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Linux Software

Linux 2.4.0-prerelease is Released 129

Posted by CmdrTaco from the are-ya-anxious-yet? dept.
Mark Bobak writes "2.4.0 should be ready soon. 2.4.0-test12 has been superceded by a new release, and it's not a testxx. It's 2.4.0-prerelease. Can't wait for the real thing....I can almost taste it! ;-) Available, of course, at kernel.org" And happy new years to everyone else. Hopefully holiday traffic will be light enough that we can all share the bandwidth to the mirrors. I shall download while I watch the Iron Chef marathon :)
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Linux 2.4.0-prerelease is Released More

Linux 2.4.0-prerelease is Released

Comments Filter:

  • Re:What's The Benefit? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Minor and cosmetic? That's what you call USB support, AGP support, DRI support, 1394 support.. Yes, a lot of it has been backported to 2.2, but that doesn't make this release any less significant.
  • I ran the 2.4 kernel and was suprised by an error message returned by X4.0.1 that it got a Direct rendering version higher that the one expected. Is the Direct rendering in 2.4 kernel not compatible with X4.0.1 ?
  • Right, he's talking about a totally different article, not this one. While the two might be related, and I also don't think it's totally off topic, I don't think it's right ON target either. It's more of just a funny related to an old article.

    Chill out man...
    --

  • Do you not realize at ALL that Linux is a fragmented (in a good way ;) project, and what the kernel developers do is simply develop the kernel. They don't do it instead of doing other stuff for Linux, they do it because that's their niche. If they release a new kernel, it has nothing to do with other people not releasing better development tools!
  • "I was pissed at them because Linus has not missed any deadlines or release dates "

    Uhh, Linus and Alen themselves said it was going to be finished (as in non-test release) a YEAR ago. So much for not missing deadlines or released dates.
    --

  • Kernel compiling a bitch with Immunix OS?

    Odd, but I include a patch for 2.4.0-test8 on the Immunix CD, and on our web site right here [immunix.org]. It applies with some fuzz on 2.4.0-test12, and I'll update again on Tues for this release.

    I've also been releasing this patch on the linux-kernel mailing list, as well as the stackguard mailing list for the past couple of months.

    And if you have any problems with this distro, the developers are all on the stackguard mailing list, and very responsive.

    As for it not being a kernel hackers special I would dispute that, as I do all of my kernel work on this os :)

    greg k-h
    greg@(kroah|wirex).com
  • Ah, but it's not released!
  • The whole concept of "intellectual property" is consistant with the workings of nature. What's mine is mine, and what's your's is your's. It is the natural order of things to be propriatory by default, and shared if desired. Take a look around at the rest of the planet before spouting philosophical bullshit.
  • Why has this been modded off topic, it seems perfectly on topic to me. Do any of the moderators actually understand the moderation system?

  • In any emulation layer, there is a performance hit. And if you are incurring the performance hit on higher performance hardware, then people get pissed. I mean nobody really cares if their zip drive is taking a 20% performance hit, since its slow anyway. But when their expensive 12x10x32 Plextor CD-RW drive is taking that hit, then people get mad.
  • I was pissed at them because Linus has not missed any deadlines or release dates (there are none), and there are already two (2.0 & 2.2) very stable versions of the kernel available. What exactly are we missing? I think giving an open source project a couple of months between projected and actual release dates is enough.
  • C++ is great ...

    but C++ compilers are crap.

    Even tiny problems like the red hat 7.0 gcc would be enormous if the kernel was written in C++. C compilers are relatively simple to implement and this makes them more reliable.

    (gcc 3.0 will cure cancer of course. But it's not finished yet.)

  • Not from what he said in the statement. Looks like this is it, if all goes well, 2.4.0 will be the next release. Damn! I'm going to go get it, and see if I can compile and install it while getting drunk ;)

  • Nope, this is it. (Score:4)

    by epaulson ( 7983 ) on Sunday December 31, 2000 @01:59PM (#1427414) Homepage
    Here's the text of Linus' message (slighly edited to get around the "Lameness filter", which itself is pretty lame):

    Ok. I didn't make 2.4.0 in 2000. Tough. I tried, but we had some last-minute stuff that needed fixing (ie the dirty page lists etc), and the best I can do is make a prerelease.

