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Linux 2.4.13 327

Posted by chrisd from the get-yer-red-hot-kernels-heah dept.
Lawrence Teo writes: "Looks like Linux 2.4.13 is out. You can get it at the usual place (kernel.org) and the mirrors. Check out the Changelog."
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Linux 2.4.13 More

Linux 2.4.13

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  • Does this new kernel include the latest snapshot of ext3?

    Ext3 is both distributed in the kernel and as a separate package, and I'm a bit lost : what ext3 code should we use for more reliability? Should the previous kernel be patched with the latest ext3? Does the new kernel include it? Does the latest ext3 cleanly applies to Linux 2.4.13?

    I'm lost...

    • Re:ext3 (Score:2, Informative)

      by frankie_guasch ( 164676 )
      ext3 is inside the -ac kernels, look inside
      the people/alan directory. It must be in your
      closest kernel mirror.

    • Re:ext3 (Score:5, Informative)

      by rendler ( 141135 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @02:46AM (#2470891)
      Right now ext3 is not in the official kernel but it is in Alan Cox's which is also synched to the latest version, of course you can patch the official to use ext3 with patches from here [uow.edu.au]. They usually lag a couple of days behind for a patch to be available for the latest kernels , but a cvs snapshot should work fine if you can't wait that long for them to release an official patch.

    • Re:ext3 (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ext3 is _not_ in the -linus kernel.
      It is in the -ac patches, and just got updated,
      so you can use that.

      The ext3 patch should not be used, and may not apply to the current kernel. Dont use the ext3
      patch unless the ext3 page states it is for
      your kernel version. (or use the -ac patch which have ext3)
      Chances are that ext3 soon goes into the kernel
      though.

      • Re:ext3 (Score:1, Redundant)

        by chrysalis ( 50680 )
        Funny. In fact I always used AC kernels for ages, and I even didn't notice that ext3 wasn't in Linus tree yet :)


  • There have been quite a few kernel releases in the past week or two as well as some high-profile bugs. Is the kernel just going through a natural rough-spot or is something different going on?

    • Re:Release Often? (Score:5, Funny)

      by cymen ( 8178 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [givnemyc]> on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @02:31AM (#2470847) Homepage
      Doesn't everyone know? Linus is recovering from alcholism. He just started the 12 step program. This week has been really hard for Linus because Alan Cox keeps talking about "putting away a few pints at the pub" (he is English) on the linux kernal mailing list. There have been a few flame wars too between the people working on the vm subsystem. Apparently one is a tea-totler and the other a hard core drinker so Linus is leaning towards using the tea-totler's code but Alan says the hard core drinkers code is better...

      I think we all need to try to support Linus and Alan without choosing sides. Just grab the latest kernel of your choice and compile away... Try not to mention free beer on the linux kernel mailing list in the next couple weeks. Think free tea or something similar.
      • Alan Cox keeps talking about "putting away a few pints at the pub" (he is English) on the linux kernal mailing list.

        Well, I guess that proves Alan doesn't read slashdot. He is Welsh. BIG difference. Especially when it comes to things like Rugby.

        • Well, I guess that proves Alan doesn't read slashdot. He is Welsh. BIG difference. Especially when it comes to things like Rugby.

          Actually I think Alan does stop by every now and then. I didn't know he was Welsh though. I'll be sure to make a note of it.
    • Is the kernel just going through a natural rough-spot or is something different going on?

      Well, Linus is really good about pursuing groundgreaking new technologies and trying to add them to the kernel. He is not so good at attaining rock-solid stability...

      Alan Cox is the other way, though. Now that Linus is working on the 2.5 series, we can expect:
      1: Fewer bugs
      2: Fewer new features.

  • Predictions (Score:5, Funny)

    by jawad ( 15611 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @02:17AM (#2470802)
    Predictions for comments...

    "Use the mirrors!"

    "Make sure you patch, don't waste bandwith!"

    "Damn, there goes my uptime"

    "Heh, I'm STILL running Kernel 1.2.1!"

    "Does anyone NEED to use the latest kernel? What does it add?"

