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Linux Kernel 2.6.4 Released 431

justinarthur writes "The Linux kernel version 2.6.4 has been released at 03:16 UTC. Included in the changes from version 2.6.3 are fixes to XFS support, Wide Area Networking, USB connectivity, and IEEE1394 connectivity. To download a copy, it is recommended that one utilizes a Linux Kernel Archives mirror. Linus Torvalds' announcement to the Linux Kernel Mailing list concerning this release is available here." Reader k-zed points out that Linux 1.0 was released in March 1994, ten years ago.
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Linux Kernel 2.6.4 Released

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  • Slackers. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:12AM (#8531599) Homepage Journal

    Hmm.. I don't see it on ftp.sco.com yet. What lousy service for $699.
  • 10 years? (Score:4, Funny)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:14AM (#8531611) Homepage Journal
    10 years and that guy is only on version 2?
  • Yes but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bilange ( 237074 ) <bilange.hotmail@com> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:15AM (#8531629) Journal
    Does it run Linux?

    (Ok, sorry. I know its not funny anymore.)
    • Re:Yes but... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AntiOrganic ( 650691 )
      If you need to apologize in advance for a post it may have not been a good idea in the first place. ;)
      • He/She/It didn't apologize in advance, it was in hindsight. If the post read:

        (Ok, sorry. I know its not funny anymore.)
        Does it run Linux?


        Then that would be in advance.
    • Why yes it does! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Medievalist ( 16032 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:20AM (#8531680)

      usermode linux runs linux on linux.

      So, the answer is yes.
      • usermode linux runs linux on linux.

        But can you run usermode Linux on usermode Linux?

        More to the point, can you run usermode Linux on top of Line [sourceforge.net] on top of Windows?

        • Yes, but you have to increment the nesting level in make menuconfig when you're building it, i.e. you need a UML specially compiled to run on other UMLs, or a UML compiled to run on other UMLs that run on other UMLs, etc.
    • Does it run Linux?

      Give them time to work on the compatibility, this release is still pretty gnu. :o)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:17AM (#8531651)
    ... hasn't even gotten finished compiling the last 2.6 kernel release *grumbling* *adding yet another patch to my to-do list*
    • Re:My 486 laptop... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Cthefuture ( 665326 )
      Heh, your comment and the 10 year thing made me think back.

      I remember the old pre-1.0 days. I was running a 386DX-40 and it took around 45 minutes to compile the kernel. Back then the kernel was extremely small and it still took that long. Ah, the good old days.

      I'm still amazed at how fast the kernel compiles nowadays. Whenever I recompile, somewhere in the back of my head I still think it's going to take 45 minutes even though it only takes like 2 minutes.
  • Just when... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cytlid ( 95255 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:17AM (#8531653)
    ... I was thinking "I don't need this kernel upgrade, 2.6.3 has been working great for me..." I find in the changelog:

    [IRDA]: Add stir4200 driver.

    doh... finally added support for one of my usb-irda dongles.

    Damn.
    • by damballah ( 691477 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:48AM (#8531964) Homepage Journal
      Speaking of changelogs, this is the funniest one I've found so far for 2.6.4:

      [PATCH] kthread primitive

      From: Rusty Russell

      These two patches provide the framework for stopping kernel threads to
      allow hotplug CPU. This one just adds kthread.c and kthread.h, next
      one uses it.

      Most importantly, adds a Monty Python quote to the kernel.

      • by FueledByRamen ( 581784 ) * <sabretooth@gmail.com> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @01:36PM (#8533316)
        Haha, I have a runner up here:

        Maurice van der Stee noted that he got an oops on a HPFS filesystem when
        saving an edited file..

        <stares at the code>
        <blinks>
        <wonders whereTF do we assign hpfs1_i and hpfs2_i if both inodes are non-NULL>
        <finds the patch in question>
        <stares at jgarzik>

        This fixes it. That, BTW, means that *nobody* had ever tried to use
        hpfs r/w since 2.5.3-pre3.

