Hours ago Marcello Tosatti released Linux 2.4.22. This release marks the next version in the 2.4.x stable series of the kernel. A host of changes have been made to wireless networking, adaptec drivers and the ia64 port in addition to many other bugfixes. You can get this new release as a patch from here or as a complete package from here. Changelog here.
Linux 2.4.22 Kernel Released
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Just downloaded, compiled and installed. Feels slightly more responsive than 2.4.20 (the stock RedHat one anyway). I truly hope that this is the last of the 2.4.x series before 2.6 goes stable. BTW, if you’re running a desktop and can risk the minute possibility of hiccups then 2.6test4 is “the man”. I’m using it on all 4 of the desktops at home but the server will keep 2.4.22 for now and I would advise others to also.
Has anyone read the recent 2.6 changelogs in much detail, hence does anyone have any clue as to what is needed before the final 2.6.0. IIRC, 2.4 had a series of betas (after?) the tests.
Theres no reason to stop development of 2.4. 2.0 and 2.2 are still actively developed, if not more slowly. 2.4 is quite stable, and becoming as stable (IMHO) as 2.2 currently is. 2.6 won’t be nearly as stable for a good while, at least a year. I agree though that 2.6 rocks, I run it on everything (I’m a end user, not a admin – so everything means my workstation and my laptop).
There will be some problems with 2.6. Many distributions use a device filesystem called “devfs” to create and remove device nodes as the respective devices are connected and removed from the system. DevFS was marked EXPERIMENTAL in 2.4, and is now DEPRECATED in the latest 2.6-test-kernel. This leads to problems for systems that rely on devfs and want to upgrade to 2.6. I think redhat does not use devfs, nor does debian, but OTOH IIRC mandrake and suse for example use it extensively.
It will be replaced with something called “udev” or the “user-space device filesystem”, but this will take some time.
> Theres no reason to stop development of 2.4. 2.0 and 2.2 are still
> actively developed, if not more slowly. 2.4 is quite stable, and
> becoming as stable (IMHO) as 2.2 currently is.
I wasn’t suggesting that we do. There is still a good reason to continue to maintain 2.2 with embedded devices being an area that can still benefit from this tried and true code. 2.0 isn’t quite as important (IMHO).
I confess that 2.2 is by definition more stable than 2.4 for most operations. Technologies like USB and MP, commonly in use today do not function in such a stable way on 2.2 and below. USB can only work on 2.2 with a very “hacked together” set of patches. It is not built into the architecture as it is in 2.4 and 2.6. There is no doubt that in my experience (and many others for that matter) that 2.4 has by far the most stable USB implementation.
Multiprocessing is reasonably stable on 2.2 if you have no more than 8 processors. 2.2’s patches to use up to 32 are “REALLY” messy (IMHO).
In summary, if you have very generic uni/duel-procesor hardware without the need for USB, FireWire or any other more modern technologies then 2.2 is well capable.
What’s the differences between a 2.4.10 kernel and this version? I’m interested in stability and responsiveness mainly. Has the kernel come a long way since then?
Right now I don’t think my 2.4.10 system (SuSE version 7.3) is that stable. Quite frankly it aint worth the money I spent on it. I have a HP-UX based workstation at home and it is just a dream to use, solid, responsive, and built like a tank. I’ve got Solaris on Intel at home and I use it (on SPARC) at work. It’s good too. I’ve built real-time systems using Tru64 and found it to be solid as well. The only thing that stops me from coming out with a “you get what you pay for in the unix market” statement is that I’ve had good experiences with FreeBSD and NetBSD. Linux just seems messy and amatuerish. The reason I say all this is cause I hear so many good things about Linux and I just have to scratch my head and ask “is it just me?” Well, is it me? Is it SuSE? Is it 2.4.10?
Would like to use my netgear wg511.
> The reason I say all this is cause I hear so many good things about
> Linux and I just have to scratch my head and ask “is it just me?” Well,
> is it me? Is it SuSE? Is it 2.4.10?
SuSE 7.3 is quite old and so is kernel 2.4.10. I would suggest updating. If you want another easy to use distro but free (aka, not SuSE) you could try RedHat or (shudder) Mandrake. Seeing as you appear to be familiar with Solaris and HP-UX (signs of a *nix veteran), possibly Gentoo, Slackware or Debian would better suit you.
Hint: I use Gentoo
What’s the differences between a 2.4.10 kernel and this version? I’m interested in stability and responsiveness mainly. Has the kernel come a long way since then?
New VM, IDE device fix ups, cleaner ACPI, logs of bugs fixed. Nothing fabulous, just the usual 2.4.x update.
Right now I don’t think my 2.4.10 system (SuSE version 7.3) is that stable. Quite frankly it aint worth the money I spent on it. I have a HP-UX based workstation at home and it is just a dream to use, solid, responsive, and built like a tank. I’ve got Solaris on Intel at home and I use it (on SPARC) at work. It’s good too. I’ve built real-time systems using Tru64 and found it to be solid as well. The only thing that stops me from coming out with a “you get what you pay for in the unix market” statement is that I’ve had good experiences with FreeBSD and NetBSD. Linux just seems messy and amatuerish. The reason I say all this is cause I hear so many good things about Linux and I just have to scratch my head and ask “is it just me?” Well, is it me? Is it SuSE? Is it 2.4.10?