    "Use the latest kernel! Testing is vital!"

    "2.4.13? I thought Linux was at 7.2?!"

    If I've forgot any, post to this thread. Hell, if you're any of the above postings, post to this thread....

  • Just seemed like yesterday that 2.4.11 was out. I guess I missed 2.4.12. Kudos to the team for pounding out new code like this.

    On a related note, does anyone know if any type of development on 2.5.x or (shall I say...) 3.0 is being done? Just seems that right around this time with 2.2 the 2.3 kernels were cranking up. In any event, keep 'em coming!!

  • ChangeLog (Score:2, Troll)

    by Anonymous Coward
    final:
    - page write-out throttling
    - Pete Zaitcev: ymfpci sound driver update (make Civ:CTP happy with it)
    - Alan Cox: i2o sync-up
    - Andrea Arcangeli: revert broken x86 smp_call_function patch
    - me: handle VM write load more gracefully. Merge parts of -aa VM

    pre6:
    - Stephen Rothwell: APM idle time handling fixes, docbook update, cleanup
    - Jeff Garzik: network driver updates
    - Greg KH: USB updates
    - Al Viro: UFS update, binfmt_misc rewrite.
    - Andreas Dilger: /dev/random fixes
    - David Miller: network/sparc updates

    pre5:
    - Greg KH: usbnet fix
    - Johannes Erdfelt: uhci.c bulk queueing fixes

    pre4:
    - Al Viro: mnt_list init
    - Jeff Garzik: network driver update (license tags, tulip driver)
    - David Miller: sparc, net updates
    - Ben Collins: firewire update
    - Gerd Knorr: btaudio/bttv update
    - Tim Hockin: MD cleanups
    - Greg KH, Petko Manolov: USB updates
    - Leonard Zubkoff: DAC960 driver update

    pre3:
    - Jens Axboe: clean up duplicate unused request list
    - Jeff Mahoney: reiserfs endianness finishing touches
    - Hugh Dickins: some further swapoff fixes and cleanups
    - prepare-for-Alan: move drivers/i2o into drivers/message/i2o
    - Leonard Zubkoff: 2TB disk device fixes
    - Paul Schroeder: mwave config enable
    - Urban Widmark: fix via-rhine double free..
    - Tom Rini: PPC fixes
    - NIIBE Yutaka: SuperH update

    pre2:
    - Alan Cox: more merging
    - Ben Fennema: UDF module license
    - Jeff Mahoney: reiserfs endian safeness
    - Chris Mason: reiserfs O_SYNC/fsync performance improvements
    - Jean Tourrilhes: wireless extension update
    - Joerg Reuter: AX.25 updates
    - David Miller: 64-bit DMA interfaces

    pre1:
    - Trond Myklebust: deadlock checking in lockd server
    - Tim Waugh: fix up parport wrong #define
    - Christoph Hellwig: i2c update, ext2 cleanup
    - Al Viro: fix partition handling sanity check.
    - Trond Myklebust: make NFS use SLAB_NOFS, and not play games with PF_MEMALLOC
    - Ben Fennema: UDF update
    - Alan Cox: continued merging
    - Chris Mason: get /proc buffer memory sizes right after buf-in-page-cache

    • Interesting! On the week end I will set up a stress test for the VM to see if I am able to get some failure. Just I need a little of time, since I am at SMAU for the magazine I write for (by the way, inside of the press room there is a very very pretty bar girl :) ). mmm, I should immagine some good test case...

      I discovered something important for the test results I've been reporting. The mp3's that I've been listening to were not all sampled at the same rate. That means some of the comparisons are suspect.

      The mp3's were sampled between 88k and 192k. I did not notice the sample rate affecting whether an mp3 skips or not. I.E. an 88k mp3 and a 192k mp3 skip about the same on a kernel/test that sputters. There probably is a difference, but it isn't obvious. So the subjective reports on sound quality are reasonable. In the future, I'll make sure comparisons that include timing are done with comparable mp3's.

