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GNU is Not Unix Software Linux

Meet Linux Kernel 2.6.2, 'Feisty Dunnart' 260

Posted by timothy from the no-really-that's-the-name dept.
hatrisc writes "As of about 10:04 pm on February 3rd, Linux users can grab the official 2.6.2 kernel release from kernel.org. A lot of PPC fixes. Changelog is here." omniru writes "Linux kernel 2.6.2 aka 'Feisty Dunnart' released," and adds some possibly useful information "about Dunnarts, in case you've never heard of them before. Changes include ACPI, Bluetooth, USB, XFS and many more improvements and fixes." gowdy suggests eager downloaders use a mirror.
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Meet Linux Kernel 2.6.2, 'Feisty Dunnart' More

Meet Linux Kernel 2.6.2, 'Feisty Dunnart'

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  • linux.conf.au (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Marlor ( 643698 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:49AM (#8178752)
    Looks like Linus's trip "down under" inspired this kernel release... the Dunnart is a type of Australian marsupial. The Tasmanian Devil is probably the best known example.

    • Re:linux.conf.au (Score:5, Informative)

      by Marlor ( 643698 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:51AM (#8178764)
      Looks like Linus's trip "down under" inspired this kernel release... the Dunnart is a type of Australian marsupial. The Tasmanian Devil is probably the best known example.

      Actually, to correct myself, the Tasmanian Devil is not a type of Dunnart, although they both belong to the genus "Sminthopsis".

      • Re:linux.conf.au (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ozbird ( 127571 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @10:35AM (#8179339)
        Actually, to correct myself, the Tasmanian Devil is not a type of Dunnart, although they both belong to the genus "Sminthopsis".

        Tassie Devils and Dunnarts are in the same family, Dasyuridae. They are not in the same genus; the Tassie Devil belongs to the genus Sarcophilus (specifically, Sarcophilus laniarius.)

        This page [umich.edu] has a pretty neat browser of the taxonomy of the Dasyuridae family (amongst others).

        I've seen a couple of dunnart species, Fat-tailed Dunnart and Chestnut Dunnart, in the wild. They are cute, particularly when mum has the kids hanging to her back. While the resemble mice, they're actually quite ferocious insectivores (with nasty, big, pointy teeth - well, pointy anyway.)

    • Re:linux.conf.au (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:59AM (#8178798)
      Looks like Linus's trip "down under" inspired this kernel release...

      Good thing he didn't pick up the Crocodile Dundee, Steve Irwin, or a naked aborigena. But then, given the size of the Linux tarball these days, I think Ayers Rock would have been more appropriate than a 50 gram rodent ...

      • Re:linux.conf.au (Score:3, Informative)

        by lwells-au ( 548448 )
        More correctly, Uluru -- Ayers Rock is the name given to Uluru by the white invaders.... errr, settlers.

        http://www.deh.gov.au/parks/uluru/
        • More correctly, Uluru -- Ayers Rock is the name given to Uluru by the white invaders.... errr, settlers.

          So if we're writeing in Englush - We can all say Ayers Rock.

          Other languages will have their own names for it but I doubt that the written form that that the first-settelars in Australua lookes even remotly like the psudo-engliish "Uluru"

          • I doubt they even had a written form, but that's not terribly relevant. The romanized transcription 'Uluru' is probably more or less right. Whether a language has a native alphabet or not, you can still transcribe it phonetically.

    • Re:linux.conf.au (Score:5, Informative)

      by Hugh George Asm ( 708019 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @10:59AM (#8179522)
      Looks like Linus's trip "down under" inspired this kernel release...

      It was more than inspiration. Linus did a charitable fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis, and offered to name the next release after the Austrialian animal of the highest bidder's choice. Someone gave a few thousand dollars ($3600 to be exact) to choose this name. Next Linux kernel to get Aussie name [zdnet.com.au]

    • Re:linux.conf.au (Score:2, Informative)

      by Skiron ( 735617 )

      Here is the lkml announcement

      Linus' announcement [theaimsgroup.com]

      and the guy who named it here [unsw.edu.au]

      Nick

    • After all, it's a palindrome.

