Linux 2.6.0 Kernel Released 837
thenextpresident writes "It's here! Just updated on kernel.org, the Linux 2.6.0 kernel has finally arrived! We've been waiting a long time for this, and it had been rumored it was going to be released tonight. Well, it's here indeed. Happy downloading." There's also a changelog online for this long-awaited update.
HA HAH! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:HA HAH! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:HA HAH! (Score:5, Funny)
I've been (Score:4, Informative)
Seems this fixes a few bugs, and beefs up Wireless support. Sweet. Can't wait till we start seeing this in "production systems".
LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
Re:LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
Argh! What to do? What to do??? See LotR or build the kernel? See LotR or build the kernel??? I'm stuck in an infinite look! Argh! Does not compute! Ack! Out of memory error!! Blthlt!
Shit, my brain just dumped core.
Easy... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Easy... (Score:5, Funny)
What? Doesn't everyone?
Pull yourself together man (Score:5, Funny)
Download & configure kernel.
Start compilation and go see Lotr with a smug "i'm more clever than thou" geek look knowing that you are actually multitasking.
Come back from the film with the kernel and modules crisply compiled for you, install boot loader and enjoy.
Re:Pull yourself together man (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pull yourself together man (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, with an attitude like that, you could be a Slashdot Editor!
Re:Pull yourself together man (Score:5, Funny)
Re:LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
Re:LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
Re:LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe 2.6 actually isn't ready, and they're only pretending it is so that they can go watch ROTK.
Re:LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
Some people munch loudly during movies...
Some people get phone calls during movies...
And then you've got that guy who codes kernels during movies....
Re:LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
I assume they shut them off during the movies.
Re:LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:4, Funny)
Since Tuesday, I have some difficulty to come back from Middle Earth
Re:LotR:RotK + Kernel = Early Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
Lord Of The Release:Release Of The Kernel
Save the mirrors! Use bittorrent! (Score:5, Informative)
Got a torrent of it for ya'll:
Linux 2.6.0 final (tar.bz2) [alge.nlc.no]Knoppix? Any CD bootable Linux 2.6 version? (Score:5, Funny)
sco (Score:5, Funny)
DAMMIT! Cmd Taco and Cliff!! (Score:5, Funny)
At least offer a bitorrent version for those suffering the wrath of the slashdot effect.
If only the latest vanilla sources of gentoo linux were stable. I would not need to download 2.6 in order to get the nvidia opengl drivers to work.
Re:DAMMIT! Cmd Taco and Cliff!! (Score:5, Informative)
How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Interesting)
I run linux as my desktop at home, and I also run it at work in a scientific computing cluster.
I'd like to know what benefits I could expect from the new kernel in each area in which I use linux.
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Informative)
For a desktop, real time support. Low latencies, improved USB and Firewire device support, better i/o and less race conditions during heavy disk use. It just feels alot faster and performs much better.
Its a big upgrade with mostly server oriented features but it should be a nicer desktop OS and it can perform better under loads for your scientific computing cluster.
But remember do not install it if you do not have a real up to date distro! Module tools have been upgraded and are incompatible with older versions. You can wreck your system if your not carefull.
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Informative)
But probably what you really want is Joseph Pranevich's Wonderful World of Linux 2.6 [kniggit.net].
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:4, Informative)
Your cluster is going to ROCK, though, with kernel async I/O, better management of large memory, greater SMP scalability, hyperthreading and a bunch of other things. Databases are going to see huge improvements.
You WILL be pleased. I promise.
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Informative)
Desktop users will benefit from significantly faster and less "jerky" performance.
New sound (ALSA) and video (V4L2) subsystems with improved features and performance.
Much better USB and Firewire support.
Increased hardware support, especially in the areas of bluetooth and wireless.
Under-the-hood changes (threads, reentrancy, preemptiveness, scheduler, block I/O) means your applications should all run a bit faster.
Your scientific cluster applications probably won't see any benefit unless you're hitting hard limits on memory capacity or network performance. In my experience, scientific applications are all CPU bound anyway and could be running on DOS for all it matters.
More accurate information at Wonderful World of Linux 2.6 [kniggit.net].
