Linux Kernel 2.6.38 Tracking

Linux Kernel 2.6.38 has now been released. For full details, read "What's new in Linux 2.6.38".

Previous coverage of the development of 2.6.38 is listed below:

• Coming in 2.6.38 (Part 1) - Graphics
  Kernel version 2.6.38 supports AMD's new Fusion CPUs and offers 2D and 3D acceleration with many current GeForce and Radeon graphics cards. Power economy for the graphics cores in Intel processors and chip-sets has been improved; new page flipping features eradicate image flickering, tearing and incomplete rendering issues.

• Coming in 2.6.38 (Part 2) - File systems
  Linux 2.6.38 contains patches to improve the scalability of VFS that had been the topic of much discussion for the past six months and that Torvalds himself was waiting for. Ext3 and XFS now support batched discard, which is interesting for SSDs, while Btrfs and SquashFS support additional compression technologies.

• Coming in 2.6.38 (Part 3) - Network drivers and infrastructure
  Kernel version 38 will offer a new meshing implementation, loads of new and improved LAN and Wi-Fi drivers, and various minor changes that promise to improve the network subsystem's performance.

• Coming in 2.6.38 (Part 4) - Storage
  Expected in March, the forthcoming kernel will contain the new LIO target framework for implementing Storage Area Networks (SANs). Also new are a kernel-side media presence polling feature for disk drives and various Device Mapper optimisations that are relevant for desktop systems.
  

• Coming in 2.6.38 (Part 5) - Architecture, infrastructure and virtualisation
  In certain situations, a small patch for 2.6.38 perceivably improves the response time of desktop environments. Transparent Huge Pages, on the other hand, simplify memory management, which is particularly relevant in terms of virtualisation and server software.

• Coming in 2.6.38 (Part 6) - Drivers
  The HD audio driver can now run without interrupts, letting processors sleep for longer. There are new drivers for touchscreens and multi-touch panels. More fingers will be detected by the Synaptic touchpad driver from 2.6.38 onwards.

• Linux kernel 2.6.38 released
  After only 69 days of development, Linus Torvalds has released version 2.6.38 of the Linux kernel.