    There's a 2.4.0-prerelease out there, and this is basically it. I want people to test it for a while, and I want to give other architectures the chance to catch up with some of the changes, but read my lips: no more recounts. There is no "prerelease1", to become "prerelease2" and so on.

    One thing other architectures will want to catch up with is the changes to handle 2GHz+ machines, which due to overflow issues caused "loops_per_sec" to become "loops_per_jiffy". And some architectures have not had much chance to synchronize with me due to other fires to put out.

    Give it your worst. After you recover from being hung-over, of course.

    Linus

  • Yea, but WinNT hasn't been claiming to be a consumer operating system (Mandrake, Redhat, ahem) And they've had AGP support for a long time. Lastly, Win95 had USB support a long time ago, and the BSDs got it a while ago as well. Linux really IS late to this game.
  • Or something only a gnu would choose? Hmmm.
  • Its not the language that's the problem. (BTW kernel designers tend to have fits everytime someone mentions C++ going near a kernel;) The problem is that there is no paper standard on what the module interfaces are. That's strictly a Linus design issue, not a problem with the C language.
  • The whole "without deadlines" crap is bullshit. Linux has deadlines. They might not be on paper, but if Linus took 3 years to release 2.4, everyone would know that some deadline must have been busted. Linux 2.4 was supposed to come out last year. While that wasn't an official paper deadline, missing the mark by 12 months DOES count as "overdue."
  • To me, it looks like anything but cosmetic -- the only "Look what it can do now!" features are support for needed devices (esp. USB), but there are major changes to the networking code, and /dev can now be a semi-magical filesystem (like /proc) if you're brave enough, which solves a great many problems (see Documentation/filesystems/devfs/*). Enable ipchains compatibility, configure devfs right, and nothing changes from your perspective, but everything under the hood is running much more smoothly -- which is the way it should be.

    I patched to the prerelease (tho test12 gave me no problems) because I wanted to help Linus out (however infinitesimally) by making sure everything ran ok on my system before the official release, not because I expected my kernel to start doing anything worthwhile -- kernels don't really have to "do" anything; they just have to stay out the way and not crash.

  • How can anything be easier than clicking 'Windows Update' checking off the latest service pack, and then waiting for your computer to reboot? In general, Windows upgrades (when they worked, and to be fair, it didn't work for a lot of people) have simply consisted of downloading the relavent .exe, double clicking, and rebooting.
  • >Then you have the fact (that unless you use RedHat or Mandrake, which bring their own set of problems) you cannot upgrade the kernel (realistically) without recompiling!

    You forgot Debian.

    Debian doesn't require you to recompile to upgrade. ( But of course Debian has it's own set of problems )

    But in general, I would say upgrading the kernel in Debian is much easier than when I had to do it in Windows 2000.

  • Or remove RedHat 7 and intstall Slack. That should increase performance as well.
  • Nope, I didn't miss a thing. Actually, the test releases have been quite stable for me. As far as I've been concerned, my system has basically been running feature complete with the 2.4.0-test series and reiserfs patches. I guess you also missed the humor of my original post.

    In the past 6 months, I've had one kernel panic under Linux ( with test kernels), 100+ crashes with win98/WinME and about 10 with W2K.

    If this kernel has no show stoppers, it will be the fork for stable 2.4 and 2.5 devel. Thanks Linus, Alan and crew. I enjoy the fruits of your labor daily. I also endure the stench of the MS crowds labor daily during work.
  • Heck, If only the iron chefs could program. Or mabey have Linus be the Iron Chef Netherlands!
  • what's new/changed/fixed?

    i think you can have the bandwidth to yourself on this one.
  • Surely Linus is toying with us... there is no way that the Kernel will beet Mac OSX out of the gate...

    Please Linus... Don't tease us...

    um.. I done, you can stop reading...
  • Where can I find a list of changes in 2.4 vs 2.2 that I, as a sysadmin and end-user, would find interesting? It's not really possible to get the information from the change logs.
  • I remember Linus saying that, after the release of 2.2, future kernel releases would be more frequent. How long has 2.4 been in devel, compared to 2.2?

    I'm not trying to flame the kernel developers for late releases, it's just an intrigue. Take your time, guys, because we run servers that depend on your code!

