = mode->xres_virtual*(mode->bits_per_pixel/8);
&nbs p; info->fix.visual = rinfo->depth == 8 ? FB_VISUAL_PSEUDOCOLOR : FB_VISUAL_DIRECTCOLOR;

#ifdef CONFIG_BOOTX_TEXT

Note that this patch doesn't apply directly to any of the 2.6 kernels; I just make the change by hand, since it is only one line. I have no idea why Linus isn't including this patch; it has been available for months, and it isn't exactly huge. It does fix the Radeon frame buffer issues.

Also note that /. is munging the code; it insists on inserting a "&nbs p;" that shouldn't be in there. I can't seem to get rid of it. Gotta love buggy software.

Re:Framebuffer

[IamTheRealMike]

Also note that /. is munging the code; it insists on inserting a "&nbs p;" that shouldn't be in there. I can't seem to get rid of it. Gotta love buggy software.

That's intentional, and is part of the anti-page-widening-post code. It prevents really long lines causing the page to overflow.

Re:Framebuffer

[Krach42]

Also note that /. is munging the code; it insists on inserting a "&nbs p;" that shouldn't be in there. I can't seem to get rid of it. Gotta love buggy software.

That's intentional, and is part of the anti-page-widening-post code. It prevents really long lines causing the page to overflow.

Exactly what I was going to say. I've submitted this bug at least once, but probably twice, and I keep getting hammered with, "it's not a bug, it's a feature."

You know, because since the renderer is going to reduce

Re:Framebuffer

[fishbowl]

I'm aware of the fix that was posted in response to your message, but it has not fixed the problem for me. I want more than the "pretty graphical boot".

I *must* be able to use fbset and get a high res console, or else the whole system is useless to me. I'm tired of being told that xterms are good enough (they're not), and I wish people would understand that the partial fixes that work for them don't work for all radeon cards.

It doesn't actually have to be framebuffer, mind you. I'd be satisfied if SVGAT

Is JFS abandoned?

[dimss]

JFS seems to be abanodoned. Recenctly I've found serious bug in JFS and submitted it to their BTS. After 10 days there's no comments, no followups...

Re:Is JFS abandoned?

[runswithd6s]

Read Kernel Traffic [kerneltraffic.org], the periodical summary of conversations on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML [http]). In article #240 [kerneltraffic.org], you will find your answer. If in doubt, email the authors directly.

I've been getting E-Mail about this for months!

[Keith_Beef]

Almost everyday, I get spam telling me I can download images of stoned beaver... I never realised it was a new kernel! .

Howto?

[Bilbo]

One of the things I've noticed with the 2.6 kernels is that they are significantly different from the 2.4 kernels in their setup. I've been downloading and building kernels since the 2.2 series, and though I've tried to build perhaps a couple dozen instances of the 2.5/2.6 kernel, I have never been able to get one up and running!!

Does anyone here have a pointer to a decent HOWTO type document on steps required to take a system currently running a 2.4 kernel (like, for instance, a RH 9 release) and migrat

Re:Howto?

[Eddy_D]

1) open web broswer and goto www.google.com
2) type "building 2.6.0 with redhat"
3) browse results.

Or, goto kerneltrap.org, for eg.

http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/799 - a nice article, but slightly outdated now.

The biggest gotya is the requirement for a new modutils prior to running the newer kernel. Read the article for more info.

Name for the release

[Espectr0]

This release is tentatively called the "stoned beaver" release (beavers
are _almost_ as good as weasels, as I'm sure Scott Adams would agree).

If you feel strongly about the issue, please send your votes and
ideas to "[e-mail]"

I, for, one, welcome our new beaver overlords!

$intoxicated $animal

[TeknoHog]

I'd rather have badgers on shrooms [weebls-stuff.com] instead.

Suggestion for 2.6.0-test* naming

[weeboo0104]

Ever since the "greased weasel" series of
kernel releases I have been stuck for a good name.

This release is tentatively called the "stoned beaver" release (beavers are
_almost_ as good as weasels, as I'm sure Scott Adams would agree).

I think that the "Stoned Beaver" is almost as good of a name as "Greased Weasel". However, I would like to submit the following suggestion.

I feel that "Stoned Beaver" sends the impression that this release has problems with volatile (short-term) memory and gets the munchies for more resources.

To improve market visibility, I recommend that the next testing release be named "Shaved Beaver". I feel this name denotes something that is sleek and highly visible. The only shortcoming I could foresee for this name are emails or newsgroup postings with the subject line "Shaved Beaver ready for pounding". It may be a possible problem for SPAM filters.

I agree that it's tough to beat "Greased Weasel", but if you really are stuck coming up with a new name, I think "Greased Beaver" would be almost as good.

