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Wonderful World Of Linux 2.4 - Final Candidate 180

Posted by timothy from the now-that's-a-*mature*-penguin,-ma'am dept.
EngrBohn writes "Joe Pranevich has posted the latest & greatest Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 at LinuxToday. 'In the beginning, there was Linus and his 386 ... Several years and many thousands of lines of code later, Linux 2.2 was released ... Linus (and company) continued to hack away at the Linux OS and the 2.4 release of the Linux kernel is nearing completion. Submitted for your approval, this document describes some of the new features in Linux 2.4.'" Helps sort out rumors, half-truths and innuendo. I hope Joe's estimate is conservative on getting CDs shipping with point-four; usually it seems like the distro houses are pretty swift to incorporate.
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Wonderful World Of Linux 2.4 - Final Candidate More

Wonderful World Of Linux 2.4 - Final Candidate

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  • The bright side... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You're right. They're timing sucks. It takes them way too long to release. Compare their release rate to the rate for, say, Mandrake, or RH.

    On the bright side, though, those guys in debian, they have the sexiest asses. Whooo! Yawp!

  • Well done (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    As a fully qualified IT consultant working on a report into the freeware phenomenon exemplified by the Linux operating system, I am heartened to see that Linux is still riding the crest of the wave of its recent popularity. Despite what many people in my industry have thought, it continues to garner market share, and its popularity as a server is slowly growing.

    With the new features that this release brings, Linux is coming ever closer to being ready to handle mission-critical enterprise applications. While I personally think it is almost there, there are several things which are missing before it is truly ready to compete with superior platforms such as Solaris and Win2K.

    Scalability is the key - Linux needs to increase its ability to adapt to the constanly growing demand with enterprise servers are placed under, and unless its ability to scale is improved then it will never truly suceed in this growing market. Another important aspect which is missing is increased support for such emerging protocols such as XML and SOAP, which from what I have seen so far, are sadly lacking in version 2.4. Once these minor oversights are corrected, then I truly believe Linux will be able to compete successfully against the might of Win2K, and maybe even win.

    Anyway, well done to Linus Torvelds and Richard Stallmann and all the other Linux developers. Thank you.

  • Re:2.4 - so what's the _real_ difference? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually, Solaris does have PnP support.

  • Re:overcommitting memory (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    no, we don't. and your argument is incorrect, as has been explained to you repeatedly in excruciating detail by people who know signifigantly more than you about all things unix-like.

    Linux's handling of OOM situations is perfectly fine by both POSIX and ANSI C (since ANSI C only refers to programs, while POSIX defines behavior for processes).

    brk/sbrk's behavior is documented as increasing your address space. There is no promise that the memory will be there when you zero fill the page on first page fault.

    for the VERY LAST TIME, the system call you want is mlock, its behavior is PRECISELY what you have been whining for. brk/sbrk have certain semantics, which you don't seem to like. that doesn't make them any less correct.

    so far everyone has been polite in explaining why you are flat out wrong, but since the first 4 times it was explained seemed to go right over your head, expect flamage if you continue to repost your drivel without even correcting the parts people have poked giant holes in (which is about 95% of it by now).

  • M$ GOIN' DOWN!!@&# (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
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    thank you.

  • Re:MultiLink PPP & Other added features (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Right, the s3 VIRGE uses TCP/IP over PPP over AGP to transfer command buffers. This way if you suspect your video card has died, you can simply ping /dev/agp/s3virge thanks to Richard Gooch's new DevFS.

    Quite an exciting development for s3 owners.
  • I bought an HP C200 not so long ago, and it comes with a serial connector. It's cheap, takes nice enough pictures for me, and works with gphoto. I'm no "photog" by any means, maybe more expensive ones only have USB. But there are some still left out there that work just fine in Linux.
  • Please, please, please, please don't go looking at any kernel.org mirrors. We need such insightful comments as yours, and no one wants that to stop by actually visiting the mirrors and seeing 2.4 as it exists currently. "Vaporware" refers to something not existing for users to view, commonly just a list of features in press releases. So we can't have you seeing that it has existed for nearly a year.

    Thank you, and good day.
  • It still pales in comparison to an early release of a Linux kernel. Between an NDA for a beta program (I've done a few for Windows games), and the EULA for the product itself, you basically aren't allowed to say anything about it to anyone. This is the current corporate mindset that drives companies that operate in closed source and Windows worlds. They don't want any bad press, or a leak of their sacred intellectual property.

    Back in the days before Windows 95, I knew of a fellow who had some dinky web site about it on his ISP account. He didn't trash it, or anything too bad (in my opinion), but still got letters from MS, the ISP, etc to remove it. So, I use language like "sell your soul" to describe this behavior, because it prevents you from doing what comes naturally, talking. It is over the top, even absurd, as you don't literally sell your soul to them. But as Mr. Limbaugh says, it's "pointing out absurdity by being absurd."
  • The thing about Linux though, is one piece can go to hell, and leave the rest of the kernel running. There have been times when working with a sound driver or something and it craps out. I can't rmmod it because it's marked as used. The end result, sound is gone but everything else is still working. The kernel is still IP Masq'ing, I'm surfin the web, etc. Compare this to kernel integrations in Windows, and any one piece will bring down the entire machine. So, let them integrate simple daemons like this, not only can I choose to not install it, but if it goes to hell, I know it doesn't (necessarily) bring the entire thing down.
  • Ok, you can try Linux 2.4 legally anytime. You can get yourself on lists to beta test software for Windows and the like, but you must sell your soul to them first (NDA). You can download it from IRC, newsgroups, etc, but at any given moment MS can sick the feds on you and take everything you own as "evidence." The chances of it happening, probably low if you don't give it to others or use it in your business (they like making examples of those sort of cases). But it is the law, and if you do it, you accept the consequences. When my truck could go over the speed limit, I did so accepting that if I were caught, I'd pay the $100 (or whatever) fine. With the risk comes responsibility.

    Even if I cared about trying Windows early, to me, it's just not worth the hassle of jail for a few days, years in court, hundred-thousand dollar fines, having to perform community service, etc. They always go overboard with those sort of trials. :)

  • Re:2.4 (Score:1)

    by whoop ( 194 )
    Thank you. I hate it when people go and read the first couple of paragraphs of an article before asking their questions here. What, are they too good for those of us who react on impulse? Who died and made them king? Keep up the good work, my friend. Don't let The Man keep force you to read something before responding.

  • Now go back under your bridge.

    Faking sigs. How mature.