  • Microsoft delays release of Windows 2000, and the Linux community screams in delight that it must really suck, despite the pretty-damn-stable RC builds

    Were the Win2kRC? releases available to the public? (No, I'm not talking about d.net [distributed.net]'s RC5 brute-forcer either.) The Mac OS 10 beta and Linux 2.4 beta are both OutNow. The 2.4-test releases are betas; this article is about Linux 2.4 RC1.

    No wait, every Microsoft operating system release is a public beta.

    When will MS finally release a VHS (very high security) product instead of a beta?
    Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].
  • > Ok. I didn't make 2.4.0 in 2000. Tough.

    Spares us the debate about which is the first major Linux kernel release of the new millenium.
  • Anyone have the kernelnotes.org on one of their /. sidebars? They're severely behind over there. The versions need to be updated with fury. They're only at 2.2.16 for new stable, which is now at 2.2.18. And they only have 2.3.99 for new devel, which is at 2.4.0-prerelease as you can see in this /. post.

  • Cool (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    what's next ?

    2.4-alpha ?
    2.4-beta ?
    2.4-pre-test ?
    2.4-devel ?
    2.4-let's-invent-some-other-tag-for-a-year-late- ke rnel ?

    what's wrong with 2.3.x, and when it's ready call it 2.4.0.

  • I agree about the 2.4 kernel, but OS X is another story. The latest public beta isn't even feature complete yet!
  • My karma ranges anywhere from 0 to 50 at any given time and I couldn't care less about it. Then again, I couldn't care less about your opionion either, but I will bite at it.

    I'm just grateful towards the people who develop and create the free tools I need and use to make me lots of money so I can buy cars, snowmobiles and dirt bikes, pay my house, put beer in my fridge and food in my mouth.
  • Can I just take a 2.2 kernel based recent distribution, grab the prerelease source slap it in /usr/src/linux and recompile?

    Or are there issues like we had from 1.2 --> 2.0?

  • While it has begun too late to assist in 2.4.0, I have proposed the Linux Quality Database [sunsite.dk] to make it easier and more effective for regular Linux users to give the kernel developers feedback on their builds.

    It will also serve as an advocacy and education site to improve the quality of Free Software in general.

    If you want to participate, please contact me at crawford@goingware.com [mailto] or subscribe to the mailing list - instructions are on the site.


    Michael D. Crawford
    GoingWare Inc

  • As soon as 2.4.0 is released (or even before) you'll see people falling all over themselves to complain that this distro or that distro doesn't have it.

    But distros are used widely by inexperienced users and this is code that is not extensively tested. Many people get their first and only experienced with Linux from some CD they buy off a store shelf for $29.

    Yes, it has been worked on for years but it has not been used in production that much.

    It would be better if most of the initial users of 2.4.0 were users who were competent to download and build their own kernels, until the bugs that will inevitably crop up in widespread use are found.

    Then let the distros ship with 2.4.1.


    Michael D. Crawford
    GoingWare Inc

  • Also:

    2.2-alpha-3
    2.2-ex-2-plus
    2.2-ex-3

    If Capcom simply named them in order that they were made, there would be as many number SF games as Emacs major releases... Hell, there would probably be as many as Emacs minor releases, too.
  • >> Lastly, Win95 had USB support a long time ago,

    Umm, yeah have you ever tried to use USB on Win95? NT doesn't support USB. There are three MS OSes that *really* support USB, they are Win98se, Win2K professional, and Me. These are all relatively new.
  • the developers are all on the stackguard mailing list, and very responsive.


    Cheers Greg! I plan on using their help in the near future.

  • "Correct Translation: The whole concept of "intellectual property" is damaging to humanity as a whole and should be done away with.",/i> I actually claped when I read that. I of course wondered what I was doing once I realised that I was clapping at a /. post but regardless, totally concur with your views here.
  • 2.2 came out in late January of 1999. 2.2 was in development at least 2 1/2 years and 2.0 had twice as many minor releases at that point as 2.2 has now (36 vs. 18).