Re:Suggestion for 2.6.0-test* naming

[ozbird]

If the next one is called "Lubed Gerbil", I'm outta here...

nothing here

[twistedcubic]

I think it's better to ignore such messages and let the moderators send it quickly to -1. You're advertising for the nut by respoonding with the same subject.

Re:wonder

[yellowcord]

Reading TFA I came across this:

Btw, I tried to come up with a good name for this release. But the fact is, that as Scott Adams has so often pointed out, you can't do much better than "weasel" when it comes to funny. Ever since the "greased weasel" series of kernel releases I have been stuck for a good name.

This release is tentatively called the "stoned beaver" release (beavers are _almost_ as good as weasels, as I'm sure Scott Adams would agree).

If you feel strongly about the issue, please send your votes and ideas to "[e-mail]", I'm sure somebody will find your insight fascinating.

Thank you in advance. ]

Linus

Re:wonder

[PGillingwater]

1. Register the in DNS beaver-overload.com
2. Wonder why there is no email
3. Correct registration to beaver-overlord.com
4. Read strange emails from hundreds of Kernel compilers voting on the above issues
5. ???????
6. Sell beaver-overload.com to a Sex site
7. Profit!!!!

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I thought that since some big corporations like IBM and Novell are picking up Linux, things would get a little more professional."

Well, how about the Shaved Beaver?

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[samadhi]

Your boss would probably be more interested why you were running a test kernel on his hardware, rather than what code name it had!

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[waitigetit]

You severely overestimate the technical qualities of my boss.

Anyway, if you want to make sure your product works on the newest kernel, you want to start testing BEFORE the stable version comes out, no?

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[wackysootroom]

Honestly, though, how many PHB's and/or CIO's read slashdot and keep up with the test kernel releases?

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the (code)name Longhorn has been in the tech media for some time now. Are you saying Microsoft could have called it "Big Floppy Donkey Dick", without negative effects?

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[dipipanone]

Are you saying Microsoft could have called it "Big Floppy Donkey Dick", without negative effects?

But I always assumed that Longhorn was a euphemism *for* Big Floppy Donkey Dick.

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[gl4ss]

no, but that's just a marketing slogan at this point.

2.6.0-test10 isn't a marketing slogan, it's a real thing available now and mostly intresting to non usual phb's if any phb's at all.

however microsoft actively sends messages to phb's that basically say because "longhorn is going to be so good you better stick with us" as marketing words("Big Floppy Donkey Dick is going to be so good you better stick with us" doesn't quite have the same tech hype feel to it). longhorn is just a word for 'someday, in the

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[gl4ss]

yeah? give me a ftp address then to something that has a final feature set implemented, including all the bull that is almost weekly reported to be "one of the most exciting features of longhorn".

the most intresting features(that is, not just all the ui crap that can be achieved now with 3rd party tools) are still somewhat vague.

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[dumeinst]

I thought that since some big corporations like IBM and Novell are picking up Linux, things would get a little more professional.

Why? so that yet another culture can get swalled into the soulless, humourless, corporate machine? I for one don't want linux to be synonymous with IBM

Which, unless you read slashdot...

[Ayanami Rei]

means absolutely nothing more than "Longhorn" or "Cairo" or "MULTICS"!

Ask your mom is "goatse" is disgusting. I'm sure she'll think it's some German company. Tubgirl is the only think that might be questionable. (Penisbird is also right out)

How about "GNAA Goatse Nero-Online"

Sounds like a great online experience with European engineering. :-)

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[happyfrogcow]

I agree, if you want a pretty business name, go wrap the Stoned Beaver up in a distro or just call it by it's version number. You're free to do so.

Now THAT's funny.

[Ayanami Rei]

::smiling::

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[hkmwbz]

Isn't "Stoned Beaver" just the name for this specific test kernel? If so, what is the problem? The kernel is still Linux, it is not changing its name. Just because someone wants to have a bit of fun with the name of a mere test version doesn't mean that it's unprofessional.

I don't really see how this has got anything to do with Linux or professionalism, since, as I said, the kernel is still "Linux", and this is a test kernel.

But whatever. IHBT.

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[10Ghz]

The operating system is not called "Stoned Beaver". It's an internal codename for this particular version of the Kernel. The OS is called Red Hat, SuSE, Debian, GNU/Linux or Linux. Depending which style you prefer.

My OS is Linux. More presicely, Gentoo Linux. I don't call it 2.6.0-test9-mm1. If I ran test10 on it, it would still be just "Linux" or "Gentoo Linux" and not "Stoned Beaver"

Seriously, at least TRY to use your brains, OK?