  • Direct link to mirrors (Score:4, Redundant)

    by chrysalis ( 50680 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @02:27AM (#2470836) Homepage
    Please avoid slashdoting the main server. Here is list of direct links to mirrors. Version 2.4.13, full tarball : [al [kernel.org]] - [dz [kernel.org]] - [as [kernel.org]] - [ad [kernel.org]] - [ao [kernel.org]] - [ai [kernel.org]] - [aq [kernel.org]] - [ag [kernel.org]] - [ar [kernel.org]] - [am [kernel.org]] - [aw [kernel.org]] - [ac [kernel.org]] - [au [kernel.org]] - [at [kernel.org]] - [az [kernel.org]] - [av [kernel.org]] - [bs [kernel.org]] - [bh [kernel.org]] - [bd [kernel.org]] - [bb [kernel.org]] - [by [kernel.org]] - [be [kernel.org]] - [bz [kernel.org]] - [bj [kernel.org]] - [bm [kernel.org]] - [bt [kernel.org]] - [bo [kernel.org]] - [ba [kernel.org]] - [bw [kernel.org]] - [bv [kernel.org]] - [br [kernel.org]] - [io [kernel.org]] - [bn [kernel.org]] - [bg [kernel.org]] - [bf [kernel.org]] - [bi [kernel.org]] - [kh [kernel.org]] - [cm [kernel.org]] - [ca [kernel.org]] - [ic [kernel.org]] - [cv [kernel.org]] - [ky [kernel.org]] - [cf [kernel.org]] - [ea [kernel.org]] - [td [kernel.org]]


    • Next time, can you please also link to the patches as well as the full tarballs?

      It would be really helpful for lazy people like myself who actually use the links people post on here.

      • you call that lazy? i have a cron script that uses rsync to mirror the v2.4 source from kernel.org a few times a day... so when i see a new kernel announcement, i just patch from my local mirror (where, invariably, it has already been downloaded) and recompile.

        this might get +1 funny, but i assure you, it is not a joke.

  • Security fixes (Score:5, Informative)

    by sting3r ( 519844 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @02:27AM (#2470837) Homepage
    What they didn't mention were a few interesting security fixes from bugs in 2.4.12, probably due to the self-imposed DMCA "gag order." Since I am not in the US, I will take the liberty of posting them here:

    • Changing some I2O settings now requires the CAP_NET_ADMIN privilege. Previously any user could alter these settings and possible cause a DoS (lock up the box or lock up the I2O bus).
    • A race condition in the inode cache was repaired. This would allow stale inode data to be used (under the right circumstances), most likely only on SMP systems.
    • Several potential vulnerabilities involving ptrace() have been closed, preventing a few kernel-based local root exploits.
    • Bugs in the USB code which could have been leveraged to obtain direct hardware access have been fixed. These bugs may have resulted in local root exploits if security-critical hardware (such as hard drives) was on the USB bus.

    -sting3r

    • Several potential vulnerabilities involving ptrace() have been closed, preventing a few kernel-based local root exploits.

      MORE ptrace vulnerabilities? I thought these were fixed [redhat.com] in 2.4.9.

    • Since I am not in the US, I will take the liberty of posting them here:

      (Score +1; Ballsy)

      :-)

    • What they didn't mention were a few interesting security fixes from bugs in 2.4.12, probably due to the self-imposed DMCA "gag order." Since I am not in the US, I will take the liberty of posting them here:

      Wow, talk about waving the red flag in front of the bull!

      You, my friend, must have balls the size of tank bearings. My hat is off to you!
  • well...the past 2 releases had bugs... How do we know this one doesn't? I think I will hold off on installing until it's been tested without problem. The previous 2 releases( 2.4.11 and 2.4.12 ) haven't done much for my opnion of the quality control process as of late....

    • Oh my! The last two releases had bugs?! Gasp!

      If you expect software to be totally bugfree, expect no software more advanced than hello world, and even then, greatly delayed by rigorous QA...

      Seriously though, v2.4.11 was a disaster, and Linus noticed and thus released v2.4.12 as soon as he could, which IHMO was a smart move. Because of this rushed release, a few small details wasn't 100% merged (parport springs to mind), but v2.4.12 is mostly working.