  • Re:Question: Upgrading to 2.4 (Score:3)

    by chasec ( 157393 ) on Sunday December 31, 2000 @02:22PM (#1427444) Homepage
    You might need to update your modutils to deal with the restructuring in /lib/modules/2.4.0. Latest release is 2.3.21. Otherwise, I've had no problems upgrading.
    -----
  • 2.4-turbo, 2.4-ultra, super-2.4, super-2.4-turbo, oh well i'm happy. i think i play too much street fighter 2 tho.
  • Could not be more stable. Who is that clown who says it hasn't been released yet? Head in sand?
  • There is nothing at kernel.org. You guys are dreaming! Anything to get people to believe it is not vaporware of 2000...
  • What do you mean? Win98 supports USB just fine? As for Win95, my USB speakers aren't complaining about it.
  • USB stuff isn't "odd hardware." And BeOS was never a factor here (although it DOES support every bit of USB hardware I have, a Perfection 610 scanner, a Sidewinder Precision Pro, and a pair of USB speakers), I was comparing Linux to Windows and BSD.
  • Total releases of 2.4 promised in the last year: one.
    Total delivered: zero

    Total releases of BeOS promised in the last year: one
    Total delivered: one
  • I highly recommend devfs also but please read the doco as you need to run a deamon for it to function correctly. Also not that not all drivers support it however, everything on my main machine and my laptop works flawlessly so, I have no idea what devices these might be.
  • I thought 4.2 was RELEASE or STABLE, not CURRENT.
  • But no, you'd rather prattle on about how Intellectual Property - MY property - hurts everyone, is bad for humanity, blah blah blah, while you keep on stealing. Now there is a morally correct ideal.

    I don't steal other people's "intellectual property". I buy all my music, on CD. I buy all my books, on paper. All the software I run is free software, mostly GPL. Fuck you and your assumptions.

    Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.

    I can see why. If you had posted under your own name, that baseless, ill-conceived rant would come back to haunt you.

    Everyone knows who I am and that it's me telling you (whoever you are) to go fuck yourself.

    --
    "Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"

  • umm, no
    this sig is funny. [8op.com] laugh.
  • and just hours later, modutils 2.3.24 was released [kernel.org]
  • It's to emphasize that the kernel is in a state in which no major development usually takes place, mostly just bug fixes (I know, there have been exceptions.) It's like a frozen state.
  • Overdue? Since when did it become possible for something without deadlines to be overdue? Oh, and did you work on it? I know I didn't, but then again, I'm not complaining that it's not out fast enough.

  • Re:How long has it taken? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Let me tell you what is holding 2.4 back: BUGS. Deep, deep bugs. A Shoddy VM. A Worthless scheduler. That kind of thing.
    A shoddy VM? the new 2.4 VM is very similar to FreeBSD's. Matt Dillon even reviewed the design. The Linux scheduler works quite well for a vast array of workloads. From very low latency media work to high-throughput webservers. FreeBSD is slightly better for throughput oriented tests, but only because they sacrifice latency for throughput. Ask anyone who has done serious real time audio work what they think of FreeBSD. Its not a pretty sight. BeOS and linux are pretty much the only contenders here.

    Let me ask you a question. What's faster, 2.0 or 2.2? Sorry, the answer is 2.0. What about 2.2 and 2.4? Close, but the answer is 2.2.
    This is so ridiculous that it hardly even warrants a response. Care to specify benchmarks? I find 2.4 signifigantly faster for most of my day to day work, but obviously I can come up with pathological cases. I can do the same with FreeBSD 4.1, but it doesn't really prove anything.

    I enjoyed being in the FreeBSD community a lot more before the OS snobs moved in from linux when it got too "mainstream" for them. The developers have a fairly realistic view of the relative advantages of FreeBSD and Linux. Why can't the non-coding OS zealots learn from them?
  • Seems fair enough to me. If Windows 2000/NT 5.0 can get a guernsey, even though it eventually came into being, so can Linux.

    On the whole, this looks like symptoms of Linux becoming a seriously regarded system, with all the problems that implies. Once people start tying full-on commercial decisions and "face" to a software product, on the basis of promises -- real or inferred -- from developers, then there's considerable pressure to be seen to produce something. Particularly when the product is in a rather competitive environment and the release promises to plug some fairly obvious gaps vis a vis ones competitors.

    There's nothing particularly bad about this. (And I'd rather a late stable release than an early, flakey release any day. Although it's not like I have anything much riding on 2.4.0.) But I think the Linux community should be prepared for a lot of this kind of thing; not just from the kernel, but from other high-profile packages, as well.