IMHO, use what works best for you. Personally, I prefer FreeBSD and its development model, however, I am sure there are positives to the way GNU/Linux is developed.
I also understand the issues regarding the kernels included with distros. Most are heavily patched and issues that do crop up are hard to decipher whether it is an issue with that particular distros kernel, the mainstream kernel or something different altogether.
Indeed a lot has changed since SuSE 7.3, the kernel has become much more responsive in 8.2, it has better support for softRAID and LVM in YaST2, it has kde3/gnome2, it has OpenOffice and not StarOffice, and I can go on.
I would not suggest *upgrading* as SuSE is not very good at this, but SuSE 8.2 is a nice distribution, YaST is a great tool and 8.2 is lots and lots better than 7.3
AFAIK, SuSE, RedHat and Mandrake have a strong integration of X Windows in the system, they boot with X, have X configuration utilities and such, while Slackware, Gentoo, Debian and BSD are more for the command line. Debian and FreeBSD have the advantage that they have some kind of TUI configuration system, while on Gentoo, NetBSD, OpenBSD and to a lesser extent Slackware, you really have to edit text files to configure things.
Being an end user and having used Solaris only now and then, it feels to me as the BSD’s are more “unix”, and FreeBSD has some nice i386-specific candy like a graphical mouse cursor in textmode, semi-grapical screensavers and such. NetBSD has as disadvantage that it does not support preemptive threads, no, really, it’s true, -CURRENT has it but 1.6 not.
About Debian: even STABLE has kernel 2.4.18 or .19, but for the rest it is a bit outdated. Still, it has as advantages that a) installing security patches is very easy with standard tools, b) upgrading works well, so you can upgrade to 3.1 without difficulties, c) it does not have huge configuration applications like YasT or DrakConf, but still provides a UI for package configuration d) you can still try out all kinds of new stuff like KDE 3 by using additional APT repositories or by switching to TESTING.
From my experience, SuSE 8.0 and 8.2 are very stable, especially for desktop machines. Laptops are a little trickier if you’re trying to use ACPI.
I upgraded to 8.2 and I’d say it’s well worth the money. I also upgraded the Gnome apps from Ximain. I applied the bug fixes and security patches from SuSE. No crashes here.
It seems logical that the later kernel versions in the 2.4 series are more stable and refined with respect to the earlier versions. I would definitely recommend an upgrade.
I’ve been very satisfied with 8.2. My only major complaint is that I can’t upgrade to newer kernels. I’m sure its theoretically possible, but there would be a whole lot more to it than “make menuconfig; make dep…” and I can’t seem to find a decent guide on what that would be. A minor problem is that kde, gnome, and mozilla are all put in /opt for no good reason that I can see.
There will be some problems with 2.6. Many distributions use a device filesystem called “devfs” to create and remove device nodes as the respective devices are connected and removed from the system. DevFS was marked EXPERIMENTAL in 2.4, and is now DEPRECATED in the latest 2.6-test-kernel. This leads to problems for systems that rely on devfs and want to upgrade to 2.6. I think redhat does not use devfs, nor does debian, but OTOH IIRC mandrake and suse for example use it extensively.
You completely made that one up. I use 2.6-test3, and I’ve been using DevFS since I started on the 2.5/6 kernels at 2.5.64.
You completely made that one up. I use 2.6-test3, and I’ve been using DevFS since I started on the 2.5/6 kernels at 2.5.64.
Read what the original author wrote, he stated:
DevFS was marked EXPERIMENTAL in 2.4, and is now DEPRECATED in the latest 2.6-test-kernel.
Meaning, the code is there, however, don’t expect it to be extended any further and possibly, at a later date, removed from the Linux source tree.
You can upgrade the kernel in SUSE 7.3. I’ve done it and it’s pretty good. I would suggest upgrade the kernel tools in SUSE before doing so. You will get better performance. If you also have the time, you can compile the source code for GNOME 2.X or KDE as well.
I’ve upgraded systems as old as Red Hat 6.0 and SUSE 6 with new kernels, updates, and so on. Saves me money since it’s open sourced.
Wait a month at most and get version 8.3 which will include 2.4.22 anda lot fo goodies.
Its not you, its 2.4.10 which was not as stable as it could have been. It wasn’t until 2.4.18, IMHO, that Linux was truely stable enough for production usage. 2.4 had some rather embarassing bugs and took longer to stabilize then 2.2 or 2.0 did, but Linux truely is rock solid with the latest releases. 2.6test, far from being released, are completely rock solid for me and their still in active development. Performance improvements across the board too.
2.2 is rock solid, but why would you want to use it on large scale SMP? 8 CPUs? With the Big Kernel Lock? No more then 2 I’d think, and even then I remember reports of 2.4 being 30% faster on even dual boxes let alone 8 cpus.
If you own the Professional edition, instructions on compiling a new kernel are in the manual. I’ll check my manual later and let you know.
When will they make a Cocoa version of the kernel, so I can test it out on my Mac?