


Configuring the 2.6 Linux Kernel 279
An anonymous reader writes "This article is the first in a series by William von Hagen on using the new Linux 2.6 kernel, with a special emphasis on the primary issues in migrating existing drivers, applications, and embedded Linux deployments to a Linux distribution based on the 2.6 kernel. Bill is the author of Linux Filesystems, Hacking the TiVo, SGML for Dummies, Installing Red Hat Linux 7, and is the coauthor of The Definitive Guide to GCC (with Kurt Wall) and The Mac OS X Power Users Guide (with Brian Profitt)." This looks to be a good series for anyone planning to migrate to Linux 2.6, and having done just that myself, I'll attest to wanting more documentation along the way.
Default (Score:5, Interesting)
Usability? (Score:5, Interesting)
KernelWiki (Score:5, Interesting)
is it so much different than 2.4? (Score:4, Interesting)
2.6 breaks KVM support (Score:4, Interesting)
Configure your own kernel (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Usability? (Score:2, Interesting)
AFAIK, for drivers, if it works in 2.4, it's supposed to work in 2.6.
iptables support is pretty much the same aside from having a gazillion new options to play with, and of course you'll need to recompile the iptable support in the kernel (what else? you're compiling the kernel anyway)
Well, as far as I've been using 2.6, it's very much "usable", there aren't any show-stopping problems that I've encountered on any 2.6.0 + kernels of yet, and it's quite stable. (I have a 32 day uptime 2.6 server (*) with non-trivial loads) though the more sophisticated features (eg. LVM/RAID) might need some polishing.
(*): It's basically a testing/miscellaneous-use server, the production servers will probably have to wait a few months.
More binaries needed (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this will turn out to be a great series of white papers helping people get to grips with the process of configuring and compiling their own kernels, but I have to say that I think there would be faster progress on new kernels if the was some central repository of precompiled binary packages for the major distros throughout the development cycle.
The truth of the matter is that now linux is gaining wider acceptance, the community is filling up with more and more noobs and we should be doing more to help them understand the "new" (to them) technology. We also need to remember that not everyone who wants to use the software needs to be some sort of guru.This article is a great start to moving more people to the new code quicker, but regular up to date debs/rpms for all the current distributions will push that long even faster. I know someone will probably post saying "but there are packed versions for xxxx at somewhere.org", but they are often difficult to find for the noobs who just don't know where to look.
That's great (Score:4, Interesting)
We should make a repository of hardware configurations and which options should be turned on depending how you will use it. People should just say hey, I got this machine here with this hardware. I'm using it as a web server, and this is my kernel config. If enough people put there configs in, then people like me could find others with similar or identically matching hardware and use those configs. I'm sure it would also bring to light better configs for most people. I'm sure there's some guy out there not selecting a certain option who should be. And if he posts his config online some geek will be sure to point it out to him.
Re:2.6 breaks KVM support (Score:4, Interesting)
I dont know about w2k, but winxp supports command-line completion out of the box. Just hit tab as you would on linux
Re:Do it the easy way : Get Manadrake 10-beta2 (Score:2, Interesting)
But wait I think there's also emerge gentoo-sources-dev
Re:They need a tutorial on this stuff? (Score:2, Interesting)
`zcat
You have your old config in place, I used it to upgrade from 2.6.1 to 2.6.2 very handy indeed.
Re:is it so much different than 2.4? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's mine. Even when I'm compiling the latest kernel or listening to MP3s or running SETI@Home, or even doing all three at once, I have nary a skip or a hitch. The mouse and keyboard stuff is always smooth, and I never have to wait for my system to respond because the processor is tied up. 2.6 rocks -- Linux has extended the usable life of this system by *years*...