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard so much about this, but having used the 2.6 tests for the last two months (2.6 supports my card reader, 2.4 doesn't, so I don't have a choice) I've noticed absolutely no difference in performance. That said, 2.6 is extremely stable (probably more so than 2.4 IME) and there's no reason why not to use it either. But performance as far as the end user is concerned is not significantly different as far as I can see.
Re:I don't see a fix. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, if you install this kernel on anything but a test box, you're stoopid...You should wait till the minor releases are at least a month or 2 apart before you EVEN consider upgrading to a 2.6 kernel...or better yet, wait for Fedora Core 2 in April...
Re:I don't see a fix. (Score:4, Insightful)
Software has bugs...it's a fact...and newly released software is bound to have some hairy ones...at ~2 months time, there will either be a new minor release or a lot of ppl complaining if it's still unstable...
It's not a M$ thing...it's good administration...it's also why some ppl are still using 2.2 or even 2.0 kernels...
Re:I don't see a fix. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it was figured out [gmane.org] that the reported problems with preempt were really caused by user errors.
No kernel bug -> no fix needed.
Hey.. (Score:5, Informative)
http://linuxtoday.com/developer/2003112400826NWKN
"There is still something strange going on that seems to be triggered by preemption, so for now we suggest not enabling CONFIG_PREEMPT if you want the highest stability. On the other hand, I'd love to have more testing, so that we can try to figure out what the pattern is - but please mention explicitly that you ran with preemption if you have problems."
Someone else reported that it was just a mistake on the part of one of the testers, which was revealed http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/16319
Who is a troll -- a person who follows what Linus says in official annoucements, or some random person who says, "works for me" in a rude way?
Re:How does this benefit me? (Score:4, Informative)
It's still quite detailed, but it's easier to read.
PayPal (Score:5, Funny)
just in time (Score:5, Funny)
prepare for the... (Score:4, Funny)
Redhat is on version 9 wtf?
So uh, what is new in this version?
$foo_obscure_driver doesn't work I'll never use Linux again!
Now I can finally switch from windows!
$bar_obscure_feature which I can't live without never made it in, I hate Linux.
but I *liked* make menuconfig; make clean && make modules modules_install bzimage!!
Re:prepare for the... (Score:5, Interesting)
Excuse my ignorance (I'm not familar with the new 2.6 build system) but I really *did* like the make menuconfig approach. It's been that way since way-back-when so I could probably do it blindfolded. In addition, make menuconfig is great for building a new kernel over a slow (e.g. dial-up) ssh session. I actually rebuilt the kernel on my PC in Virginia from a cyber-cafe in Paris once.
Re:prepare for the... (Score:5, Informative)
[make mrproper]; make menuconfig; make; make modules_install
But it doesn't really make much difference
Congrats to Linux from an OS X user (Score:5, Interesting)
-DA
Re:Congrats to Linux from an OS X user (Score:5, Informative)
I tried it and it did not work, I read someplce that Apple changed something to do with the on disk format somewhat recently... It didn't damage the data, it just quit after a while. I didn't feel like mucking with it any longer so I just backed up and wiped the drive.
links:
Gentoo [gentoo.org]
Gentoo PPC FAQ [gentoo.org] mentions using parted
parted patches [xilun666.free.fr]
newsgroup post [google.com] from the above patch author
Changes from 2.4 to 2.6 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Changes from 2.4 to 2.6 (Score:5, Funny)
nvidia drivers/patches (Score:5, Informative)
the start of something [p2ptrades.com]?
Linus' mail about 2.6.0 (Score:5, Informative)
2.4 to 2.6 (Score:5, Informative)
It's small but very helpful for someone that doesn't completely know what they're doing.
This is nice and all, but severely lacking... (Score:5, Funny)
Whee for university bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whee for university bandwidth (Score:5, Funny)
ftp://nccs.nasa.gov/pub/linux/linux-2.6.0.tar.bz2 [nasa.gov]
Caps off a stellar open source year (Score:5, Interesting)
Its great to see this go out in 2003, capping off a stellar year for open source. Mozilla 1.4/5, Gnome 2.4, KDE 3.2 (almost), Apache 2.x...and countless other pieces of the puzzle coming together in an awesome ecosystem.
Corporations haven't just 'taken notice', they are actively pushing this stuff. They are amping up great services behind the new commodity - software.
RedHat and IBM and Novell are leading the charge from the .com side while a huge developer community has taken root in the volunteer ranks.