  • Now that we're getting into the 2.4-pre series, it's time for ever Linux user to do their bit for kernel development:

    - Go grab the latest tarball (use a mirror please)
    - Configure, compile, and install it.
    - Make a report on linux-kernel about what worked and what didn't

    Remember: "given enough eyeballs, all (kernel) bugs are shallow" Linux requires the massively parallel bug-finding that only widespread use and testing can provide.

    Keep that paper bag off Linus' head! Find and report them bugs! Do your bit!

  • Ok. I'll bite.
    can anyone tell me one thing, just one thing that's truly new and unique about this kernel?
    Well,
    • devfs - dynamic creation of device nodes for detected hardware.
    • khttpd - Whether you like it or not it is a new development.

    Regardless, truly "new" stuff doesn't magically appear in commercial programs. New concepts are generally developed by research teams, either funded by corporations or working for academia or the government. By the time an idea makes its way into a mainstream program, it's usually been around for a while in one community or another, and someone can point to previous work and say, "See! It's not *new*!"

    Still, on the newness theme, the article also has this to say about Linux:

    • "Linux is still the only operating system /completely/ compatible with the letter of the IPv4 specification".
    • Linux was one of the first OSes to provide kernel-level support for automatically running Java programs. (i.e. just ./java-program and the kernel knows what to do with it.)

    The bit about raw disk access implies that Linux's scheme for raw device access that doesn't require a double for every block device node in /dev is a new thing, too.

    You also say

    Basically, no matter what it comes down to, there's always a better choice. Want to run consumer software? Windows. Want scalability? Solaris. Want a good server? BSD. Notice Linux anywhere in there?
    I want a free, robust system that allows me to get my work (programming, research, school work (I attend college in the evenings)) done. Linux does all of that for me. Windows? Not free and far more unstable, anyway. Solaris? Not free, and the Intel version sucks performance-wise anyway. (And no, I'm not going to go buy a Sparc.) BSD? Free, but without the application base Linux has (although most of my work is done with Emacs, LaTeX, CMU-Lisp, and gcc).
    --Phil (And yes, I'm using 'free' in the 'libre' sense.)

  • Note that devfs is currently an *optional* feature, though there are inklings that in the future (i.e. 2.5/2.6) it may be optional in the sense that procfs is, i.e. you don't have to have it configured, but you loose functionality if it's not.

    Richard Gooch has been working on getting devfs included in the kernel for ages, it is nice to see it actually show up.

  • There is some discussion about the rationale behind khttpd inclusion in an older issue of Linux Weekly News [lwn.net].

    It does a little explaining, though I'm not sure there is an absolute justification given. Again, as you said, if you don't like it, don't use it.

  • I'm sorry but it seems you looked too far:

    /usr/src/linux/REPORTING-BUGS

    See, it was on you hard drive all along.


  • Thats funny. I wrote it seriously at the time, but then again any time one 'explains' Debian freedom so that people outside debian can understand it Debian people get offended. Go figure. Maybe instead of just moderating you could tell me where I am wrong or "flamebaiting"?

    Or does flaimbaiting mean something else in Debian terms, maybe 'something out of the regular authorized mantra.'

    I do however ammend a little bit to the definition of stable. They don't want to change it anymore, but they will for security or other emergencies. But they are still rather tired of it and would rather not touch it any more.
    ^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^~
  • FreeBSD does allow you to specify incoming traffic vs. outgoing traffic and traffic for specific interfaces. For instance:

    ipfw allow ip from any to any via lo0

    allows all traffic via the loopback device, and

    ipfw allow tcp from any to any 80 in via fxp0
    ipfw allow tcp from any 80 to any out via fxp0
    ipfw deny ip from any to any via fxp0

    allows all external traffic (via my ethernet card, named fxp0) to my webserver and nothing else. I haven't messed with natd on FreeBSD much, but the huge advantage it has over Linux's ipchains is that it handles NAT in both directions, so hitting your firewall with a connection to port 80 can be redirected to your internal webserver. On Linux 2.2, you have to use ipchains for masquerading (which is a separate kernel option) and ipportfw (which is yet another kernel option) for port-forwarding, aka reverse NAT.

    Right now, FreeBSD's got a few advantages over Linux 2.2 in firewalling:
    • state monitoring for TCP (can allow all established TCP connections on any ports, but not allow incoming connections, etc.)
    • arbitrary, and clearly labeled numbering of rules (counting down the list just to figure out the insertion number for a new rule is inexcusably stupid)
    • an intelligent natd that handles masquerading in both incoming and outgoing directions
    The good news is that all these "disadvantages" are fixed with the new Linux 2.4 iptables setup, which is a vastly more intelligent, though slightly more complex, way of doing things. There's even a iptables module to handle FTP (which is absolute hell for firewall designers) intelligently. Good stuff; one of 2.4 features I'm really looking forward to.
  • All the mirrors seem to only have up to pre3.

    Got a URL for pre4?

    Many thanks!

    Fialar
  • I think the fsck example was just wrong. What kind of distro are you running that won't fsck an uncleanly unmounted drive on boot-up?
  • What is PPPoE ? (I know, I've been living under a rock lately.)

  • He meant to say ECP and EPP, not UDMA. UDMA is for IDE hard drives, not parallel ports. EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port) is an io port on the parallel port controller which writes into a FIFO, and the pport controller does the handshaking while sending from this buffer. ECP is the same, but with DMA. AFAIK, these were supported by earlier kernels. You can pass io= and dma= on the command line to the parport_pc module, and you can echo 7 > /proc/parport/0/irq to set lp0 using interrupt-driven operation with IRQ 7. I've sent the author an email to let him know about the error, so don't flood his mailbox!
    #define X(x,y) x##y
  • > rewritten networking - BSD's still better

    What is *BSD's net code better for, and how and why? 2.4 isn't out yet, so we don't know exactly what its networking code is like. (Of course, it will be pretty darn close to the code in pre-2.4 releases, so you could have looked at those; Did you? What did you find?)