      Still, if you don't participate in the in between kernel QA yourself (by using the pre-patches), don't complain. Linux is made by volunteers, who do it in their spare time. Contribute instead of complaining!

    • Uh, that's what you're *supposed* to do unles you want to help with the beta-testing process. You *never ever* use a kernel less than six months old in a working environment. The release is done so that all of us geeks who like trying the new kernel out can, forwarding bug reports as we find them.

      Remember, in Linux all beta-testing is *public*. If you don't want to beta test, just wait six months for a kernel to stabilize.

      Max

    • Re:Kernel 2.4.13 is out..yay.... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think I will hold off on installing until it's been tested without problem.

      A Linus release is not like a normal commercial software release. If it compiles on Linus' box, he releases it without a formal test process.

      Use a RedHat kernel, which goes through a QA and stress process and contains patches which haven't made it into the main branch (often for trival reasons such as coding style or that Linus can't read all of his mail).

      Not to recommend RH specifically, just that their QA process seems to be the most robust. SuSE or Debian would probably also be good.
      • I would have to agree that you are better off running a stock distribution kernel IF your stock distribution kernel supports what you want, but if you are going to recompile the kernel in any way you are breaking the QA experience. Once you compile any kernel yourself you could be introducing issues and the only way to be sure to be sure is to then test your own kernel before implementing it in a mission critical setting. I personally have always found that the debian kernels are very good becuase they usually spend months in unstable and testing where users run them as is AND compile there own kernels for whatever crazy hardware or software config they need. RH (and as you did, I am just choosing them as an easy example) is not an open company, and their kernels are not tested in such a wide way (debian gets a good run at multiple platforms straight away) and their users are not as "powerful" as debian users (sweeping generalisation that I would say is fair, the % of debian users running self-compiled kernels must be higher than the same % for RH). I think it would be brilliant if we could get all linux distributors (from embedded to RH to Linus) to publish information on the kernels they use and test in one place so that anyone who needs to compile their own kernel can view the experiences of the most relevant people/kernels/settings and get a good idea of the issues they might experience with different setups.
  • Looks like Linus AGAIN didn't bother to check in the joystick fix. It's been broken since 2.4.10. Vojtech Pavlik had a fix ready before 2.4.11, but Linus is sitting on stuff, as usual. Here's Vojtech's patch, if you're having analog gamepad problems. It's probably going to wrap awful in this stupid text box, so try to piece it back together.

    Oh jeeze, stupid slashdot says there's too many junk characters. You're going to have to manually make these changes, then I guess, since it won't take the diff format.

    in linux/drivers/char/joystick/analog.c

    change
    #define GET_TIME(x) do { if (TSC_PRESENT) rdtscl(x); else outb(0, 0x43); x = inb(0x40); x |= inb(0x40) speed > 10000 ? "M" : "k", (port->loop * 1000000) / port->speed);

    to all of this
    port->speed > 10000 ? "M" : "k",
    port->speed > 10000 ? (port->loop * 1000) / (port->speed / 1000) : (port->loop * 1000000) / port->speed); }

    • No, as Linus has explained time and time again on the list, he does not "sit" on stuff. If a submitted patch hasn't gone into the next two or three pre-patches, it's because he's dropped it, either due to too much e-mail (the most common reason), missing/bad description of what it does (second most common) or bad/unwanted code (not too common.)

      So, most presumably, Vojtech submitted the patch, but didn't resubmit it when Linus didn't react. Or, he submitted it to Alan only. And since Linus doesn't forward patches to Linus unless explicitly asked to if the subsystem has a maintainer, the patch probably got stuck there.

      • He submited it to Linus before 2.4.11, and after 2.4.12. The hell are you supposed to do, mail it to him every hour in case he just decides to rm /var/spool/mail/linus? Fuck, and I thought people were exagerating when they said how screwed up Linux's development model was. I think it's time to copy the BSDs.
    • I agree with you that the quality of /. is decreasing steadily, when you can't even post patches! My god! Well, that is commercial stuff for you. Anyways thank you for the attempt to use this miserable forum, here is a link to the kernel list archive and the post with the patch.

      http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/01 09 .3/0599.html

      Hello Linus? Wake up? How about some reacting on feedback?