2.6 was the icing on the cake - the version that really challenges the most established kernels across the entire spectrum. BRAVO!!
Why is this news? (Score:5, Funny)
Cheers,
IT
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
X - major release
Y - incremental release with additional features
Z - release featuring only bugfixes
Had Linux adopted that system we would not have had the pointless 2.6 vs. 3.0 discussion on when changes are "big enough".
Major releases equals major numbers, simple. It is not like we will be running out of numbers by using up a new major one every two years or so.
For end users (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm..interesting choice of date... (Score:5, Funny)
SCOses can't haveses our precioussssssssssss kernel....
One question......... (Score:4, Funny)
More grist for the FUD mill (Score:5, Funny)
mdharm-usb@one-eyed-alien.net
trini@kernel.cra
jes@trained-monkey.org
James_McMechan@
Now ask yourself, do you want a patch submitted by someone at "one-eyed-alien.net" running on *your* production server? Can we really trust patches submitted by people using Hotmail accounts?
Go back to Windows, and rest assured that every developer will be using a trusted microsoft.com e-mail address. Don't you feel safer already?
Steps Back (Score:5, Interesting)
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5127627.html?tag=
All these quotes apparently came from Mr. Morton himself.
"...the part of 2.6 that communicates with memory is less efficient, imposing a practical limit of 24GB of memory to the 32GB that 2.4 could handle. However, he believes that programmers will address the problem."
Is this reduced limit useful? Why should it be up to programmers to code around? Did I miss something?
"The new kernel also monitors for new events more frequently--1,000 times per second instead of 100--a fact that slows down the system about 1 percent..."
I assume it's to try and respond to events faster but increasing it tenfold, isn't that overkill? I mean, it slows the system down by 1% which isn't horrible and if a real-time app has a problem with it, you can always modify the kernel yourself but couldn't they have upped the polling to 250 which is a decent increase but not a 10x one.
"In addition, 2.6 requires somewhat more memory to run and shows worse performance when it has to use hard drives as extra memory under heavy loads... "
That seems reasonable that it needs a bit more memory but why should it see adverse effects under heavy loads as compared to the 2.4 kernel? Shouldn't they degrade at around the same level or are there some new file system issues that cause this?
Enlighten me.
I'll answer the one I know about (Score:5, Informative)
I assume it's to try and respond to events faster but increasing it tenfold, isn't that overkill? I mean, it slows the system down by 1% which isn't horrible and if a real-time app has a problem with it, you can always modify the kernel yourself but couldn't they have upped the polling to 250 which is a decent increase but not a 10x one.
Polling 100 times a second has been the standard figure in the Linux kernel for a long long time. Meanwhile, the top CPU speed has increased by much more than one order of magnitude (say 300MHz -> 3GHz). Most desktop distributions have already been shipping with this set to 1000 already, since it makes the machine overall more responsive, something that's particularly important for a GUI.
I'm guessing that on a top-of-the line server pushing bits to this disk here, that NIC there at very high speeds, it'd be just as good as the old setting, keeping buffers flowing. That 1% quote is completely without context, and might be true on a really low-end machine where 1000 context switches takes up a lot of CPU time, but overall I don't think that's accurate.
Edit: I found this quote on a google search:
"I don't know what the costs of a higher HZ value might be, except for the obvious one: more cpu cycles will be spent servicing the timer interrupt. On my PPro, servicing the timer interrupt takes around 1500 cycles, so with HZ = 100 this accounts for fraction of a percent of the processor's time. With HZ = 1024, this still wouldn't be much more than one percent (I expect the figures to be similar for a K6)." So that figure might be accurate for a 150MHz Pentium Pro...
If you're running an embedded system or something else on limited hardware, you'd probably want to tweak that now, but then again you probably should have tweaked a lot of kernel settings in the past as well. So nothing new here, just staying with the times. Hell, on a GUI machine I'd consider experimenting with setting it even higher.
Kjella
Running it! Damn that Radeon driver (Score:4, Informative)
Linux boxor 2.6.0 #3 Wed Dec 17 23:53:09 EST 2003 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux
My Radeon binary drivers wouldn't work at first with it on my nforce2 motherboard but I've just found patches in Gentoo's portage tree. I'm currentely running Linux 2.6.0 final on an nforce2 computer with hw 3d acceleration enabled on my Radeon 9600 pro!