    I admit I haven't looked at either of them, but I'm not going to believe you unless you give me a reason. (threadedness, correctness, efficiency, code clarity/cleanliness, or something. Stuff isn't usually just plain "Better", especially when it is as complicated as networking code.)
    #define X(x,y) x##y
  • Do you want to run Linux and do a marginal job of everything, or split

    up your tasks and get everything done right? It seems like a clear cut
    choice to me.


    most people have only two arms, and one head. This means it is hard to use more than one computer at the same time. In any case, most people don't have 3 or 4 good computers to switch between to do their different tasks. Divide and conquer is exactly the way to go with user space software, no question about that. Unix command line tools prove that for the things they are good at doing (file/text manipulation, scripting, pretty much anything that can be batch-done :). For operating systems, it doesn't work. Are you going to turn your chair around and say "I'll use my Windows machine now because it has plug & play support for my video decoder card.", then say "ok, now I'll start downloading this video at streaming speed in real time with OpenBSD, because it has kick ass networking code", then realize that you want to be doing more things at once, so you turn around again to your Solaris box. Yeah, works for me like a hole in the head. multi booting on the same machine is even more annoying.
    I sure as hell don't want to have to wait for some other OS to boot every time I want to do something different. You basically need a single OS that does all the stuff you want to do, unless you are willing to be annoyed constantly.
    #define X(x,y) x##y

  • Do your homework, glibc-2.1.3 is already in there. Regarding XFree86, RedHat 6.2 doesn't include it either. And I think that it will take half a year or so before any of the large distributions will include it (Mandrake will of course use it within a month). I can't say anything about apache, but you can use debs from woody if it's so important. Or compile it yourself of course.
    Linux 2.4 seems very unstable to me. Remember 2.2.x, it wasn't stable until 2.2.10 or something.

    So should they release now or wait for another half year, I think not.

  • All this stuff (and more) will be included in the next release of Debian (woody), which is currently (quite appropriately) marked unstable. Even RedHat didn't include XFree 4.0 in 6.2 because it's still too unstable. You can't just stick the latest and greatest stuff in the distribution. You have to let it mature a little.

    Distributions with kernel 2.4, XFree 4.0, Apache 2.0, etc. will come out by the end of the year. And if you are really desperate, you can just install all this stuff yourself -- nobody is stopping you. But I prefer to wait until everything has been well-tested. Remember, Debian is considered to be the most stable distribution because they freeze it for at least 3 month and spend a lot of time on testing. It comes out rock-solid in the end. And that's why I love Debian. That's the only distro I'd put on a server.
    ___
  • khttp really bothers me. The obvious question is why? Just to get a few more points on benchmarks? (or shall I say "benchcrafts"). And risk the reliability for the sake of a little bit of speed? I *know* it can be un-compiled, but that's not the point. The point is that Linux kernel developers have fallen for the Mindcraft's "benchcrafts" and decided to speed up http by putting the web server in the kernel (a la Microsoft). Everyone knows that the major reason IIS is so unreliable is because it runs in the kernel mode. Haven't we been bashing it all along just for that? And believe me, in the "Enterprise", reliability is much *MUCH* more important than speed.

    So, what do we want to put in the kernel today?
    ___
  • Linux ipchains model does not have separate chains for input and output. (I got a bit confused too when I first looked at it). Every packet arrives at the input chain, then passes through the forward chain (if the box forwards/masquerades packets), then leaves from the output chain. Each chain applies its filters to the packets. If a packet in accepted in the input chain, it can still be denied downstream (in the forward or output chain). However, if a packet is denied in the input chain, it does not continue to forward, etc.
    Why would you need 3 chains? Well, it's actually *very* convenient. All packets arrive intact to the input chain. If they are accepted, they go to the forward chain where they get forwarded/masqueraded. Forwarding changes the interface of the packet (e.g. eth0 may be external interface while eth1 internal. An incoming packet from the outside will change its interface in the forward chane from eth0 to eth1). Also, if you are using masquerading, packets get masqueraded/demasqueraded in the forward chain. So, when packets arrive to the output chain, they have already been forwarded and their headers have been rewritten by masq!
    I find it extremely convenient. On my home firewall (which is also a samba/nfs server for the lack of another box), I can block the smb and nfs traffic with just 1 rule (for each), inserted in the output chain.
    Oh yeah, also ipchains allows you to match packets by interface. For example, if eth0 is your external interface, you know ips 10.0.0.0/8, etc. cannot come from there. ipchains allows you to block these addresses coming from eth0, but allow them if they come from eth1 (where eth1 is the local interface). I'm not sure how FreeBSD handles it.
    Also, does FreeBSD support port forwarding?
    ___
  • This is a known issue, with a known solution and people are working on it. It is on Alans 2.4 Jobs List
  • I think that a mention of the new agp support in the kernel is important to show the advance linux is making towards the gaming market.
  • ".....................+@#$$#%&*................... ...........", [debian.org]
    "...................=#$$$$$$$$$&*----............. ...........",
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    "................+$${>>$$$$/!(_{$$$#;]^^**--...... ...........",
    "................+$>]^%$$$:]^' "................+$[^'-$${'-]*'/$$$$[}]^^**--..... ...........",
    "................'$;$(*){{-!{)* "................*$$$;2$$$$!|}]^'*--.............. ..",
    "................*$(:$34565:$$^]$$$$![ "................*$>^78908aa3b*>$$$$@[|;]^**--.... ...........",
    ".................{1cd9a00e00a8f$$$$g[ ".................$hid900e0a085h$$$$g[[;]^'*-..... ...........",
    ".................{fj99000a86jjk$$$$$[|};^'*--.... ...........",
    ".................#_lja0a6334jm:$:(>$)[};^''---... ...........",
    ".................g!]n76c6iim^']$$[!$#[ ".................>!^2ncc77b^*-*)$1>$$) "................!$o*^^ppb2'*-qq^$$$$$#|}]^'*--... ...........",
    "...............+#$^q*^^^''-q-q-q:$$$$$g};^''--... ...........",
    "..............*>$[q-q'^'*q-qqqqq^$$$$$$!;]''*--.. ...........",
    "..............g$>-qqqq--qqq-q-q-->$$$$$, ".............;$$;q-q-qq-q-qqqqqqqo$$$$$$,;]^'*--. ...........",
    "............'$${'qqqq-qqqqq-q-q-q^$$$$$$$%]^''*-- ...........",
    "...........*#$$:]*-qq-*-q-q-**'''->$$$$$$$&]^'*-- ...........",
    "...........!$$$[^--qqq-qqqqq--*''']${{$$$$#]^''*- -..........",
    "...........#${{^-q-q-qq-q-qqqqq--'-/${{$$$$(]^'** --.........",
    "..........'${$!qqqqq-qq-qq-q-qqqq-']$${{$$$#;]^'* --.........",
    "..........(${{*q-q-qq-qq-qqqq-q-qq--~{/{$$$$|]^'* *--........",
    "..........#{$[-qqqq-qqqqq-q-qqqqqqqq|{>{>$$$g;]^' *--........",
    ".........;$>$*qqq-qqq-q-qqqq-q-q-q-q^$$${$$$# ".........g{$(q-qq-q---qq-q-qqqqqqqq-*$$${$$$$!;]^ '*--.......",
    "........'${$;qq-qqqq-q-qqqq-q-q-q-qq-$$${$$$$g "........%${$*-qq-qqq--qq-qqqqqq-qq-qq{$${$$$$#|}] ^'*--......",
    ".......}$$>{-q-qqq-q-q-qq-q-q-qqqqq-q{$${$$$$$|}; ^'**-......",
    ".......$${>{-qq-qqq--qq-qqqqq-q-q-qqq>$${$$$$$[ ".......$$$%/-q-qq-qq--qqq-q-qqqqqq-q-:${$$$$$$[|} ]^'*--.....",
    ".......$$1{(-qq-qq-q--q-qqqq-q-q-qqqq{{{${{$$#[[} ;^'*--.....",
    ".......r49h/-qqq-qqq-qqq-q-qqqqqqq-q'{$$$$$/$#[| "......=da99h/'qqq-q--q-qqqq-q-q-qqe88f$$$$${_@o[ "......mj9999k{^-qqqq-qq-q-qq-qqq-qdaaf$$$$${5a![| ;]^'--.....",
    ".....sidaa9a91{ ".*=s7id999a9a6$$[-qqqq-q-qqq-qqq-'49j7t{$_n499([| }]^'*--....",
    "+jddd999999999t$$%*q-qqqq-qqq-q-*'4d4uc77cid99p[| }]^'*--....",
    "vd999999999a9ad{$$>*q-q-qqq-qqqq-'mddjiiij99a99o| }]^'*--....",
    "v999999a9999999h$$$;qqqq-qq-q-qq-'3idddddd999998o "sd9999999a9a99a9w$$]-q-qq-qqqq-q-|xid9999999a9999 p "s49999a99999999a6o'qqqq-qqq-qqqq!$xj9999999999999 95]^'*--...",
    "sj999999a99a999995q-q-qqq-qq-q*)$1xid999999999a99 94]]'**--..",
    "s499a9999a9999998i2qq-q-qq-qq}{$$17499999999a99a9 6&;]^'*---.",
    "mj999999999a9999djl!*qqq-*^[>$$$$_7jd99999a99994y [|}]^'**-..",
    "jjdd999999999999djx{${>{$$$$$$$$$wcj999a99999jr(o [| "scuuiijddd999999dul_$$$$$$$$$$$$$wxid9999ddiy)!![ [|}]]''*--.",
    "-' ".--*'}!rlxx7uuc7xlt{g%)(!(!!!!!(@~lxccuu7n%!!o![[ | ".--*'=]s ".--**^^]; ".---*'^]];}} "..--**''^]];;} "...--**''^^]]]];;}}}}};;]]]^2^^^^^^]]];;;}}};;]^^ '**---.....",
    "..-.---*'*''^^^2]]];]]]]^^^'''''''''^^^]]]]]]^^^' ***--.-....",
    "....-----***''''^^^^^^^''''**'****'*'''^^^^^^^'** *--.-......",
    "......----*-**'*''''''''****----*---***''''''***- ---........",
    "........-q-----********-*--------------*******--- ...........",
    ".........-..------*------.-.-......-------------. -..........",
    "...............-.----.-.-........-...-.-----.-... ...........",
    "................................................. ..........."};
  • Debian is conservative and they also have the best distribution.