        Poor HPFS. Nobody ever loved you...
    • Geek fun (Score:3, Funny)

      by valentyn ( 248783 )
      I found this Changelog entry rather funny. Looooong story about stir4200 driver - then another commit that adds stir4200.c:

      [IRDA]: Add stir4200 driver.
      After a long maturation, this is time to send you the latest
      version of the stir4200 USB driver. Initially started by Paul Stewart,
      modified by Martin Diehl and me, and later partially rewriten by
      Stephen Hemminger.
      The hardware has many quirks. This is the first version that
      work reliably at SIR and mostly work at FIR. We may never get o
    • I thought that added the much-needed support for the stir portion of the stir-fry system.
  • Did you know that.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:18AM (#8531663)
    The name of this release amongst the core developers was "Heathen Chemistry.". Alan Cox came up with it - it's was inside joke about british pop/rock phenomenon.
  • remove SCO code (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Spetiam ( 671180 )
    has there been any talk of removing the alleged SCO code? or rumors? i guess linus wouldn't make a statement about it now, since there's the lawsuit going on
    • Re:remove SCO code (Score:5, Insightful)

      by the_mad_poster ( 640772 ) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:23AM (#8531709) Homepage Journal

      i guess linus wouldn't make a statement about it now, since there's the lawsuit going on

      I think the fact that SCO hasn't actually shown it bears more weight on it having not been removed. It's hard to remove something that isn't there, and it effectively isn't there unless SCO can actually show it to somebody.

    • by jd ( 1658 )
      Although C supports comments, it doesn't have any markers for rumors. If any of the GCC development team are reading, maybe they should add some.
    • Re:remove SCO code (Score:3, Informative)

      by neurojab ( 15737 )
      >has there been any talk of removing the alleged SCO code?

      If there were any SCO code, I'm sure Linus would love to remove it. The only code SCO has shown has been header files specified by POSIX and IBM copyrighted code. Never any SCO code.

      Repeat after me: There is no SCO code in the Linux kernel. There never was. There never will be. Darl McBride and Chris Sontag are trying to take money from the gullible.

    • by ader ( 1402 )
      <Chief Wiggum voice> Nice try, Darl.
  • Ack! (Score:4, Funny)

    by MalaclypseTheYounger ( 726934 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:19AM (#8531676) Journal
    Oh no! Someone leaked their source! Call Microsoft, maybe they can help track down who leaked this to the internet...

    oh, wait... nevermind.
    • Maybe they can track it with Bill Gates's famous "email tracking" technology that was tested several years ago and is continually tested today.

      PS: If I get that stupid email one more time...
  • new kernel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1&twmi,rr,com> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:20AM (#8531683)

    Odd. I'm still stuck on my 2.4.xx version. I tried to upgrade a few distros to 2.6 and things didn't go very well (kernel panic)

    It seems to me that the number of users who have picked up 2.6 x compared to the number that picked up 2.4 from 2.2 has greatly diminished on many of the distro mailing lists. From this it seems that either the migration is uglier than anticipated, or that more people are just willing to sit back and wait for their distro to provide them with all their needs.

    Who will be the first to ship kernel 2.6 by default?

    • Re:new kernel (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:26AM (#8531737)
      Mandrake 10 is (look for the story from yesterday) Also you can get 2.6 from gentoo and debian, though not default
    • Re:new kernel (Score:3, Insightful)

      by peterf ( 142078 )
      Some people are waiting for their distros to ship 2.6, but I think 2.4 is works for most users, there is no urgent need to upgrade.

      This doesn't mean 2.6 won't be a success, I am sure it will be, but I think it means we have left the 'revolution' and joined the 'evolution'.
      • Re:new kernel (Score:4, Informative)

        by DarkBlackFox ( 643814 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:48AM (#8531970)
        2.6 does offer a number of improvements to 2.4 (as it should, being a later release), including native ATAPI (non-SCSI emulated) CDRW support (which a lot of new users get borked on and complain about), non-dangerous NTFS support (including writing, which is huge when migrating from Windows), much easier build process (simply 'make'), easier module selection layout, faster boot times, etc. etc.