  • One word. "And?" At what point does one release a kernel? What makes it so unacceptable? Please. As long as good stable versions can stay in check, then keep all changes in CVS and let people keep up with the changes than totally adapting to a new schema! This is why I like *bsd. Yeah, there are version numbers used as landmarks... but only that. If you use a -CURRENT, it won't kill you. Sure, don't use 5.0 since it is still in development, but i'm running 4.2 that is a week old.. which means i'm running a very up-to-date version. I think the number schema for Linux has become more of a landmark than the things that are already done, like major rewrites of the kernel which are usable NOW!

    ---
  • Actully, you could sign up to be a beta tester for MS products, and the same could be said about linux security...
  • Where can I find a list of changes in 2.4 vs 2.2

    This page [linuxhq.com] should get you started on the significant differences...
  • Hey, have mercy on us left-coasters! Label posts like that with *SPOILER* ! ;-)
  • now that linux's target has become desktop use (the addition of USB, and supporting more and more home-based devices indicates this), is the monolithic kernel design still the way to go?
    i know the microkernel design has it's flaws, but surely it has more potential in terms of ease of use, and maintainability? to a new user, having to rebuild the kernel when you buy a new device would seem difficult (although it's not, but it sounds daunting at first).
    just how much work would it take to re-design the current code, and port the modules?

    NB:I'm not trying to have a go at linux/unix here, just my thoughts.

  • Some people are so full of themselves they need to show everyone. Look at Me! Look At Me!

    But this was just sad and lame.
  • maybe its called prerelease because he didn't want it to be test13, it does come from the test13-preX line of kernels

    -Compenguin
  • Vaporware means it exists only as a concept, and maybe a few pieces of useless code, though. While Mac OS X might not be a complete OS yet, it's still much more than vaporware.
  • Read the included file Documentation/Changes.

    It is there to address this exact question.

    -Peter

  • Its not on the home page, dig into the repository

    -Compenguin
  • Off topic? What jackass marked that guy off topic? Obviously, someone who doesn't read slashdot stories since this person's comment was very on topic. And, considering the previous story a few days ago concerning Wired ranking 2.4.0 as one of the most blatant Vaporware incidents of the year, it is extremely on topic.

    Perhaps we should limit distribution of mod points to those who posess an IQ greater than the sum of their granted mod points.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • "go to the trouble of a kernel upgrade."

    Trouble???

    It takes about 1/2 hour to upgrade a kernel, the longest task is the compiling!

    ::shrug::

    -SP
  • Natural state of information is to be known by anyone interested, isn't it?
    How can you own information in my mind?
    And how is small information '2+2=4' different from a lot of info, like a software program?
  • As far as the *default* kernel goes, I believe the consensus on the -devel list was something along the lines of "when we're sure that all the different architectures Debian supports currently are solid".

    Otherwise, I believe 2.4 drops pretty much straight into woody.

  • I went to a MS e-commerce briefing held at a nearby town. I went to MS public website and signed up. They gave everyone the latest RC at the time (RC1). None of this cost me a cent and I'm not a beta tester or subscibed to any MS program of any kind.
  • Just a clarification, I was speaking for me only as an interested observer rather than somebody who actively works on that aspect of Debian.

  • no need to download the whole thing for that file...

    it's at:
    http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/kaboom/linux/Changes-2 .4/changes24.html [gatech.edu]

  • When will Debian's Woody tree get the new Linux-2.4.0-prerelease kernel?

    Officially, I don't know, I don't monitor the devel lists.

    However, it's reasonably easy to manually drop in any kernel you want. I'm currently running 2.4.0-test11 on my woody box, and it's running great!

    Here's how:
    1. install package kernel-package. This is a set of scripts that will automate the build process of the kernel.
    2. Download whatever kernel you want to use.
    3. configure the kernel to you liking.
    4. Run make-kpkg (I think that's the name of the script, I'm away from my debian box at the moment). This will compile the kernel and spit out a deb.
    5. Install the deb.
    6. configure lilo to your liking. All the images are in /boot.


    This is explained much more verbosely in the documentation that comes with kernel-package, but I had few problems with the process, and I'm no expert. The process is very smooth. I like it.

    What version is currently in Woody?

    2.2.17 and 2.2.18pre21, it seems.

    --
  • Exactly. Who cares about some faggin' kernel when what you want is a nice clean stable distribution that doesn't bloat with everything that they could think of during install.