    The corporate distributions are getting worse with every release. Ful of bugs, nothing works properly or as documented.

    Red Hat has turned to utter shit, because they're rushing everything. They're giving linux a bad name.


  • looks like he converted a bmp to an xpm.

    Ever looked at an xpm file with a text editor?
  • Basically, no matter what it comes down to, there's always a better choice. Want to run consumer software? Windows. Want scalability? Solaris. Want a good server? BSD. Notice Linux anywhere in there?

    Yeah. What if I want all those things?

    That is ... LINUX.

  • then why does Solaris scale to 128-way SMP, while Linux craps out above 8?

    Solaris doesn't scale that high on PC hardware.

    Solaris does on SPARC since Sun build their own hardware -- a HUGE advantage.

    it's just another thing the kernel developers have been wasting time on instead of catching up where they need to catch up. This project needs some direction.

    Linux isn't a commercial development house. If someone wants to add a feature that is useful to a certain subset of Linux users, why not, so long as it's stable and well designed?

    Maybe has more features, but last time I checked, BSD was FAR faster and scaled better.

    Now your true troll colours come out.

    BSD is better at certain things than Linux, and worse at others.

    Scales better? BSD barely does SMP at all.

  • Hate to burst your bubble, but if 2.4 has anything to do with fsck'ing the drives after an unclean shutdown then it would be *seriously* overstepping the bounds of what it's supposed to manage.

    Sanity checks on the filesystems is the responsibility of the init scripts, not the kernel.

  • Yes, you can. Contrary to what someone says above, it's not even that hard.

    Compiling debian source pages is stooopid easy. Thus you can run any 'unstable' package on your 'stable' Debian box as long as you can compile from source (so the resulting executable is linked against the proper versions of libaries you have on your stable box.)

    Most of this software, especially Xfree86 4.0 and Linux 2.4, will be made availible somewhere somehow in pre-packaged form for stable (potato) Debian systems. Or you can just compile it yourself.

    Feel free to contact me directly with any additional questions, or just ask the kind folks in #debian on irc.openprojects.net.

    cheers!

  • Dude, Stop trying so damn hard to get FIRST POST, and *click the fucking link*!!!!

    This entire article details the stuff in the new kernel.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • ...what does this kernel have in it? Where can I go to find out? Can some kind soul post a link or a list? Inquiring minds want to know....
  • Ive been wondering this too, for a while. I can eliminate alot of other authors, why not AC's? Currently, I have it set to I dont see anything less than a Score: 1, so I dont view them, but thats more like a workaround than a fix.

  • Re:Debian (Score:1)

    by PD ( 9577 )
    Can't you add those things into a regular Debian box? I ask this because I'm just getting into Debian and I really like it. But I'm hoping that I can add the goodies when I want to, which will probably be before they are available in a regular Debian release.
  • Debian sure seems to be getting some corporate attention as well; Corel [corel.com] seems to think it's better than RH. And the Transmeta mobile Linux is Debian-based.

    There's also Storm Linux [stormix.com], which is Debian-based.