  • Sminthopsis crassicaudata crassicaudata (Score:5, Informative)

    by radicalskeptic ( 644346 ) <x@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:50AM (#8178756)
    Here's [latrobe.edu.au] a clearer (and much cuter) picture of a Fat-tailed Dunnart (Sminthopsis crassicaudata crassicaudata).

    Awwwwwww....

  • Use a mirror?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by greppling ( 601175 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:51AM (#8178760)
    Current bandwidth utilization 180.74 Mbit/s

    Come on slashdot, you can do better than that!!!

    • Indeed. I've seen kernel.org use 275Mbit/s of a 250Mbit/s connection ;-)

    • Re:Use a mirror?? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Everyone is thinking far too small. Instead of downloading 2.6.2 they should all be rsync'ing the entire server. Think outside the box; PARADIGEM.
      • > PARADIGEM.

        as in a new paradigem of spelling?
        • It was prounounced that way in an ad for some sort of text messaging device. A group of workers send sarcastic notes to each other while a motitivational-speaker looking guy shot off those sorts of buzzwords.

          Or maybe the Coward doesn't know how to spell. They're both good answers.

    • Re:Use a mirror?? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CvD ( 94050 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:27AM (#8178913) Homepage Journal
      I know they have a lot of bandwidth, but why aren't they using BitTorrent? This is a perfect application for BitTorrent. It could save them quite a bit of money, I would imagine. Money that could be spent elsewhere? And there's no risk of trojaned source files if they host their own tracker and make their own .torrent files, right? What am I missing here?
      • even if someone somehow did fsck up the source files, you could check your torrent download against an MD5 on kernel.org...

      • Re:Use a mirror?? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Kalak ( 260968 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @11:07AM (#8179559) Homepage Journal
        Here's my torrent [vt.edu]

        Call me a Karma whore, but the parent is right, this is exactly the kind of legitimate use BT was made for. (Plus hey, I'm running my orn tracker and made the torrent, so I should get something for my trouble and Karma is about all I'm likely to get.
        Be sure to checksum it against the kernel.org checksum [kernel.org]
      • It could save them quite a bit of money, I would imagine.

        I'm pretty sure their bandwidth is donated (much like their hardware).

        • I'm pretty sure their bandwidth is donated
          - Why are you using extra virgin olive oil to heat you house?
          - Because it was donated to me.

          Someone pays for the bandwidth. The bandwidth donor might be able to pay for something else instead if less bandwidth was used. Or the donor could donate bandwidth to some other project instead.

      • What if your favorite Linux distribution had a "share" option that would let you share resources, Bit-Torrent style, to distribute patches and updates?

        I'd imagine being able to cap upload/download speed and disk space used so that you aren't terribly inconvenienced, but if it was just a checkbox in the latest distro, it'd sure make updates fast, responsive, and cut hosting costs down to the bone for the distro.

        I know I wouldn't mind sharing a few MB of disk space and 5-10 Kbps "for the cause". Wouldn't yo

  • Inside info (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    2.6 Kernel was called 'Heathen Chemistry' along the core programmers before it was released.

  • Now we know about RH's evil plans to destroy Linux (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:53AM (#8178771)
    Linux kernel 2.6.2 aka 'Feisty Dunnart' released," and adds some possibly useful information "about Dunnarts

    So now Linux' mascot is a dunnart uh?

    Well check out this picture [unsw.edu.au] from the link in the /. blurb: doesn't that look like a badly wounded rodent implacably attracted by a mentally deranged radioactive red hat?

    Scary if you ask me ...