      Hello CmdrWacko? How about a less intrusive filter?

  • The Despair of NFS (Score:5, Funny)

    by telekon ( 185072 ) <canweriotnow&gmail,com> on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @02:33AM (#2470856) Homepage Journal
    I was excited reading the kernel changelog until I got to this line:

    - Trond Myklebust: make NFS use SLAB_NOFS, and not play games with PF_MEMALLOC

    I'm sure NFS won't mind using SLAB_NOFS, but it's cruel to prohibit it from playing games with PF_MEMALLOC. NFS has reached the point where playing games with PF_MEMALLOC is the sole respite from the drudgery of its mundane life. None of the other protocols will play with it since the Trivial Pursuit incident of 1998, and it's banned from EQ for excessive Britishing.

    Sure, we've all been inconvenienced a little now and again when NFS is playing games with PF_MEMALLOC, but it wasn't that bad, and it brought a glimmer of joy into NFS's otherwise bleak existence. Now NFS will be forced to sit alone in its room playing X Bill all alone until it goes mad and starts initializing remote filesystems at random.

    Then where will we be?

    Trond Myklebust, I hope you're happy with yourself. What did NFS ever do to you? It's just cruel, and we'll all have to deal with the consequences when people start running NFS on 2.4.13. You should be ashamed.

    *telekon

  • The Linux Kernel. Updates rolling out faster than communist tanks during the cold war.

  • Mee too (Score:5, Funny)

    by zensonic ( 82242 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @02:38AM (#2470871) Homepage
    I want to be a slashdot editor too (looks easy):

    if(new_kernel_arrived) {
    version=X.Y.ZZ
    if(slow_week) {
    version=X.Y.ZZ-preWW
    }

    print "Looks like Linux X.Y.ZZ is out. You can get it at the usual place (kernel.org) and the mirrors. Check out the Changelog."

    if(CmdrTaco just upgraded to ZZ-1 ||
    weekday=tuesday) {
    print "This is lame."
    } else {
    print "Grab. Test. Enjoy"
    }
    }
  • From the ChangeLog:
    final:

    . . .
    - me: handle VM write load more gracefully. Merge parts of -aa VM
    Isn't that how the latest VM mess started?

    The good news is that Linus seems ready to hand 2.4.x over to Alan. From the latest Kernel Traffic [zork.net] Linus was quoted as saying:

    . . .

    He replied to himself shortly thereafter after noticing more breakage, adding, "On the other hand, the good news is that I'll open 2.5.x RSN, just because Alan is so much better at maintaining things ;)"
    It seems that Linus is going to do the same thing that he did with the 2.2.x kernels, make a mess out of them (especially VM), have a few back-to-back releases, then hand the whole thing over to Alan.
    • Have some respect. He can code better than you or I or anybody here ever dreamed of. And do you know why? Because instead of wasting time on /. he is coding. I know it's hard to fathom, but not everyone wastes their time posting on trolldot.
      • I didn't say Linus was a bad coder. I'm just implying something that he admits to, he's a poor maintainer. The stable kernel series is suppose to be that, stable. It's not some place where you make radical VM changes. Linus should hand the 2.4.x kernels over to someone else so that he can do what he's best at, development.

        Linus may well be one of the better coders in the world (I'm certainly no judge of that), but I don't think he has the patience to maintain anything. He's creative, he want's to go somewhere with Linux, some call him a visionary. Someone like that needs to use their creative energies, they need to develop something. The slow drudgery that maintaining (bug fixing) a project requires is not him.