    --

  • why is this a problem? there's nothing wrong with playing catch-up. the fact that there is a serious effort to make linux a true enterprise class OS is a _good_ thing.

    the fact that bigger *NIX variants already have these features will just make it easier for Linux to penetrate the places it's bigger cousins have traditionally held sway over.

    but think about it. Solaris and BSD are both descended from the "real" unix, and have had many, many years and lots of money thrown behind them to get the level of performance, stability, and acceptance they have now. Linux is quite new to the playing field, even more so when it comes to the enterprise market. Linux is starting to penetrate this market, even lacking the features of the upcoming 2.4 kernel. The release of 2.4 with the features it adds is only going to speed this adoption. This will get more eyeballs and more dollars pointed at Linux and opensource software, which is a good thing.

    Or would you be happier if Linux failed and Solaris took it's place?

    --

  • To some extent, yes. But as the stable and unstable branches branch more, it becomes more difficult to use packages from one on the other.

    Of course, you can just recompile the stuff you want, but that is messy on a Debian box.

    --

  • Microsoft and Intel's "PC99" spec has actually banned the PC GamePort. (However, a MIDI port is still "optional".)

    So, expect one of the last untouched remnants of the original IBM PC to go away RSN, if it hasn't already.
    --
  • Well, comparisons to a complete kludge like Win98 are a little unfair to Linux, so let's look at "business-class" "modern" OS, Windows NT:

    More fine-grained locking - Windows NT has only had this since Service Pack 4 - only a year ago or so.
    USB support - Only shipped last month for WinNT
    P&P - Only shipped last month for WinNT
    WinModems - Many are still not compatible with WinNT
    khttpd - When did IIS ship?
    raw I/O - Still not in WinNT (or if it is, who uses it?)
    rewritten networking - SP4 again. Still behind in firewalling and other network infrastructure type things.

    --
  • Can't really be sure of that one, but I bet that when it is out, it'll be SuSE who has it out first. That said, I think I'll wait for Slackware to upgrade to it - 7.0 has been out for a while, so I figure it's only a matter of time.
  • Not soon enough :-)
    However, you can always set threshold to 1.
  • The entire point of the article posted was to answer questions like yours. It might be useful to read the article before posting a comment like yours.
    ----
  • Take a look at Dell PowerEdge 8450

    It is an 8-way xeon machine. Not overly expensive if you take the fact that it's a server into consideration.
    --
    Leonid S. Knyshov
    Network Administrator
  • Look in the "testing" directory (instead of "v2.3") on your favourite mirror, patches can appear there first.
  • 1) You can go back - just unmount the ext3 fs and mount it with ext2. That's all. Oh, it's *designed* to do this. But yes, you get your fscks back.
    2) There will be patches for 2.4, just like there are patches for the current 2.2 kernels (including 2.2.15preX). SCT also promised some RPMs with the RH6.2 kernel plus ext3 patches in it. Probably you want to check the linux-fsdevel mailinglist.

  • Re:overcommitting memory (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So.. does anyone agree with me that overcommitting is a bad idea (unless it was a user option), that it breaks the ansi/iso compability of c on Linux, as it basically takes the functionality out of malloc, and that it is basically not much different then the Pentium bug(designs are supposed to work in predictable ways under standard conditions, this thing will cause your system to crash, or kill processes at random, and is actually part of the design).

    Remember the Pentium bug was even less likely to affect you, but people didn't accept that becouse the bug was built in, and that made the thing upredictable under normal circumstances.

  • 2.4 Delays (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm posting as an AC because I'm about to get flamed... but...

    I remember late in 1999 when Linus and Cox were promising kernel 2.4 before the official release of Windows 2000. That day has come and gone, and we still don't have 2.4. In the past, we as a community flame Microsoft for such promises, calling their products "vaporware", yet we did not do the same with our beloved Torvalds when his dates passed.

    Now, is this due to the nature of corporations - whose promises are presumably under their control and payroll vs Open Source projects that seem to be improved in spurts - or are we all hypocrites?

    That being said, it should be known that I use Linux solely [1] on an SMP machine and I am dying for the new 2.4 kernel.

    [1] Well, I did boot w98SE yesterday - in VMWare.

  • Re:2.4 (Score:2)

    by Gleef ( 86 )
    No, 2.4 is not released yet. This is a document intended to help people understand the 2.4 kernel when it is released. The author did the same thing for the 2.2 kernel and (if I recall correctly) the 2.0 kernel as well. At this point, it's no secret what will and won't be in the kernel, so might as well work on the documentation now.

    ----
  • My laptop here is running on ReiserFS and haven't had any problems so far, in fact it's notably faster and I no longer have to fsck every time I boot the machine. If I suddenly lose power or freeze up (hardly ever happens) then the file system is rebuilt from the journal on the next reboot.

    http://kurt.andover.net/Reiser -filesystem-HOWTO.html [andover.net]

    Reiser driver and utils are still in development, and there's been some flamage on the kernel-dev list over it, but hey, works for me!

  • Kernel developers cannot fix unreported bugs....

  • The kernel httpd stuff is very simplified. It's not like they're merging Apache into the kernel source here. Since it is very lean and limited in functionality to providing simple, static content, the potential for instability is minimized. For people using their Linux systems for serving up static web content, this definitely makes things faster and more efficient.

    And you don't have to "un-compile" it. You have to explicitely turn it on if you want to use it. If you don't want the feature, leave the damn thing turned off when building your kernel.
  • Redhat is slower than anybody, in that I can't remember the last time I got in to ftp.redhat.com. I usually use ftp.freesoftware.com (formerly ftp.cdrom.com) although they don't have redhat 6.2 yet. They are usually up to date, available(5000 users) and fast(1Gbps pipe to the internet).
    --
  • I've got to ask two questions.

    First, (I don't know what "SOAP" refers too..so
    won't go there..) but why does XML have to be supported by the kernel? This is as User Space an item as I can imagine.

    Second - what does RMS have to do with release of a Linux kernel? (Answer - nothing ;-)

  • In my opinion, 2.4 isn't done until it will boot my Iopener from a hard drive. :)

    2.3 boots just fine on my laptop, but when I move it to the iopener, it fails to find the partitions on /dev/hda, and I get a kernel panic.

    Running an Iopener will be a major hurdle to the acceptance of 2.4. At least in my house.

    Anybody had this same problem, or better yet, a solution?

    ---

  • Open source is very efficient. All kernel compilations bugs that I have seen have been reported, usually with a patch, on l-k by the time I ever got around to dealing with it.