Mirror (Score:4)
Up and running with 2.6.0! (Score:5, Informative)
-make xconfig looks really professional now /etc/modules.conf contains only OSS aliases, no alsa config files at all. so no sound at the moment...
-make / make modules / make modules_install has all been tidied up by the looks of it -- no more endless printout of GCC syntax. had me worried for a second that nothing was compiling but overall looks pretty slick
-alsa comes installed as default, but the configuration seems a little screwy (on debian at least) --
-usb mouse doesn't seem to work here when compiled in the kernel, but works fine as a module -- same problem i've had with 2.4.18-23
-the nvidia 2.6.0 patch available at minion.de [minion.de] works great, so i have a functional X11 server with nvidia modules
The only thing I can find to fault is that somehow the X11 server on the backup 2.4.23 kernel crashes on bootup due to some problem parsing the XF86Config-4 file. I'm not sure if this is a side-effect of the 2.6.0 install or something else (maybe some apt-get update X11 changes i missed?), and i've had the occasional problem before with older kernels becoming only partly functional after newer kernels are installed.
All around though, nice job! Compiling the kernel is getting easier and nicer to look at. And it seems the problems with mouse lagging during 100% CPU usage are gone, at least as far as I've tried it this evening.
Thanks to Linus and all that contributed..
Be aware of known security issues (Score:5, Informative)
You might want to keep an eye on your 2.6.0 machine if it's on a network that's readily accessible to the outside world. Apparently not all of the security fixes that occurred in the 2.4 line have made it into 2.6.0.
Dave Jones' post halloween document [linux.org.uk], which is mentioned in an earlier post as a good summary of changes, mentions the following (near the bottom):
Security concerns.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several security issues solved in 2.4 may not yet be forward ported
to 2.6. For this reason 2.6.x kernels should not be tested on
untrusted systems. Testing known 2.4 exploits and reporting results
is useful.
Notable Changes from a Sys Admin's Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
Happy downloading. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Happy downloading. (Score:5, Informative)
The actual wire is gigabit, 1000Base-SX.
-hpa
Existing LVM and 2.6.0 ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Desktop users should wait for the -mm tree updates (Score:5, Informative)
Date: Thu Dec 18 2003 - 00:15:50 EST
---cut---
Desktops and laptops may have more trouble at this time because of the much wider range of hardware and because of as-yet unimplemented fixes for the hardware and BIOS bugs from which these machines tend to suffer.
During the 2.6.0 stabilization period a significant number of less serious fixes have accumulated in various auxiliary kernel trees and these shall be merged into the 2.6 stream after the 2.6.0 release. Many of these fixes appear in Andrew Morton's "-mm" tree (...)
---cut---
Odd... (Score:5, Funny)
We have bugs... but at least they are *high quality* bugs! Take that Microsoft
(Congrats to all the developers for 2.6! Looking forward to getting rid of OSS and ide-scsi!)
ATAPI finally working with DMA (Score:5, Interesting)
With 2.6, DMA works properly with ATAPI commands, at least when using the new ATAPI virtual SCSI bus (NOT the ide-scsi module!). To use the new virtual bus, use 'dev=ATAPI:0,0,0' in a cdrecord command. You may also need to use the latest alpha of cdrecord.
I can now burn 2 CDs at once (multiple burners), at 52x without my CPU load going over 0.2!
Of course, if you had the luxury of using REAL SCSI CD burners before, this won't make a lick of difference to you.
Slackware (Score:5, Informative)
No it's not (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cool (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mirror =) (Score:5, Funny)
Peter is going to kill you, our poor server.....
Re:Mirror =) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So what is new? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So what is new? (Score:5, Informative)
To the end user (me) 2.6 is much faster than 2.4 both in boot time and while operation. Kudos to all of the developers
Re:So what is new? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So what is new? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.kniggit.net/wwol26.html
This is a great place to start. It's very comprehensive, and a worthy read.
But if you really want a ultra-summed-up explination, 2.6 has 63.8% more kickassedness than 2.4 does. That and ALSA support built in.
Re:So what is new? (Score:5, Informative)
On single CPU life is now more interactive.
Thread support is *much* faster and less buggy provided you have the right version of glibc.
Schedular fixes.
IDE cd burning is less CPU intensive if you dump the ide-scsi module and use the newer cdrecord instead.
and the usual driver improvements.