  • Anything broken? Otherwise why upgrade? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by r6144 ( 544027 ) <r6k@sohCOFFEEu.com minus caffeine> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:55AM (#8178781) Homepage Journal
    I don't think many people will find upgrading to a stable release of the kernel interesting. For those who upgrade often, is anything broken for you (including security fixes of course, but there doesn't seems to be anything serious recently), or if not, why do you upgrade to a stable release without significant new features?

    Personally I upgraded from 2.6.0-test11 to 2.6.1-rc3 in order to fix the famous local security exploit. User-mode linux still doesn't work well, but since the 2.6.0-test3 version of the virtual machine on 2.6.1 hosts works mostly (newer umls don't work), I decide to ignore the problem for now. Unluckily the SMTP server of my mail provider has trouble contacting lists.sourceforge.net, so I can't even submit a bug report :(

  • Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by beuges ( 613130 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:56AM (#8178786)
    From the changelog:

    [Bluetooth] Always use two ISOC URB's

    This patch modifies the USB Bluetooth driver to use two ISOC URB's
    per RX and TX transfer paths. This is needed for in time transfer
    of SCO audio packets over HCI.

    Linux is using SCO audio packets too??? Don't let them find out or they'll add it to their lawsuit :P

    • Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Informative)

      by raul ( 829 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:07AM (#8178834) Homepage Journal
      For those who dont know what a bluetooth SCO means: SCO stands for synchronous, connection-oriented and its mainly used for voice transport. (mono pcm 8bits 14Khz, if my memory serves me well, but can also be vocalic encoded). But can also be for other realtime relaible communications (video, signaling).
    • In every article mentioning a kernel changelog, someone sees the letters "SCO" in it and makes a completely unfunny "Uh-oh, they'll put that in their lawsuit" quip. It doesn't require any forethought or cleverness. Cut it out.

  • I dream of fedora... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Man, oh man, I can't wait until Fedora 2 comes out with a 2.6 kernel. Then I'll take the plunge and upgrade all my old systems (running a mixture of 7.3, 8.0, and 9.0).

    HOPEFULLY they'll get swsusp working so I can actually have a reason to use Linux on my laptop (despite being a Linux-only guy since 1995, swsusp hanging my system on every 2nd or 3rd reboot has forced me into the arms of MS. Well, that as well as Centrino wireless support, and digital video editing.)
    • I agree, Fedora is a nice system. Very user friendly during the install, and actually quite easy to use and configure for someone without any Linux experience.

      Unfortunately, according the Fedora website, the release of test1 for Core 2 has been delayed [redhat.com]. I'd assume it means the final release will be delayed because of that too.

      My plan until then is to try one of the kernel-2.6.x rpms in the development directory in Core 1. Though they haven't put out 2.6 kernel updates as part of the up2date updates, they
      • The 2.6 install instructions you see posted in many places are often incomplete with regards to modprobe configuration. Only do this on a box you are willing to freshly install when things go awry (they will), or wait for Fedora Core 2 (advised).

  • XFS/NFS (Score:4, Informative)

    by vpscolo ( 737900 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @08:59AM (#8178799) Homepage
    Well with any luck this should include the changes which means that XFS on an NFS server doesn't suck royally

    <nathans@sgi.com>
    [XFS] Seperate the NFS reference cache code out from xfs_rw.c to simpli
    fy management of different kernel versions.

    Hopeing that fixes it

    Rus

  • Dunnart? (Score:4, Funny)

    by S.I.O. ( 180787 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:07AM (#8178832)
    It looks like a small rat. Darl, please consider it as the new SCO mascot: it comes from Linux and can represent your business practices!
  • *gasp* [wikipedia.org]

  • Dammit... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spacejock ( 727523 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:22AM (#8178890)

    ... I'm still compiling KDE 3.2.0

    Simon

  • Discount? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bazik ( 672335 ) <bazik&gentoo,org> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:24AM (#8178900) Homepage Journal
    Do I get a discount from SCO if I upgrade from a earlier Version?

