In association with heise online

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Appendix

Appendix: more updates to infrastructure and drivers

The updates to the latest Linux version mentioned in the above article are only the most significant – the tip of the iceberg, as the saying goes. And the iceberg in this case is made up of the thousands of patches added to each new Linux version. Numerous other important new features can be found in the following list, organised by topic and with brief descriptions of the updates that link to additional sources of information.

Which drivers were modified – On the Git front end at kernel.org, it is possible to retrieve information on changes to individual files in the Linux kernel. That is how to find out if there were any updates to drivers used on a user's own system. To do that, however, it is important to know where the drivers are located on the Linux source code tree. In distributor's kernels, which are heavily reliant on modules, it often helps to have the output of a program called modinfo: [VERBATIM0] If a compiled module is located in /lib/modules/[...]/kernel/drivers/net/e100.ko, then its source code is located in the drivers/net/ directory in the Linux source code in files with similar names. In the case of the e100 driver responsible for Intel 100 Mb network hardware, for instance, the file is called e100.c. Other drivers, like the e1000 driver for Intel's PCI gigabit LAN chips, on the other hand, have their own directory. If a person knows the approximate position of the driver, the tree view of the Git web interface can be used to navigate to the corresponding source code data; clicking on the history link displays an overview of the most recent changes to files and directories. In the network drivers directory, for instance, the modifications to the driver code for the e100 (drivers/net/e100.c) and e1000 (drivers/net/e1000/) drivers can be displayed.

Architecture code:

File systems and the VFS (Virtual File System):

Power management techniques and ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface):

Notebook and PDA specific drivers:

PCI subsystem:

USB subsystem:

Input subsystem – input devices like keyboard and mouse:

Storage:

Network:

Graphics hardware:

Audio:

Hardware monitoring/I2C:

V4l/DVB:

Miscellaneous:

In their Wiki, the Kernelnewbies maintain an overview similar to this list, as well as a brief description of the most important changes in 2.6.25. Those interested in more details can comb through the several megabyte-long changelog, which contains comments on every single patch that corresponds to a commit in the source code administration system. Another alternative is to work through the kernel sources and their most recent changes in the Git web interface – it also contains the actual patches for those who want to examine or download them. (Thorsten Leemhuis thl/c't)

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Print Version | Permalink: http://h-online.com/-746484
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • submit to slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • submit to reddit
 
The H Open Headlines
    • July's Community Calendar

            The H

            The H Open

            The H Security

            The H Developer

            The H Internet Toolkit