    The point of my post is that people should beware of the pre-releases. I track them because I will deploy 2.4 in my production environment at some point, and I need to stay current with bugs and quirks. I won't bother checking into how the features work until the sucker can at least compile cleanly on the box.

    -jwb

  • Aamzingly, the 2.3.99-pre* series generally don't even compile, at least using the settings that my machine needs. Seems to me that a release candidate should at least build, not corrupt the FS, etc.

    Get back to me when 2.4.20 comes out :)

  • It's an issue of Debian's acceptance- less new people are likely to take a look at a 2.2.x "stable" Debian when they can play with a flashier 2.4.x-based Mandrake or RedHat.

    I guess it all comes down to the long-term goals. Mandrake and RedHat, being for-profit companies are driven by the market they cater to to provide the latest stuff in their distribution. Debian has the goal of providing a free, stable Linux, even if it's not up-to-date.

    But look at the "current" stable Debian distribution. It's so horribly outdated, it's beyond the "less flashy" area and getting into "less useful". There are many things that I _need_ to be able to do with my Debian boxes that I have no choice but to run potato or some other distro.

    --

  • Debian (Score:2)

    by Phexro ( 9814 )
    and as per the norm, Debian [debian.org] is in the middle of a freeze. During that time:

    XFree86 4.0 has been released
    glibc 2.1.3 has been released
    apache 1.3.12 has been released
    Linux 2.4.0 might get released

    i love Debian, but they have the worst timing...

    --

  • How easy is it to migrate from 2.2.x to 2.4 (well, 2.3.99pre, in this case)? Can I just download source, compile and go like I can with current 2.2 kernels? Or are other crucial pieces of software going to have to be upgraded as well?

    Jay (=
  • As is obvious to everybody with one or more neurons firing, the previous poster was not Linus Torvalds, but YADTAST (Yet Another Dummer Than A Stump Troll).

    That having been said, the original poster is probably referring to the 'THIS_MODULE' undeclared here error message a number of us ran into, the solution to which is here [remarq.com].

    In short, you need to #include linux/modules.h just before the first #include asm/.. statement. An annoying buglet in the pre-release code, but easy enough to find the answer at deja.com, altavista.com, or by grepping on the contents of /usr/include.

    At the very least, a bug report gets (at this point, has gotten) the bug fixed.
  • User space daemons for high level file system functions are nice. However, NFS is unnecessarily complex and limited for a user level file system programming interface.

    It would be nice if Linux got some efficient, simple user-space file system support. Until then, I think the best bet is still to put things into the kernel.

  • If I remember correctly, it was never "promised." Linus has always been reluctant to swear by any release schedule. And as Alan has said, these dates are goals, or targets, if you miss the goal, it's not the end of the world, but if you never set goals, you'll never get finished.
    ----
  • I'm not an expert, but from my experience, there will be a few important utilities that you'll want to upgrade to get a stable system. I believe the README has a list of required software; if you check it against what you have you'll see what you would need to upgrade. It shouldn't be very complicated, but you might be better off sticking with 2.2 until your distro makes the switch.

  • Maybe I should just break down and replace my 8-year old drives, but in the meantime software RAID-5 is an economical way to weather the frequent drive failures.

    Unfortunately, it does not seem to be included in the pre3 kernel. Anyone know what's going on with this?

  • When will that be implemented :)
  • Check out http://www.openh323.org/

    There's also commercial solutions such as phonepatch (which works really well, and gives you a 30 day trial). There's a web interface for configure and everything... alas, my license ran out back in Jan...

    On the plus side, Dialpad links to ipmasq patches that let it work properly... pretty nifty...
  • Thank you SO much. You just saved me hours of work. I was compiling the code as I read your info. The work that I am doing is using Sys V IPC heavly. Thanks again!

    By the way anybody using XFree86 4.0 should include your adition to the /etc/fstab. Because 4.0 uses SHM. Here is a printout of an ipcs call on my Linux box...

    [rreich@orcana rreich]$ ipcs

    ------ Shared Memory Segments --------
    key shmid owner perms bytes nattch status
    0x00000000 98305 root 644 4096 5 dest
    0x00000000 131074 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 1376259 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 1409028 root 644 4096 3 dest
    0x00000000 1441797 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 5210118 root 644 4096 6 dest
    0x00000000 5242887 root 644 4096 10 dest
    0x00000000 5275656 root 644 4096 6 dest
    0x00000000 18710537 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 18743306 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 18776075 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 18808844 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 18841613 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 19169294 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 19202063 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 19234832 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 19365905 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 19300370 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 19398675 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 19922964 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 19955733 root 644 4096 2 dest
    0x00000000 20578326 root 644 4096 2 dest

    ------ Semaphore Arrays --------
    key semid owner perms nsems status

    ------ Message Queues --------
    key msqid owner perms used-bytes messages

    ... all of the SHM entries are for XFree86 4.0. They don't show up if you don't include the stuff in the fstab.

  • Actually, BeOS uses gcc was well. RMS isn't on Be's case.

  • PPPoE (Score:2)

    by eries ( 71365 )
    Didn't see this anywhere, but any news on support for PPPoE. Lot's of crummy DSL providers are rushing to support this without giving it much thought. I know there are open-source projects working on it. Any word on kernel integration?

    Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? AT&T?


  • Re: USB

    Try buying a Camera for your PC that ISNT USB nowadays.. not to mention that within a couple of years i can see USB replacing the Gameport Joystick for a joke, along with PS/2.

  • "this has got to be a late april fool's prank -- if not, add this to the heap of reasons not to execute binary-only code..."

    Or don't run as root.

    I definately agree with you, though. I really hope that you cannot write your own microcode. Screw up and you can go buy a new processor.


    ------
  • Oh in general I agree. I usually refer to the
    OS I run as just "linux". However...I don't think
    its silly to use GNU/Linux either.

    However, I am a definite supporter of what GNU
    and the FSF stand for. While I don't see the need
    to make everyone call it "GNU Linux", I do think
    the GNU proect deserves some credit.

    As far as being major parts of the OS...I don't
    use GNOME or KDE (blah). I spend most of my days
    in an ETerm typeing into vi and pushing files
    around. I think all of those things are fairly
    major parts of the OS.

    In any case...It doesn't really matter what you
    call it. I just favor GNU/Linux for the reasons
    that it gives credit to the FSF, and it makes
    the note that Linux is just a kernel...there is
    alot more to the system than that.