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[An Onerous Coward]

RSB will be the actual 2.6.0 release. From there, incremental 2.6.x releases will be named as follows

2.6.1 - Serene Beaver
2.6.2 - Perturbed Beaver.
2.6.3 - Infuriated Beaver
2.6.4 - Flip Out and Kill Everyone Beaver
2.6.5 - Beavergeddon
2.6.6 - Beavercide
2.6.7 - Beaver of the Apocalypse
2.6.8 - Nuke the Beaver from Orbit. It's the Only Way to be Sure

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[red floyd]

2.6.9 - Ward, I think there's something wrong with the Beaver

Re:Stoned Beaver?

[happyfrogcow]

Just wait until fuzzy logic gets implemented in the scheduler or memory management.

Fuzzy Beaver!

Re:devfs

[crimsun]

Nope, you do not /have/ to enable devfs in 2.6. I'm using it on several machines just fine that do not have kernel support for devfs or the userspace devfsd component.

I've had both good and bad experiences with devfs+devfsd, but any problems I have had have been quickly debugged and fixed (or I've bashed my forehead for being pebkac error). Generally I err on the side of caution (except for this 2.6.0-test deal, since more testers can't hurt), so I've decided to remain without devfs+devfsd on several machi

devfs on Debian: works for me

[smcv]

I know I'm anonymous, but can anyone tell me whether I have to/ really really should turn on devfs if I upgrade to 2.6?

I've tried using devfs under 2.4 several times but have never succeeded in getting it to work with my crufty (been around since slink) debian box.

And since I use ALSA and XFS the 2.6 kernel would simplify compiling desktop kernels no end.

I don't know about 2.6, but I use 2.4.x with devfs on two stable boxes ("servers" running on obsolete desktop hardware) and two unstable boxes (a desktop and a Powerbook), and they all work fine. Tab-completing commands is so much nicer when you only have device nodes for hardware you actually have; it's also handy to be able to see (say) whether your CD drive was detected properly, or how many partitions a hard disk has, by looking at the device nodes.

If you're using at least Debian 3.0 stable (woody), install devfsd, install a devfs kernel, reboot, and everything should Just Work.

What specific problems do you have with it?

Re:devfs on Debian: works for me

[wiresquire]

I'm going to come off like an MS troll here, but...

If you're using at least Debian 3.0 stable (woody), install devfsd, install a devfs kernel, reboot, and everything should Just Work.

Debian 3.0 may not be so stable. You better go checking up on this [internetnews.com].

Re:devfs

[fstanchina]

Not at all. In fact, devfs has been declared obsolete in 2.6; on those machines where I'm testing 2.6, I'm using a plain old /dev until I have time to figure out how sysfs and udev are supposed to work.

Now, if you want to use devfs, all you have to do is: 1) install devfsd, 2) compile a new kernel with devfs enabled and set to mount on boot, 3) install said kernel, 4) reboot. Doing 1 before 2 is the tricky stuff for me, I always forget that. You may also have to adjust some permissions and/or create some nonstandard devices you made yourself, but I've been using devfs on all my machines with 2.4 and it's working perfectly.

Re:devfs

[Aardpig]

One devfs gotcha in 2.6, which caught me out for a while, is that the devpts (pseudo-tty) functionality has been separated out. In 2.4 kernels, mounting /dev using devfs automatically mounted /dev/pts too; however, this behaviour has changed in 2.6, and you have to mount /dev/pts explicitly:

mount -t devpts none /dev/pts

On some systems (such as Gentoo), the rc scripts are smart enough to do this automatically.

Re:devfs

[loucura!]

Well, devfs appears to be depreciated in favour of sysfs. So no, you don't need devfs.

Re:devfs

[enodev]

That's wrong. "sysfs - _The_ filesystem for exporting kernel objects." (from Documentation/filesystems/sysfs.txt). sysfs exports kernel data structures to userspace and in the long run should leave /proc for processes like it was meant. it is no replacement for devfs.
but there already exists a userspace daemon called udev which simulates devfsd behaviour by taking the information found in sysfs.

Re:devfs

[loucura!]

Ah, but you see, neither I nor the parent read documentation. :)

Re:hurray!

[DrSkwid]

> could someone please explain in layman's terms how it will effect my Linux end-user experience?

It might be slightly better

Re:Frame Buffer ?

[3Suns]

You using the NVidia binary drivers? There are longstanding issues between the NVidia drivers and Linux kernel framebuffer. Solution: don't run the framebuffer, or run the non-accelerated free nv driver.

Re:Why is a test release a /. new event?

[bogie]

Better than another stupid IPod or SCO article. Plus now is the time for the general public to start using and testing the pre-2.6 builds as we are close to 2.6 final. So yes this is newsworthy and important if your at all intertested in a stable 2.6 which most of us are.