The new maintainer of the Linux Kernel 2.2, Marc-Christian Petersen announced the release of 2.2.26. The release includes several security fixes, including a fix for the mremap() bug. Alan Cox released the previous 2.2 kernel, 2.2.25 almost a year ago, in March 2003. In August of the same year he began a one year sabbatical to study for an MBA, handing over the maintainership to Marc-Christian.
Linux: Kernel 2.2.26 “2.2 is not dead” Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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loung live 2.2!
People still use 2.2? I’m already on 2.6.3…well, there are still people using Windows 95 so i guess it’s not that big a surprise.
Yea but if windows 95 users were offered a free upgrade that would increase performance, I doubt they’d say no.
Oh yeah?
How about 2.0?
If 2.2 is stiil alive why do they still keep 2.0?
> If 2.2 is stiil alive why do they still keep 2.0?
I think these old kernels are nowadays mainly used in embedded systems and by the maintainers. And of course by nostalgic people.
I don’t think any of them would switch to switch to a slightly newer version that might break things. If they’d really consider to switch, then maybe to 2.4 or 2.6.
For those questioning if people still use Kernel 2.2, isn’t it the default kernel for Debian Stable.
Not that that says much.
Anyway, yeah 2.0 is still maintained as well, there were articles on here a while back interviewing the maintainer and announcing the latest release of the 2.0.x series.
A lot of floppy-based Linux distros make use of 2.0 and 2.2 kernels because they take up considerably less space than 2.4 does.
Also, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’ll bet there are a lot of people out there with old Linux boxes still chugging along doing obscure things without any problems.
I know sysads with servers that use 2.0 kernels, the boxes’ uptime is around 420+ days.
I know of a bunch of places where 2.2 is still widely in use, simply because it works. We are talking about close to 3 years of uptime for a heavily used intranet server.
Most people tend to forget the server is even there. When technology works, it becomes invisible.
I can say, however, that I am personally looking forward to 2.6, although I don’t think that it will be ready for primetime, meaning mission critical servers, for another year or so.
don’t fix what isn’t broken. If the solution still works, why try messing around with something “better”? Servers that are still chugging away and don’t really need the extra functionality that 2.4 or 2.6 provides have no reason to switch where things may break.
You’re right. Osnews is old, outdated, and has less features than the competition – but it is not updated because it works. Why mess with it?
I can say, however, that I am personally looking forward to 2.6, although I don’t think that it will be ready for primetime, meaning mission critical servers, for another year or so.
I have to disagree. Maybe some of the technologies that were introduced with 2.6 might not be fully adopted (is FC2 going to come with udev by default?), but companies like Redhat (and especially RH) have been porting back modifications to the 2.6 kernel back to the 2.4 kernel and have been using them (since RH 9.0) for a while. Many of these things were tested for quite a long time and used extensivly. Infact it might be a little hard to find things that are sparkling new in the 2.6 kernel in FC2 (I am talking besides things like SELinux), since many of the enhancements were ported back anyhow.
Remember, if there is somthing really unstable in the core 2.6, usually the modifications can be removed (foreward-porting?) and in that area 2.4 code will be used.
“For those questioning if people still use Kernel 2.2, isn’t it the default kernel for Debian Stable.”
Yes. But you have to remember when Debian 3.0 stable was released. 2.4 kernel is also available on the install CD if you want to use that. Boot with bf24 at the prompt if I remember correctly…been so long since I have had to reinstall Debian.
I’m still using 2.2.xx on my old IBM ThinkPad i1400 2611-411. Since I setup linuxfromscratch 4.0 on it with the 2.2 kernel instead of 2.4 – I haven’t looked back.
This will be good news since I have a couple of Mandrake and RH Linux boxes running Kernel 2.2. Most of my original boxes were migrated to kernel 2.4 when it first came out. Now I can finally update these older kernels to see what happens.
I think 2.2 is what runs on the old MK68 processors.
WHere not talking Ferrari here, but good e-mail servers for the house.
but I find it really stupid that a) Linus starts naming kernel releases (badly I might add) and that b) all the kernel maintainers decide to follow suit.