That's all just off the top of my head so there are probably more.
Re:SELinux (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal project is actually a big modification of the Domain & Type enforcement that is present in LSM now. but the code is nowhere near ready for inclusion just yet
Re:Yay (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yay (Score:5, Funny)
http://sco.com/OurCode/Linux/Kernel/2.4.bz2
Might just want to get the new one....
http://sco.com/ProbablyOurs/Linux/Kernel/2.6.bz
Re:Yay (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yay (Score:5, Funny)
2.4.18 works just fine for me and I see no reason to upgrade
don't all 2.4 versions before .23 have some kind of security problem?
what's your IP address? :)
Re:unlike 2.4 (Score:5, Informative)
What are you smoking? Better USB support, much better firewire support, Apple G5 and AMD Opteron support, pre-emptive kernel, ALSA by default, blah, blah blah the list goes on.
Unless you have a 386-25 with 4 megs of ram, an EGA monitor, and 40 MB MFM hard drive, you should be pretty damn excited (at least if you are a normal geek like the rest of us).
Re:ide-scsi (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using ide-scsi to burn cds in 2.5 and 2.6 without any problems (and can't recall seeing any (OBSOLETE) notices beside the driver, either)
Re:ide-scsi (Score:5, Interesting)
In early November, Bill Davidsen
responded to a post on the LKML about a problem someone was having with burning a CD. Davidsen said:
There is a problem with ide-scsi in 2.6, and rather than fix it someone came up with a patch to cdrecord to allow that application to work properly, and perhaps "better" in some way. Since the problem with ide-scsi seems to still exist for other applications, you will probably find you have to work around the problem, by using the -pad option of cdrecord (thought that was standard now for TAO at least) or reading using the ide-cd driver.
Torvalds responded to Davidsen's post by writing:
On 6 Nov 2003, bill davidsen wrote:
>
> There is a problem with ide-scsi in 2.6, and rather than fix it someone
> came up with a patch to cdrecord to allow that application to work
> properly, and perhaps "better" in some way.
Wrong.
The "somebody" strongly felt that ide-scsi was not just ugly but _evil_, and that the syntax and usage of "cdrecord" was absolutely stupid.
That somebody was me.
ide-scsi has always been broken. You should not use it, and indeed there was never any good reason for it existing AT ALL. But because of a broken interface to cdrecord, cdrecord historically only wanted to touch SCSI devices. Ergo, a silly emulation layer that wasn't really worth it.
The fact that nobody has bothered to fix ide-scsi seems to be a result of nobody _wanting_ to really fix it.
So don't use it. Or if you do use it, send the fixes over.
Linus
The back-and-forth between Davidsen and Torvalds has continued, and as a result more and more of Torvalds disdain for the ide-scsi and cdrecord interface has bubbled to the surface. Torvalds has said, among other things, that:
* "anybody who uses cdrecord has either been confused by the silly SCSI numbering"
* "Some people ended up having to boot with ide-scsi enabled to burn CD's, but then if they wanted to watch DVD's (on the same drive), they needed to boot without it."
* "the old cdrecord interfaces are an UNBELIEVABLE PILE OF CRAP!"
* "It's an interface that is based on some random hardware layout mechanism that isn't even TRUE any more, and hasn't been true for a long time."
* "It's bad from a technical standpoint (anybody who names a generic device with a flat namespace is just basically clueless), and it's bad from a usability standpoint. It has _zero_ redeeming qualities."
There's more, but that's enough to give you a sense of Torvalds' unhappiness with the whole approach of both one particular (though very popular) app and the ide-sci module itself.
http://programming.linux.com/article.pl?sid=03/
Re:Haiku? (Score:5, Funny)
But let's pretend it's finished
Linus needs testers
Re:Haiku? (Score:4, Funny)
To run Debian stable
Some time next decade
Re:NOT OT (Score:5, Informative)
If you are complaining that CD-burning was not setup for you automatically (which has nothing to do with kernel 2.6), throw out your geek-friendly Gentoo, and use a user-friendly distro instead, which will setup things just like windows.
Re:All right! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:NTFS (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What happens after 2.8 ?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Laptop power management? (Score:5, Informative)
cpufreqd [freshmeat.net]
autospeedstep [freshmeat.net]
cpudyn [freshmeat.net]