Kernel 2.6.0-test11

[Tiger]

Holy crap Batman!

Just compiled and installed the 2.6.11-test kernel on my Slack 9.1 drive and this freaking thing just flat out rips!

Some features,
1. No longer need to run "make dep" during the build process.
2. "make xconfig" defaults to a much better looking and functional KDE/Qt style framework.
3. "make gconfig" does the same for Gnome users.
4. "make oldconfig" will use your existing kernel config file. NOTE: DO NOT use make oldconfig and assume it's going to work. Enough stuff has changed in the kernel to warrant doing a fresh config. I don't know why they kept it.
5. No more scsi-emulation to make CDRW's work, meaning you no longer have to pass the "ide-scsi=/hxx" argument at boot. Or compile SCSI support in the kernel.
6. Mucho USB support. If you can plug it in a USB port the kernel will support it.
7. SPEEEEED! It's shocking. Boot times on my machine were cut nearly in half. My machine runs a whole bunch smoother on the 2.6 kernel.

I'm sure there's a whole bunch more stuff that's changed and you'd have to be a pretty experienced kernel hacker to keep track of it all. From the "userland" perspective It's a great step forward. I guess the only thing their waiting on for the official 2.6 release is whether or not they're going to put xfs in the kernel or keep patching it.

I'm so impressed with this new kernel I'm going to upgrade my everyday Knoppix/Debian drive as well.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

2.6.0-test11 you mean?

 

[Spyro]

5. No more scsi-emulation to make CDRW's work, meaning you no longer have to pass the "ide-scsi=/hxx" argument at boot. Or compile SCSI support in the kernel.

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder how many more test releases before I can finally get my hands on the real thing.....

 

[BlackOmen]

Originally posted by: Spyro

5. No more scsi-emulation to make CDRW's work, meaning you no longer have to pass the "ide-scsi=/hxx" argument at boot. Or compile SCSI support in the kernel.

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder how many more test releases before I can finally get my hands on the real thing.....

FYI: I needed to upgrade to cdrecord 2.18 to be able to do native ATAPI burning. Additionally, cdrdao does not yet support this feature.

 

[Nothinman]

5. No more scsi-emulation to make CDRW's work, meaning you no longer have to pass the "ide-scsi=/hxx" argument at boot. Or compile SCSI support in the kernel.

You never needed that argument unless you compiled ide-cd into the kernel statically, you made ide-cd and ide-scsi both modules you could load whichever one you wanted at the time.

7. SPEEEEED! It's shocking. Boot times on my machine were cut nearly in half. My machine runs a whole bunch smoother on the 2.6 kernel.

One thing to note is that if you have X reniced to -10, which a lot of distros do by default, it can cause interactivity problems especially with VMWare for some reason.

I guess the only thing their waiting on for the official 2.6 release is whether or not they're going to put xfs in the kernel or keep patching it.

XFS has been in since the late 2.5s, it's the 2.4 kernel that's being debated on right now. A lot of people won't run 2.6 for a long time, well until however long it takes RedHat to test and package it, and would like to have XFS in 2.4 instead of having to patch it or use the SGI CVS.

I didn't notice a huge speed increase on my SMP machine or my laptop, but it seems I'm in the minority.

FYI: I needed to upgrade to cdrecord 2.18 to be able to do native ATAPI burning. Additionally, cdrdao does not yet support this feature.

But it doesn't really matter because cdrecord accepts cue sheets now.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I didn't notice a huge speed increase on my SMP machine or my laptop, but it seems I'm in the minority.

Yeah, I also don't see the massive boosts other people seem to. A little bump, but nothing tremendous.

But it doesn't really matter because cdrecord accepts cue sheets now.

Cool, didn't know that.

 

[drag]

I heard somewhere that some of the user-space tools need to be upgraded to deal with 2.6 kernel stuff correctly....

Is that true?

Also a interesting thing is the LSM stuff. Be neat to use for firewalls and stand-alone internet servers....

 

[Nothinman]

Mainly just the module stuff, because Rusty rewrote the module system completely for 2.6. You need a package called module-init-tools and it sits along side modutils just fine so you can switch between 2.4 and 2.6 without any problems.

 

[Tiger]

Here's a list of neccesary upgrades for the 2.6.xx kernels

There are a number of utilities that you will have to upgrade for them to work properly with your new 2.6 kernel. Some of the utilities listed in 'Changes' you won't have to worry about, as for example they may be specific to certain filesystems. However, you will at least need to meet the minimum version requirements for the following (see 'Documentation/Changes' for the latest requirements -- they may have changed!):

Name: Minimum version: How to find version:
Gnu C Compiler 2.95.3 gcc --version
Gnu Make 3.78 make --version
binutils 2.12 ld -v
util-linux 2.10o fdformat --version
module-init-tools 0.9.9 depmod -V
procps 2.0.9 ps --version
[procps 2.x] [procps 3.x]

The following utilities are filesystem specific. If you're running ext2 or ext3, be sure to update your e2fsprogs, if you're running jfs, be sure to update jfsutils, etc...

Name: Minimum version: How to find version:
e2fsprogs 1.29 tune2fs
jfsutils 1.0.14 fsck.jfs -V
reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 reiserfsck -V 2>&1 | grep reiserfsprogs
xfsprogs 2.1.0 xfs_db -V
nfs-utils 1.0.5 showmount --version

And a handful of other utilities that you'll want to update if you use them:

Name: Minimum version: How to find version:
pcmcia-cs 3.1.21 cardmgr -V
quota-tools 3.09 quota -V
PPP 2.4.0 ppd --version
isdn4k-utils 3.1pre1 isdnctrl 2>&1 | grep version
oprofile 0.5.3 oprofiled --version

Source article.

 

[Drift3r]

Man I can't wait for this new kernel to come out ! Of course we all know that the 2.6.X release after 2.6.0 will be better !

 

[Nothinman]

Here's a list of neccesary upgrades for the 2.6.xx kernels

The only thing I had to install was module-init-tools, so either most distros will work fine or Debian sid is ahead of them all. And as much as I like Debian I doubt it's very far ahead of other distros with regards to package versions =)

 

[Sunner]

It's the same with RedHat and Gentoo

 

[JustMike]

Anybody else get the annoyingly fast PS/2 mouse cursor? It's way too sensitive with 2.6. I followed the thread on lkml for a while, but didn't get the outcome. Somebody changed the mouse speed for some reason and I am not sure what the fix was to get it back to 2.4.x speeds.

 

[Nothinman]

I just use xset to turn the speed back down, but yes it's atleast 10x faster in 2.6 for me too.

 

[chsh1ca]

Slack 9.0 only needs module-init-tools as well. I think most of the stuff on that list is fairly old (GCC 2.95 for instance, I am using GCC 3.2 on this system).

 

[Tiger]

Slackware 9.1 comes with mod-init-tools also, alomg with gcc 3.2.3.
I have heard some scuttlebutt about gcc 3.3.1 causing some compile problems.
My Slackware upgrade went slicker than snot. I'm on my third attempt trying to get 2.6.0-test to play nice on Knoppix 3.3.

 

[JustMike]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I just use xset to turn the speed back down, but yes it's atleast 10x faster in 2.6 for me too.

Ahh, good... I was previously using the GUI app in GNOME/KDE to adjust the mouse speed, but obviously this one is a little trickier to automate depending on the kernel version. I'll just call xset on 2.6.x if I need to. Thanks.