    Is it silly? I don't think so. Is it silly to
    argue about? yes it is. (tho...I kind of enjoy
    arguing over stupid things)
  • All i'm whining about is, userspace is vastly more important than piddly dumbfuck kernel, as nice and interesting as it may be.

    I don't disagree. Just want to point out that none of this would have been possible without the kernel. It's the kernel that determines what you can and cannot do.

    (Of course, the GNU stuff was written pretty much without that kernel, on other Unices.)

  • This is a note/plea to the users out there who are reluctant to submit bug reports. First, you must all realize that you are not dealing with Microsoft, or any other large corporation for that matter. While it may seem to you like submitting a bug report will be a waste of your time ("they'll never read it / do anything about it"), it is not. Bug reports are acted upon if they possibly can be, and everyone's bug reports are extremely valuble. The kernel development people (and anyone developing software for linux, for the matter) are very receptive to bug reports, and really need them to help them improve their software. 2.4 is only (relatively) close today because of peoples' bug reports. Submitting reports is not a waste of your time. You'll be helping yourself (when the bug is fixed), and you'll be helping all of us. So please, don't think it's a waste, or that nothing's going to be done. While calling MS with a bug report may be a waste of your time, in this case it isn't.
  • I have read that PPPoE support is supposed to be in the kernel, although I don't know how well it will work or what hardware it will support. In the meantime however, you can use the PPPoE drivers from Roaring Penguin [roaringpenguin.com]. I have Bell Atlantic DSL, and it works great.

    segfault@bellatlantic.net [mailto]

  • Re:Let me know when it works (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03, 2000 @09:33AM (#1154712)
    Its people like you that give open source development a bad name.
    Did you:
    1. Document the compilation errors
    2. Report the errors to linux-kernel or any of the hundred related mailing lists
    3. Try to fix the code yourself
    4. Do anything besides whine about it not compiling

    No? Tough cookies for you, then. If you're going to use development.. let me say that again.. *DEVELOPMENT* kernels, at least be willing to debug it.

  • Re:2.4 Delays (Score:3)

    by whoop ( 194 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @09:43AM (#1154713) Homepage
    Well, unlike any commercial software, you can go ahead and run 2.4 long before it's final version is out. If you wish to rely on others to test it and work bugs out, well, then you're stuck waiting for them to declare it done. Since May 14, 1999, (kernel 2.3.1 started) you could see what was going on in the kernel for v2.4. So, this hasn't been "vaporware" for nearly a year. It has existed.

    That said, dates in Open Source projects are at best a guess. It depends on far too many developers to be very exact. You want it sooner, go to your favored mirror and download it. Try this with Microsoft or other corporations and their products.

  • ext3 yet? (Score:3)

    by whoop ( 194 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @09:25AM (#1154714) Homepage
    I know it won't be included in the kernel for 2.4, but is there a version of it ported to 2.3.x? I took the available patches and tried applying them, but too much of the kernel fs internals have changed. So, before I sit down for several hours trying to understand everything about filesystems in the kernel, has anyone already done it? I really want to try 2.4, but I just can't go back to ext2. Once you've tasted it, there is no other. ;)
  • There is no need for this to go into the kernel when a suitably-designed NFS server can provide this service in a more portable manner. ( e.g. - so that this supports whatever UNIX-like OSes you might want supported, and requires nothing that is kernel-specific.)

    I use CFS - Cryptographic Filesystem, [ucla.edu] personally.

    Admittedly, this still leaves you vulnerable to the script kiddie that gets in and can get at /crypt; that is probably still nearly as protectable as kernel-based approaches...

  • Re:Where is 6.4 at? (Score:3)

    by TheGreek ( 2403 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @11:54AM (#1154716)
    Again it goes back to the point of SuSE trying to force you to pay for there cdroms.

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. They can produce a Linux distribution on CD or DVD and have absolutely NO OBLIGATION under the GPL to give ISOs or tarballs away for free. Their only obligation is to release the source to any GPLed binaries they distribute.

  • Wonderful 2.4 HOWTOs! (Score:3)

    by ahu ( 4707 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @10:14AM (#1154717) Homepage
    We created some Wonderful 2.4 HOWTOs:
    Linux Volume Management [ds9a.nl] - or 'How do I grow my filesystem by buying more disks'
    Linux Advanced Routing and Traffic Shaping [ds9a.nl] or 'How do I run my internet exchange with nothing but Linux and keep bandwidt for myself

  • Re:Goodbye /dev/hda . . . Hello /dev/ide0 (Score:3)

    by SgtPepper ( 5548 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @09:52AM (#1154718)
    The DevFS FAQ [csiro.au] is here, and if you read it you'll see that the changes are ALOT deeper then just the names. It goes as far as, IIRC, actually ELIMENATING the age old idea of major and minor numbers. Regardless, read the FAQ it's intresting :)

  • Filesystem Crypto Support? (Score:3)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @09:33AM (#1154719)

    Any mention of filesystem crypto? Those of you with near terabyte collections of mp3's *ahem* might be interested in this.. that means that "the man" will have a hard time getting into your goodies when the plug gets pulled, or when joe skript kiddie decides it's time for some fun with the latest edition of Redhat.

    So, what's the story? Easy filesystem crypto? Where easy == transparent..

    Kudos!

  • Re:2.4 Delays (Score:3)

    by fsck ( 120820 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @09:59AM (#1154720) Homepage
    You can go on places like IRC and get Windows alpha and beta releases. People were crashing windows 98 before it was out. People were crashing windows 98se before it was out. People were crashing windows 2000 before it was out. People are currently crashing windows 98 millenium and windows 2001?.
    Note: use Microsoft OSes if you like crashing, since thats all they are good for.

  • Yeah...but does USB work? (Score:3)

    by Saint Mitchell ( 144618 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @09:35AM (#1154721)
    If it does maybe then people will take Linux seriously on the desktop. If it doesn't work soon Linux is doomed to a life among us geeks. I love Linux, but right now I would NOT want to even dream of having Linux on my mom's computer. I have enough trouble supporting all the stupid questions I get for Winows. Can you imagine telling Id10T users how to log on as root to run fsck because they turned the power instead of typing halt. Maybe 2.4 will help the learning curve in some ways.

  • Re:Keep it in User Space... (Score:3)

    by _SIGKILL_ ( 170600 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @10:33AM (#1154722)
    CFS is a solution, but not the best solution. It runs in user space (if I remember correctly), so a skilled script kiddie could read the memory contents and discover the key. Furthermore, it is pretty slow, especially if you are considering using large files (i.e. MP3 files). A better solution was posed by some Columbia grad students, called Cryptfs. Cryptfs builds on CFS and the later implementation TCFS. For an overview on the weaknesses of other encrypted file systems check out the Cryptfs home page [columbia.edu]. Unfortunately, I cannot find the implementation of Cryptfs.