  • Which releases are production stable? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by S. Invicta ( 216709 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @03:01AM (#2470915)
    I must say that I am getting a little bit leary about using the 2.4.x series in production. The fast releases don't inspire confidence. On one hand people (perhaps rightfully so) say don't use a kernel that is newer than 6 mo. old or you are a beta tester. But of course those older kernels were once bleeding new as well...how to know which to use and which to avoid? That 6 mo. old one might be the right age and yet perfectly horrible. Perhaps what is needed is a kernel stability/security chart that shows how well different kernel versions have "aged". Anyone know of such a beast?
    • FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org/)
    • I must say that I am getting a little bit leary about using the 2.4.x series in production.

      Then use the latest in the stable tree. By definition, this is the one handed over to the stable kernel maintainer (Alan Cox). At the moment it's the 2.2.x series. When Linus decides 2.4.x is "production" ready, he'll hand it over to Alan & open 2.5.x (unless he decides to call it "Linux YQ" or something :)).

      • This is not the way it's "supposed" to be. It might be true, but don't present it that way. Even versioned kernels are SUPPOSED to be stable. All of them. Patchlevel kernel revisions on the even number trees are not supposed to be anything but bugfixes.
        • This is not the way it's "supposed" to be. It might be true, but don't present it that way. Even versioned kernels are SUPPOSED to be stable. All of them. Patchlevel kernel revisions on the even number trees are not supposed to be anything but bugfixes.

          I think people need to realize that brand new kernels are like software 'release candidates'. In the case of Linux kernels they are made available to everyone for testing therefore they get somewhat widely tested. When [Debian|RedHat|SuSE] determine that a kernel is ready for prime-time they incorporate the kernel into their distribution and/or release it as an upgrade. These kernels should be though of as 'final realeases.'

          As always, even with final releases of ANY software, there is no guarantee of 'buglessness.' <g> You really never know how software is going to react in your own environment until you actually test it.

          It's really unreasonable for people to expect any kind of guarantee of stability from software that was realeased in the last 24 hours and hasn't been widely tested.

    • The fast releases don't inspire confidence.

      Linus used to release new kernels daily. In fact, it was part of the foundation for The Cathedral And The Bazaar [tuxedo.org]. It's a feature, not a bug. 8^)

    • I must say that I am getting a little bit leary about using the 2.4.x series in production. The fast releases don't inspire confidence. On one hand people (perhaps rightfully so) say don't use a kernel that is newer than 6 mo. old or you are a beta tester.

      For a production enviroment, I would get a Red Hat or SUSE (or any other large distributor's) kernel and just use that. They are heavily tested and heavily used kernels.

      I for one would not upgrade to 2.4 on a serious production server yet unless thier is something 2.2 is missing that you need.

    • -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
      Hash: SHA1

      I must say that I am getting a little bit leary about using the 2.4.x series in production.

      I can't say that I blame you (although your reason of "fast releases" not inspiring confidence is IMHO misguided) ... some of the 2.4.x kernels have not been good.

      I do use 2.4 in production in several environments, but in order to assure you have a stable kernel you need to do more than just dowload the latest and greatest.

      • Don't run it on a production system day 1. Wait a few days to see if there are any widespread complaints (they come in quickly if they exist), then test it for a week or two on a development/test system before putting it into a production environment.
      • Use the -ac series rather than the Linus tree. I use both (some machines use xfs, which won't patch against -ac kernels and therefor requires the Linus tree, but everywhere else I stick to Alan Cox's fork), but have found Alan Cox's kernels to be more stable (and more feature rich) on the whole than the Linus tree. YMMV, and if you follow the procedure outlined above either should be adequate.
      • If it aint broke, don't fix it. Don't upgrade gratuitously just to have the current revision number displayed in your "uname -a" command.
      • If it is broke (ie security fixes, such as occurred in 2.4.9 and 2.4.13), then you should upgrade if possible. Of course, if you are unlucky enough to be using a Znyx 4 port (tulip) card like me, you'll be stuck running 2.4.3 until the bugs in the driver get fixed (maybe in 2.4.13?), so upgrading even for security purposes isn't always an option. This sort of cock-up is very rare, but, as in this case, it can happen with some drivers.