        I was happy as a clam switching to 2.6, and haven't looked back to 2.4 much since.
        • Re:new kernel (Score:4, Informative)

          by TheTomcat ( 53158 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @12:53PM (#8532816) Homepage
          - A responsive scheduler and preemptible kernel (sure, most users won't have a clue what it DOES, but they'll notice the difference).
          - ALSA (in-kernel) -- for the first time I can remember on Linux, the mixer (non OpenSoundSystem) labels my inputs/outputs properly.

          S
      • Yeah, I just mentioned to someone that I will likely be going to 2.6 once it goes above 2.6.5. I think I switched to 2.4 w/the pre kernels. It had some support that I wanted. 2.6 isn't offering anything that I desperately need.

        I don't use Linux w/X, I don't really use it for much other tahn a webserver, IRC, and email. It's basically just a way for me to do IRC and email from work.

        What advantages would I have using 2.6 with that setup?
        • Re:yup, agreed. (Score:3, Informative)

          by Paladin128 ( 203968 )
          Depends on your hardware. If you're using SMP, it will help; the scheduler is a bit better. Also has better support for the P4/Xeon's Hyperthreading. Overall lower latency operation as well. udev is a nice upgrade from devfs. No need to use proprietary sound or ethernet drivers on an nForce platform. If you're dealing with LOTS of traffic, it will perform better under stress.

          What hardware do you have?
    • Re:new kernel (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TheAcousticMotrbiker ( 313701 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:30AM (#8531778)
      The Knoppix that came with the C'T from a month ago already had a 2.6 kernel.

      Suse 9.0 came with a 2.6 kernel (though neither had them as a default)
    • did you report it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:32AM (#8531792)
      Copy down the numbers from the kernel panic.
      I know it's a pain, but we really need this.
      If you're terribly lazy, just get EIP, ESP,
      and any names you see.

      Mail that to linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org and
      expect a few questions about your hardware.

      That's not so difficult, is it? This gets the
      bug fixed so that the next release will run on
      your system.

      • by pe1rxq ( 141710 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:49AM (#8531976) Homepage Journal
        Without the symbol map the EIP and ESP values are pretty useless since they vary on compile time options (and even the compiler).

        What is usefull is the EIP (and call trace) with together with the symbol table, or easier the 2.6 kernels have a build in back trace that spits out the function names itself. (If you want some fun do it yourself for once with the call trace and a symbol table, bonus points for doing hex math on a piece of paper instead of a calculator)
        Just write down this list of functionnames and send it, that way the developpers immediatly known wath code path your pc took before going boom.

        Jeroen
    • I upgraded in a couple of hours after the last round of security issues. Got caught out by a couple of things that made one or other network card run, but not both. Still it didn't take more than booting back into 2.4, checking websites, recompile and reboot.

      If you're running a kernel provided by your distro, you probably don't need the upgrade. Just apply security patches as they send them to you. If you run a kernel you built yourself, you probably know whether or not you need or want 2.6. I didn't need

    • Re:new kernel (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SQLz ( 564901 )

      It seems to me that the number of users who have picked up 2.6 x compared to the number that picked up 2.4 from 2.2 has greatly diminished on many of the distro mailing lists.

      Hmm, I heard the 2.6 adoption has been faster than any other version. The beta versions were like a testing phenonenom or something. People were testing 2.6 in droves compared to 2.4. I don't even know of anyone running 2.4 anymore actually. I mean, why not upgrade? The configuration is much cleaner and easier, its much more r

      • by schon ( 31600 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @12:04PM (#8532189)
        I don't even know of anyone running 2.4 anymore actually. I mean, why not upgrade?

        I finally got around to compiling 2.6.3 last night; ran into some issues.

        its much more responsive than 2.4 for desktop use

        The desktop is definitely more responsive, but (at least for me) at the expense of everything else. MPlayer, xmms, and anything that's remotely timing-intensive is unusable (xmms actually skips while playing MP3s, and Mplayer prints the message "Your computer is TOO SLOW to play this file" when playing anything I've got. Note that everything works fine under 2.4.)