    Another solution is to use a loop-back encrypted file system. There is a how-to [linuxdoc.org] at linuxdoc.org.
  • My current workstation:

    nooky:~$ uname -rmpv
    2.3.99-pre4 #4 SMP Thu Mar 30 13:14:58 PST 2000 i686 unknown

    I've been using the 2.3 series since 2.3.32, and have had tremendous success with them. Several things to note that _weren't_ in the article:

    1) sysvipc has changed. if you use anything that depends on shm, you'll need to add this to your /etc/fstab:
    none /var/shm shm defaults 0 0

    2) Along with the new /dev fs, there's many (interesting) files to play with, the cooles imho being /dev/microcode. You can basically rewrite the binary data built in to your processor. While i dont think 'cat /dev/random > /dev/microcode' would be such a good idea, there's a good page with info on this here [ocston.org]

  • The Wonderful World of Linux 0.01 (Score:5)

    by VAXGeek ( 3443 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @09:42AM (#1154724) Homepage
    This is a free minix-like kernel for i386(+) based AT-machines. Full
    source is included, and this source has been used to produce a running
    kernel on two different machines. Currently there are no kernel
    binaries for public viewing, as they have to be recompiled for different
    machines. You need to compile it with gcc (I use 1.40, don't know if
    1.37.1 will handle all __asm__-directives), after having changed the
    relevant configuration file(s).

    As the version number (0.01) suggests this is not a mature product.
    Currently only a subset of AT-hardware is supported (hard-disk, screen,
    keyboard and serial lines), and some of the system calls are not yet
    fully implemented (notably mount/umount aren't even implemented). See
    comments or readme's in the code.

    This version is also meant mostly for reading - ie if you are interested
    in how the system looks like currently. It will compile and produce a
    working kernel, and though I will help in any way I can to get it
    working on your machine (mail me), it isn't really supported. Changes
    are frequent, and the first "production" version will probably differ
    wildly from this pre-alpha-release.

    Hardware needed for running linux:
    - 386 AT
    - VGA/EGA screen
    - AT-type harddisk controller (IDE is fine)
    - Finnish keyboard (oh, you can use a US keyboard, but not
    without some practise :-)

    The Finnish keyboard is hard-wired, and as I don't have a US one I
    cannot change it without major problems. See kernel/keyboard.s for
    details. If anybody is willing to make an even partial port, I'd be
    grateful. Shouldn't be too hard, as it's tabledriven (it's assembler
    though, so ...)

    Although linux is a complete kernel, and uses no code from minix or
    other sources, almost none of the support routines have yet been coded.
    Thus you currently need minix to bootstrap the system. It might be
    possible to use the free minix demo-disk to make a filesystem and run
    linux without having minix, but I don't know...

    ------------
    a funny comment: 1 karma
    an insightful comment: 1 karma
    a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
  • I hope Joe's estimate is conservative on getting CDs shipping with point-four; usually it seems like the distro houses are pretty swift to incorporate.

    I find this has everything to do with the particular distribution's target audience.

    For instance, with Mandrake you see shipments of not only the latest stable kernel, but pratically all of the available patches towards the next stable release already applied. Who is Mandrake's target audience? Desktop users - or at least the Desktop/Workstation sector is where you'll find many of the Mandrake installations. Mandrake is known for it's ease-of-use and execellent default window manager settings. I would predict that many of the desktop/gamer/cutting edge-targetted distributions will be shipping with 2.4 shortly after it becomes available.

    The more corporate-oriented distributions will quite likely wait until 2.4 has had a chance to stabelize a bit longer, especially the distributions targetted at servers - Redhat for instance, and probably Caldera and Corel as well.

    I further predict that the distributions that aren't shipping with 2.4 running by default will at least include a 2.4-compiled kernel available for install at some point during the installation process - not only so that they are not perceived as "behind the pack" but also to get some feedback from their userbase as to where problems have cropped up.

    Also bear in mind that XFree 4.0 was released recently, and at this point can't be considered fully stable/complete since many video card drivers have not been released yet, and there has not be enough time to throughly test it. Many distributions will wait for their next point-oh release until after 2.4 and XFree 4.0 have stabilized somewhat

    And of course, some distributions like -ahem- Debian will simply wait until the next stable kernel is just around the corner before a release in say... q1 2001 (c:

    Ouch! Bruce... put down that stick! I was just kidding... ouch!

    -Cycon

  • One of the things that has worried me about this 2.4 freeze was a number of features that were added last minute (during the 2.3.99 series). One of these such features was a multilink implementation by Paul Mackerras [mailto].

    What was disturbing about this feature add is that several people had been working on other implementations of MLPPP for Linux for some time (including, but not limited to: The PPP Multilink Protocol (MP) for Linux [linux-mp.terz.de], Chris's Multilink PPP for Linux [mansol.net.au], and Babylon (by Spellcaster) [spellcast.com]).

    I am particularly touched by Chris Pascoe's e-mail:

    Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 08:42:14 +1000 (EST)

    From: Chris Pascoe
    To: linuxmp@listbot.com
    Subject: Ceasing Development

    Greetings,

    As of Linux 2.3.99-pre1, there is support for
    Multilink PPP in the kernel PPP driver 2.4.1. It's not my code, and doesn't
    appear to be Michael Bruck's either.

    At first glance, it appears to resolve many minor
    issues that I know about, that were fixed in a release I was about
    to make (probably in a few days) of my code.

    Thus I am ceasing support for my drivers as of
    this morning. I'm glad that some people have been able to use my code to
    their benefit as time has passed and thank those few people that have
    written and thanked me for my code which pulled them out of tricky
    situations or just plain worked for them.

    Regards,
    Chris Pascoe

    What disturbes me is that I wrote Paul, the present PPP driver maintainer for Linux, asking him if he would like help testing his new MLPPP code before 2.4 final and if he has a new PPP daemon capable of using his new driver. I, and Chris Pascoe are still waiting for the reply. This seams very counter-productive to the open-source model of development. The last time I mailed Chris he said that we was going to get one of his friends to go knocking on Paul's door at the college where he resides to see if he is still alive...

    Anybody heard more on PPP?
    Anybody seen anymore recently added code during freeze time?

    -AP

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