      I too have been irritated with some of the overreaching changes in a kernel series that is supposed to be stable (2.0 and 2.2. were very solid, some 2.4 kernels can be used in critical environments, but others cannot), but have found the above mentioned precuations/practices sufficient to avoid getting burned by the unstable releases which have appeared from time to time (eg 2.4.11), and 2.4 does
      have a number of features that make it very, very useful in many production situations.
      -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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      Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org

      iD8DBQE71rXX2TX54E1iXfYRApE3AJwJRSIv1o/69RrrOY5U Z7 LWappc7ACghcwq
      gJOvzuIKtWwLZ0hH3LFN8q4=
      =7OlV
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    • Re:Which releases are production stable? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ajs ( 35943 ) <{ajs} {at} {ajs.com}> on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @10:45AM (#2472056) Homepage Journal
      If you're grabbing the kernel-o-the-week, I suggest you're always going to be "less than production quality". Vendors like Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake, etc. spend a whole lot of time integrating new kernel releases with their operating systems. This can include bug-fixing, testing on a number of hardware platforms, retro-fitting patches from development versions that are required for certain business segments and even beta periods for certain cutting-edge features (e.g. Red Hat's long trails internally and externally of the ext3 filesystem).

      You should probably think of the stable kernels as just that: stable. That doesn't mean they are ready for prime-time. It's more like a "stable branch". You expect this to be the branch from which the distributions will craft The Right Kernel for their platforms.

      Should you use such a kernel, then? Yes, but only if a) you're in a non-mission-critical situation or b) you "must have" a certain bug-fix and are willing to put in the Q/A yourself.

      Think of the linux kernel as released on kernel.org like Mozilla. This is like a milestone release. Netscape will come out with something based on it which has Java, Flash, some back-ported bug fixes from later nightlies, etc. The corporate user should probably wait and go with a Netscape release, but here I am submitting this comment from a nightly ;-)

    • Mac OS X 10.1.

      Aw, hell, even Darwin sounds better than the holy hell that a Linux kernel update can bring. The current yelling in here makes me wonder if the yellers should just blow up their PCs and use an abacus.

      But then, they would be back, complaining that they can't use their DVD or joysticks with their abacus, and want the latest abacus kernel...

      /./././.


    • If Linus shipped the kernel, it's not production.
      If Alan did, and it doesn't have an -ac after it, it's production.

  • Downloaded the linux-2.4.13.tar.bz2 file in less than 50 seconds @ around 300kb/sec. Wow!

  • "2.4.13 contains a highly severe filesystem bug, please upgrade to 2.4.14"

    :-)

  • Alan's branch (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BlowCat ( 216402 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @03:15AM (#2470952)
    SlashDot seems to pay more attention to the Linus' branch, but if you really want to be on the edge, you should track the Alan's branch (i.e. the "ac" series). The branches are synchronized with each other from time to time, but if you want to fix some problem, check the code in the AC branch - it may have the fix already. That's especially true for the sound drivers.

    As for stability, the Linus' releases don't seem to be formally tested anyway. Maybe Linus is more conservative in applying patches before the release, but the recent events (2.4.11 and 2.4.12) show that the kernel may not compile in a common configuration and be released notwithstanding.

  • Q.(The kernel) 2.4.13 just came out a few days after the 2.4.12 release, which was a broken one. Aren't you worried about the kernel reputation?

    Linus:I couldn't care less.

    Q.But that's the second time that happens in 2 weeks (2.4.12 was released just 2 days after 2.4.11). Are you sure there is not a problem with the 2.4 branch?

    Linus:See my answer to the previous question.
  • Despite the fact that 2.4.11 is tagged "Don't Use This" it's the only kernel that works for me for Very Very important app - Return To Castle Wolfenstein [activision.com] :) With all other kernels tried I can't connect to multiplayer servers through 56k modem connection. It might be some configuration options that does it but with other kernels it just stays forever in state "Getting game state". Too bad i didn't install that SuSE's patch which stores the active configuration in /proc/config.gz so it could be copied as a basis for the new kernels (Yes I ran make mrproper before applying the 2.4.12 patch so I lost old .config)
  • ...but its criteria:

    2.4.12 was released just 2 days after 2.4.11 to fix a bug that happens in a particular situation that happily nobody uses [alaska.edu] .