        I went through the various mailing lists looking for suggestions, with no luck; every suggestion is OK (checked drive DMA, kernel settings, X nice level, etc.) - interestingly enough, one post I read said to try glxgears.. I did, and it runs better under 2.6 - constant frame rate, regardless of what else I'm doing, whereas in 2.4, even moving the mouse drops the frame rate.)

        So it's back to 2.4 for me. I'll probably try 2.6.4, to see if the situation has improved, but for the mean time, I'll stick with 2.4.
        • X nice level (Score:3, Informative)

          by steveha ( 103154 )
          Are you sure about the X nice level? Your symptoms sound exactly like what happened to me when I ran 2.6 for the first time, and my problem was the X nice level.

          For 2.6, you want X to run at nice 0. Many Linux distros set X to nice -10 for kernel 2.4 and older, but for 2.6 that gums up the works.

          Debian users can fix it like so:

          dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common

          Then, when it asks you what X nice level you want, set it to zero.

          steveha
        • Make sure you have the RTC compiled in and that ALSA has RTC timing on and that should fix it.
    • Mandrake?

      http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/10/communit y
  • wow! (Score:5, Funny)

    by matticus ( 93537 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:20AM (#8531688) Homepage
    this is the first time i've installed the kernel and had it running before the slashdot announcement!
    i just checked the new one after lunch. blasted centrino ultralights need all this new stuff in them.
    I think i'll go celebrate "I beat slashdot's unnecessary kernel release announcement day!"
  • Reiser4 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:21AM (#8531700)
    Wonder if we'll see reiser4 [namesys.com] in 2.6.
    You can test it now [namesys.com], but it is very experimental.

    Maybee they'll merge it with 2.7
  • Augh! (Score:3, Funny)

    by asit+ler ( 688945 ) * <asittler@bradTEA-x.com minus caffeine> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:22AM (#8531704)
    I haven't gotten 2.6.3 compiled yet, and here comes 2.6.4. Hell, I'm still running 2.6.0-gentoo. What's with this heightened release schedule? I mean, gcc is only so fast on my machine.
  • by xheliox ( 199548 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:23AM (#8531711) Homepage
    2.6.4-rc1 ChangeLog:

    [libata] catch, and ack, spurious DMA interrupts

    Hardware issue on Intel ICH5 requires an additional ack sequence over and above the normal IDE DMA interrupt ack requirements. Issue described in post to freebsd list: http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd .org/msg58421.html

    Since the bug workaround only requires a single additional PIO or MMIO read in the interrupt handler, it is applied to all chipsets using the standard libata interrupt handler.

    Credit for research the issue, creating the patch, and testing the patch all go to Jon Burgess.
    ---------

    Woo, this is very exciting. If you had problems with SATA & ICH5... this probably fixes those problems.
    • Fixed a number of bugs in SCSI from 2.6.3 too- I heard of a lot of people (myself included) having trouble with K3b with SCSI/USB/Firewire cd burners, locking up and such.

      K3b fired up perfectly the first time with 2.6.4-rc2, and I'm looking forward to the expanded firewire support in 2.6.4 final, it's compiling right now. Great to have such a dedicated community which stands by their work and fixes problems so quickly!
  • just add love... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by encrypted ( 614135 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:30AM (#8531780) Homepage
    all it needs now is some love [linuxmall.us] and it'll be ready for my machine.
  • I am waiting on 2.6.4.5.4.333a I hear there will be good things with that.
  • Is there a handy place to find a listing of ALL changes since 2.6.0? I missed the change logs for a couple version and am trying to figure out if my nforce2 stuff was ever added (wasn't in 2.6.1).
  • by rpozz ( 249652 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:52AM (#8532018)
    Finally they've included mdpart. This means anyone with a SATA RAID motherboard can use its full potential. Excellent :-)
  • by unsinged int ( 561600 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @12:14PM (#8532308)
    2.6.2 => 2.6.3 completely broke ALSA on my system. I haven't seen any ALSA patches go in after 2.6.3. Anybody have info on that? Is there another big ALSA merge coming soon?
    • Between kernel 2.6.2 and 2.6.3, ALSA 1.02c got merged, and that broke stuff. (I was having problems too.) For me, upgrading to to ALSA 1.03 worked. This would have been in time for 2.6.4, but the -rc kernels were already out, so no big patches could be accepted. Unzip the alsa tarball to /usr/src, and do