  • Wow, before leaving for this year's party, I just finished my dist-upgrade, leaving me with such wonders as a new init, XFree86 4.0.2, and some other new, good things. Just this morning, I also managed to get DRI working with my i810 chipset.

    Now, at 2:25am, as Octave compiles (it appears dist-upgrade broke Octave, plus a computing-intensive application ought to be optimized for my system), I download 2.4.0-prerelease. I can't think of a better way to usher in 2001 then with a new mathematical package, a new compiler (minor updates to gcc 2.95.2 packages, I guess), a new windowing system, a new direct rendering infrastructure, and now, to top it all, a new kernel.

    If you ask me, life is good. I find it hard to imagine that in the future, such things as having the latest kernel and windowing system will not mattter to me. But now, in my youth, I am content.

    Happy New Year. I will continue enjoying the year until spring semester starts up, but that is two weeks away...

    I see my kernel is finished downloading, and Octave is about wrapped up... That means time to go.

    A new year calls for a new signature.

  • I don't know how much of a choice anybody has at this point. Linux is a macrokernel, and probably always will be. Sure, if everyone wanted to, it could be turned into a microkernel (and has, in the case of projects like MKLinux and L4/Linux) but it would end up as a single-server microkernel, which isn't really the pinnacle of the design. Traditionally, these single servers have been pretty dissapointing, both in performance (the fastest still aren't as fast as traditional *NIXs) and features (the single server limits a lot of the fault tolerence and distribution capabilities inherent in a microkernel.) Even if it was done, Linux is so far along that the project would slow kernel development by at least 6 months and in the end, I don't think the benifets are there. Also, modularity really doesn't suffer at the hands of a macrokernel. Linux's inability to transparantly use hardware is not the fault of the kernel architecture, but the actual implementation. Even Microsoft makes loadable drivers work pretty well with a monolithic kernel (Win95) and BeOS's ability to automagically detect and configure hardware probably has little to do with its being a microkernel.
  • I'm salivating at 2.4-prerelease , but kernel compiling is a bitch with Immunix OS [immunix.org] (stackguarded Redhat 6.2). Even with the recommended -mno-terminator-canary option to disable stackguard functionality and the replacement of the GNU C compiler to a non-stackguarded version, something still fucks up. I've successfully hacked kernels dozens of times but i've crossed the threshold of my patience with Immunix. Don't get me wrong - it's possibly the most robust and stable of Linux distributions, but not a kernel hackers special.

  • If your using a "2.4 ready" distro like RedHat 7.0 you should have no problems

    -Compenguin
  • Actually, I think this was the joke you were trying to make

    2.2
    2.2-turbo
    super-2.2
    super-2.2-turbo
    2.2-alpha
    2.2-alpha-2
    super-2.2-alpha
    super-2.2-alpha-ex
    super-2.2-alpha-ex-2

    If you don't get it, its probably because you don't remember many years and numerous extensions to Street Fighter 2 that SF fans went through waiting for Capcom to finally release Street Fighter 3.
  • Actually, I think that Redhat 7.0 only *seems* to have "no problems" in upgrading to 2.4 because of all the other problems that one has to live through using that distro ;)
  • Why the hell was this modded up? It's not even true!

  • Re:2.4.0 not in 2000, but that's ok... (Score:3)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Sunday December 31, 2000 @02:56PM (#1427487)
    Win2K better.. Haha, that's a good one! The ONLY thing better about Win2000 is the ability to run some more games..
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Right. The fact that it is as stable as Linux, that DirectX 8 whips the hell out of anything Linux has, and the fact that the hardware support and OpenGL perfromance of Win2K still beat Linux aren't really important, are they? Not to mention the advantages Win2K has for notebooks (better power management) and all the features that the GUI has that GNOME/KDE are still lacking (they're there, but immature, and not yet pervasively used.)

    There is STILL a lot of settings that you can't change without having to reboot the computer. That's crap.
    >>>>>>
    Who cares? You only configure your computer once in awhile!

    For a "production" machine, you shouldn't have to do that.
    >>>>>>
    Therin lies the rub. You're thinking from a server standpoint.

    With Linux, the ONLY thing you have to restart for is a kernel rebuild, which is very rarely necessary.
    >>>>>>>>>>
    Except to add support for stuff that your distro maker didn't think was important to put in. For stable distros like Slack, that means ALSA, ReiserFS, firewalls, etc. Then you have the fact (that unless you use RedHat or Mandrake, which bring their own set of problems) you cannot upgrade the kernel (realistically) without recompiling!