  • Thank (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:26AM (#8178906)
    Thank god they fixed this:

    [SCTP] Remove the extra semicolon in sctp_cacc_skip_3_1().
    it was REALLY slowing down the performance on my machine!

  • Looking for RPMS. (Score:4, Funny)

    by AltGrendel ( 175092 ) <ag-slashdot.exit0@us> on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:27AM (#8178911) Homepage
    Anyone know a reliable source where I can get 2.6 kernel RPMS for RedHat 7.3? Rpmfind [rpmfind.net] doesn't seem to have any of them yet.

  • Google wack! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by valentyn ( 248783 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:30AM (#8178926) Homepage
    Feisty Dunnart [google.com] is a Google Whack [googlewhack.com]! (But will probably not last for long :)

  • ACL? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lussarn ( 105276 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:31AM (#8178931)
    Does anybody know if ACLs will become standard in 2.6 (Is there even ACL patches out for 2.6)?

  • USB-Storage? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ThisIsFred ( 705426 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:43AM (#8178988) Journal
    Anyone know what happened with the usb-storage module from 2.4.21 to the present? They added support for SD MMC cards, and it works fine in 2.4.24. But, 2.6.1 has a new SCSI driver that gives me up to a 20 per cent boost in throughput, however, the memory card support vanished.

    ??
    • I don't know what you did, but it's still there.
      I wish I could be more helpfull, but...

    • Re:USB-Storage? (Score:3, Informative)

      by iCEBaLM ( 34905 )
      It is there, the problem I've been seeing is that if you don't have a card in the reader on boot (module load) then the partitions don't get read and you can't mount it if you swap cards out. Quite annoying.
      • Thanks for the follow-ups.

        Well, here's the whole situation: I have an MP3 player with internal memory and also a slot that accepts an SD card. In 2.4.20, I could only see the internal memory. I read that this was fixed in 2.4.21, but 2.4.24 was the latest, so I got that.

        In 2.4.24, when I plug the sucker in and turn it on, the internal and external memory show up as the two next available SCSI devices. When I temporarily moved to 2.6.1, I made sure that I had the USB kernel stuff configured the same way. U

  • Weird entry in the changelog spotted! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mandark1967 ( 630856 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @09:44AM (#8179004) Homepage Journal
    [Patch] Added SCO I.P. to Kernel so we would have a case.
  • Anyone know if this works with the ATI drivers. I tried 2.6.1 recently, recompiled fglrx.o, but only get a black screen when I startx.
  • For those of use who aren't in-the-know about the latest kernel..

    What features does 2.6 have?
    What features does 2.6 have that 2.4 does not?

  • Goooo! (Score:4, Funny)

    by FIGJAM ( 29275 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @10:09AM (#8179165)
    I had images turned off when looking at the dunnart link, so i could read that it was a marsupial. When I enabled images, as it was coming through I saw a thumb but mistook it for a penis... and immediately thought of Richard Gere

  • Oh... (Score:5, Funny)

    by asr_man ( 620632 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @10:31AM (#8179304)
    For a moment I thought he had named the release in Darl's honor. But that would be "feisty dimwit"...

  • Linus Torvalds has auctioned off the right to name the next Linux kernel [zdnet.co.uk]

    It could have been worse I suppose... ;)

    [root@Linux233 linux]# uname -a
    Linux Linux233.linicks.net 2.6.2 #1 Wed Feb 4 13:55:28 GMT 2004 i586 unknown unknown GNU/Linux

    Nick

  • 2.6 Upgrade Headaches (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tyler Durden ( 136036 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @11:37AM (#8179811)
    This is slightly OT, but gosh am I having problems with upgrading to the 2.6 kernel. The upgrade is from a 2.4.18 kernel running on a SuSE 8.0 installation.

    I've upgraded all the software specified in Changes, but it's a real pain trying to figure out what features to include when doing a "make xconfig". I finally got PPP working after some screwing around, but getting the correct sound modules and making them work correctly has me stumped, as well as some other little things.