    Then 2.4.12 had a bug that broke the parport module, which unhappilly affects almost everyone who compiles a kernel, and a release to fix that bug took almost 2 weeks!

    IANAQAE (I am not a QA expert), but that doesn't sound good to me...

  • Tips for Testing and Those New to Kernels (Score:5, Informative)

    by goingware ( 85213 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @04:02AM (#2471052) Homepage
    Before you use the new kernel on a production machine, or if you want to help find bugs, then read my article Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel [sunsite.dk].

    If you are new to installing your own kernel, or you want to get started on kernel programming, see http://www.kernelnewbies.org/ [kernelnewbies.org] and join them on IRC in #kernelnewbies on the Open Projects Network.

    Also helpful to newbies, or to convince you it's worthwhile to help with testing, is my other article Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel [sunsite.dk].

    And finally there is the Kernel HOWTO [linuxdoc.org].

    If you'd like to program or debug the kernel, I recommend a couple of books:

    • Kernel Projects for Linux [fatbrain.com] by Gary Nutt, ISBN 0-201-61243-7 - this is a lab manual with hands-on kernel programming projects that address a variety of kernel components
    • Understanding the Linux Kernel [fatbrain.com] by Bovet, Cassetti, and Oram, ISBN 0596000022 - I bought a number of kernel programming books, and this seemed to be the best written of the books that covered recent kernels. It's mainly 2.2, with short addenda in each chapter for the changes that were expected at the time of writing for 2.4

  • Mirror (Score:2, Informative)

    by Corby911 ( 250281 )
    To relieve a bit of stress from kernel.org, heres the gzipped tarball...

    http://beresm.stu.rpi.edu/~mike/linux-2.4.13.tar.g z [rpi.edu]
  • Soon X>Y, in 2.4.X and 2.2.Y. Only 6 more to go...

  • bttv? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @05:40AM (#2471193) Homepage
    pre4:
    - Gerd Knorr: btaudio/bttv update

    @whee. Sounds good.

    I just wish that some day I will see a working Linux bttv driver. For some reason, I always drop WAY too many frames with every Linux video capture program I use. (MainActor has been best so far - it only drops a few frames, almost gets perfect video quality, almost keeps A&V in sync and almost saves in format that can be read to Virtualdub in Windows, or any other Win32 editing app).

    I need to use Windows programs to do video captures, which technically isn't nice either because the driver really doesn't work perfectly there either - it either works perfectly or not at all, depending on the phase of the moon.

    Better multimedia support is always nice. One day, I will be able to use Linux for everything. =)

    • vcr with the Indeo 5.0 codec. vcr for me drops about 1 frame in 2000 - not as good as it should be, but acceptable. And the resulting files are VirtualDub readable, which is good - I haven't found any better way to cut commercials and merge multiple AVI files in Linux.

      There's a nice symbiosis there, because the Windows bttv driver generally bluescreens on me within the first minute or two of recording. I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't dual booting.
  • If you have lm_sensors and i2c 2.6.1, you need to do a "make clean" and a "make depend" in those source trees (after building kernel 2.4.13) to deal with an apparent change in a kernel file name. Other than that those packages work fine with the new kernel (so far ...).

    It's probably wise to do that every time, but I've been able to get away with "make clean all install" until now.

  • kernel pre-emption patch (Score:5, Informative)

    by DGolden ( 17848 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2001 @10:23AM (#2471958) Homepage Journal
    If you're on a desktop machine, try the kernel pre-emption patch [tech9.net] - it's nice, and will make everything feel more responsive and smooth, since in addition to the normal user-space pre-emptive multitasking, the patch allows a lot of kernel calls to be pre-empted.

    Even if you don't want to use the patch, you might want to try renicing X negatively to make it feel a bit snappier.

  • 2.4.12 last week, 2.4.13 this week! Woohoo! Time to compile another one for the workstations and servers! Gotta love Linux, wouldn't see this from Microsoft, ever!

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