  • This can't be! (Score:5)

    by LinuxGeek ( 6139 ) <djand...nc@@@gmail...com> on Sunday December 31, 2000 @01:34PM (#1427491)
    Vaporware that really exists? What will "industry analysts" complain about now?? :)

  • Latency improvements? (Score:3)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Saturday January 01, 2000 @12:40AM (#1427494) Homepage
    Can anyone please tell me what the status is of the latency improvements to the 2.4 kernel? Linux resisted the big, horrible, kludgy patch, but I seem to recall that there was a much smaller and cleaner patch that made nice reductions in latency. Did that make it in? If so, how big is the improvement? Thanks.

    steveha

  • Linux 2.4 isn't vaporware, honest!!! (Score:3)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Sunday December 31, 2000 @01:40PM (#1427497)
    I'm rather torped that the 2.4 kernel was classified as 'vaporware' in Wired Mag's 2000 vaporware winners. It would be different if hundreds, if not thousands were actually using the test versions. They also applied this same logic to Mac OS X despite the fact that there are similiar numbers using the public beta.
  • Translation: I have no intellectual property of any value, but I want everyone else to give theirs to me.

    Correct Translation: The whole concept of "intellectual property" is damaging to humanity as a whole and should be done away with.

    --
    "Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"

  • Linus said there probably wouldn't be a 2.4.0-prerelease2 -- so I personally am looking forward to running 2.4.0-prerelease2-test13-pre7-ac2. ;)
  • There are proxy servers (like Junkbuster) that will run on Windows. They will allow you to block cookies very easily (and IMO much more flexibly than Mozilla will allow). Of course then again you could just put Mozilla on W2K :)

    Better yet are shell scripts that filter out your cookies after they have been saved to disk. That way you can use a cookie-requiring site, and come back the next day with no tracking info.

  • I had to upgrade to ppp-2.4.0 (from Rawhide, I think I got it) before my modem would work at all, and there still seems to be a problem (with easy but annoying workaround) with Red Hat's ppp-watch setup. Oh, well, I'm only stuck on a modem for another couple weeks.

    Of course, if you've upgraded to Red Hat 7 (like I have), you've got 50 other updates [redhat.com] you'll want to download, so don't feel too special.
  • ummm. and download that 18Mb file first...

    you got to be kidding.

    Thanks to the other poster for the modutils tip. I've taken 2.3.23

  • Hopefully holiday traffic will be light enough that we can all share the bandwidth to the mirrors.

    Mirrors? Are you kidding me? Kernel.org has a huge amount of donated bandwidth, I don't think they're going to suffer from the "Slashdot effect" anytime soon. In fact, on their homepage, they say that their current bandwidth utilization is 25.52Mbits, hardly even a third of their available bandwidth.

  • Kernel 2.6, of course.
  • When will Debian's Woody tree get the new Linux-2.4.0-prerelease kernel? What version is currently in Woody?

  • I dont know who you are but I do know who you'll never be: Relevant.

    Wow! You can see the future!

    Maybe you can tell us when we'll be getting our flying cars and personal robots.

    --
    "Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"

  • Also, modularity really doesn't suffer at the hands of a macrokernel.

    In the current Linux kernel, there are few constraints on what part of the kernel a module can depend on or what data structures it can modify. And any fault in a kernel module can cause the whole kernel to crash.

    Both of those issues make it really difficult for people to add new functionality to the kernel, and I think are significantly responsible for the long release cycles.

    A microkernel isn't the only approach to achieving this kind of modularity--using a language with a little bit more error checking and support for interfaces would do the same thing without the overhead of a microkernel design. And adding runtime support for C++, natively-compiled Java, a JIT, Modula-2, Oberon, Modula-3, or any of a number of a number of other languages would be feasible. But my impression is that that would not stand a chance of making it into the distribution even as an optional module.

  • Linus' explanation (Score:5)

    by bconway ( 63464 ) on Sunday December 31, 2000 @01:50PM (#1427527) Homepage
    Can be found on Linux Today here [linuxtoday.com]. It includes an explanation of what's changed since 2.4.0-test12, what to expect for the immediate future, and a Happy New Year!

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