      cd /usr/src
      cp -a alsa/alsa-kernel/* linux/sound
      cp -a alsa/alsa-kernel/include/* linux/include/sound
      cp -a alsa/alsa-kernel/Documentation/* linux/Documentation/sound

      before configuring and compiling the

  • by steelerguy ( 172075 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @12:18PM (#8532371) Homepage
    So I went to the 2.6 series when they first came out. I was very happy with it at work, there was a noticable bump in speed...mainly in starting applications.

    At home it was another story. Sure the speed increases I noticed at work were still there but there were some fairly large problems.

    First, neither my DVD reader or CD burner were assigned /dev entries. So no reading CD's, DVD, or writing CD's. I honestly don't do it that much anyway, so I didn't spend a lot of time trouble shooting it. Plus after a day at work trouble shooting problems I don't feel like doing it at home.

    Second, I have not been able to mount my USB flash drive. It is an MP3 player which I changed CD's on weekly so I am not listening to the same stuff at the gym every day. Well after a few weeks of Outkast it was time for a change so I sat down to fix the problem. Two hours later, I just went back to the 2.4 kernel.

    I have gotten as far as getting the kernel to assign sda to my usb device but it never creates an entry in /dev and the /sys stuff is not mountable. Enabling USB debugging just shows me that things are messed up but does not really help much.

    I also started to get annoyed with all the SCSI emulation needed to mount a USB storage device. I don't understand how Linus can hate SCSI emulation so much when it comes to burning CD's yet it is perfectly acceptable to use it to mount a USB disk. Seems a bit hypocritical, but then again...he did sort of invent Linux so I guess I can cut him some slack.

    So all in all, I have been disappointed in the 2.6.x series of kernels and if they are the one's that are supposed to take the desktop market by storm then I think Linux on the desktop is in trouble. It is no wonder Redhat and SuSE are staying away from it for the most part right now. It is going to take both of them a lot of work to get everything working properly I would imagine.

    Am I the only one who went back?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Supposedly, USB Mass Storage is basically SCSI protocols piped over USB, so it requires SCSI emulation.
    • by Abcd1234 ( 188840 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @12:47PM (#8532748) Homepage
      Are you using devfs? Did you try to migrate to udev (since devfs is deprecated)? Did you try to manually create those device entries and just use them, so you can at least make sure the device drivers work?

      As for /sys, you compiled sysfs into the kernel, right? If so, it should be automatically mounted (well, at least, it is on my box). You also need the following fstab entry, in order to mount usbfs:

      none /sys/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0

    • No, I did the same. For me, it's accumulation of little issues. my touchpad, wireless, and other stuff I forget about. I'm sure I'll try again soon enough, but doing so eats time. It's not as though 2.4.25 has been anything for me to be disappointed about.
  • by GooberToo ( 74388 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @12:37PM (#8532611)
    ...why kernels are still not offered up via torrents yet?

    Seems like it would help a lot.

    Right now, I can't even connect to a use mirror. Grrr.

  • by motown ( 178312 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @12:56PM (#8532852)
    Even Kernel 2.4.6 still locks up frequently on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard unless I specify the options "noapic nolapic" at boot time. Then the system runs flawlessly (even with ACPI-support).

    I read somewhere that the problem currently lies in the BIOS, rather than in the kernel, and that some vendors have already released proper BIOS updates that add a "C1 disconnect" option, which supposedly does the trick.

    Unfortunately, Asus has released no such update as of yet.

    Does anyone here (perhaps one of the kernel developers involved) have any more details on this?

    Can this problem eventually be solved in the kernel, even without any BIOS updates?

    After all, as far as I understood it, the BIOS pretty much takes a back seat as soon as the kernel is running, right?

Them as has, gets.

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