    Is a major kernel upgrade usually such a chore, or am I just an idiot? (Or maybe I just have atypical hardware). There're friends I know who would like to run Linux, but if upgrading to the 2.6 tree is usually so difficult I think I'll suggest they wait until the major distributions come with the new kernel already set up.

    • 2.4.x -> 2.6.x is quite a big step to get right.

      I followed this 'how-to' here [thomer.com], and then added some other stuff needed to do also (linked on the page).

      Nick

    • Re:2.6 Upgrade Headaches (Score:2, Informative)

      by Craig ( 839 )
      getting the correct sound modules and making them work correctly has me stumped, as well as some other little things.

      I had some trouble with this, too. I don't know how SuSE handles it, but the solution for me was:

      • xconfig & Compile alsa modules for my hardware.
      • get & build alsa-tools (or utils?) from alsa.org
      • run KDE & use the sound-settings utility to set up the alsa mixer properly.
      Then everything seemed to be OK...

      Craig

  • HELLO?! Ben Collins, SBP2 is still broken.

    Why do I have to unplug and replug the firewire cable several times every time I reboot? It gets timeout errors and all sorts of problems. Often all the devices are not detected (I have 3 hard-drives and a DVD-R in the chain).

    I think we need a new person working on the SBP2 stuff. It has been broken for so freaking long it's not even funny.

  • Changelog Translation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @12:12PM (#8180105) Homepage Journal
    I always love to read kernel changelogs. They are always really long and a great way to visualize just how much work is being done on linux all the time. The problem is, that while they are fun to read, they are not particularly informative to the average joe. For example let's look at some excerpts from the winamp changelog.
    * Support for classic Winamp 1.x/2.x/2.9x skins and Winamp 3 ("Modern") skins
    * Fancy new modern skin:
    - Integrated video, AVS, and Milkdrop support
    - Many built-in colorthemes
    * Same ol' classic skin for people who want the Winamp 2 feel
    * Vastly more powerful media library:
    - Automatic background directory scanning options
    - Customizable views and columns, graphical view editor
    - Internet Radio (SHOUTcast) and TV listings
    - Context-sensitive item info viewer
    * CD ripping support (AAC@2x in free version, MP3 at unlimited speeds in pro)
    * CD burning support (limited to 2x in free version)
    and so on. Looking at stuff like this really helps the user like me understand what fixes and changes have taken place. More importantly it allows me to easily determine if any of these fixes or changes will affect me, and how they will do so. This is necessary because I need this information to decide if I'm going to recompile my kernel or not. I propose that in addition to releasing the usual changelog they also make a human readable changelog. Something that would say stuff like this
    USB Lego towers work now
    SATA works now
    Fixed a bug that makes it go faster
    Cleaned a warning so it compiles better
    etc. etc.
    • You're wanting to have reasons for the changes listed. As in, what they actually will affect. That's a good idea.

    • I always love to read kernel changelogs. They are always really long and a great way to visualize just how much work is being done on linux all the time. The problem is, that while they are fun to read, they are not particularly informative to the average joe.

      Yes, but consider that compiling and installing Linux kernels is not average Joes like installing Winamp is. Kernel compiles and updates are for power users and developers, and they do prefer more detailed information. Average Joes should wait until

  • The changelog is great for those of us tracking specific bugs. But where are the "release notes", which might offer a broader overview of new/working features? When I try to convince someone to upgrade, it's a lot easier to send/quote them the release notes than the changelog. Often the decision maker is neither the executor nor even a technologist.
  • I see ACPI in the list of changes in every release. I thought this was functional maybe around the beginning of 2.4.

    Can someone comment why this is taking so long to mature, or are they keeping up with all new hardware released.
  • Ugh.

    Bug entry #1842

    Both IDE and SATA Via chipset 8237 give file corruption.

    http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1842

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