Summary and statistics - The H Open: News and Features

Summing up 3.2

One consequence of the delays during the completion of kernel version 3.1, is that Linux 3.2 offers a larger number of improvement than other recent kernels. This is simply a result of changes accumulating, as demonstrated by eleven-and-a-half thousand commits and the unusually high diffstat values in the table below – although major code restructuring measures are also a cause of the latter.

This is another version that offers important changes for all users. Those with desktop PCs or notebooks, for example, will find numerous new and improved drivers for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware; many system administrators will probably be interested in the improvements to the network stack or those to Ext4. Various optimisations to the kernel's infrastructure affect all users: the memory management optimisations, for instance, should allow Linux 3.2 to respond to user input discernibly faster in certain load scenarios.

Linux 3.2 download

The new Linux kernel can be downloaded on Kernel.org and soon should become available from the worldwide network of servers that mirror the web site.

The source code is offered as tar archive compressed with Gzip, Bzip2, or XZ. The authenticity of the uncompressed tarball can be verified with a signature file that is shipped alongside it – for example, the process for Linux 3.1 would be performed with commands like this:

[thl@thl tmp]$ wget --quiet \
  http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/linux-3.1.tar.sign \
  http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/linux-3.1.tar.xz
[thl@thl tmp]$ xz -d linux-3.1.tar.xz
[thl@thl tmp]$ gpg --verify linux-3.1.tar.sign
gpg: Signature made Mon Oct 24 09:17:58 2011 CEST using RSA key ID 00411886
gpg: Good signature from "Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>"
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg: There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner. 
   Primary key fingerprint: ABAF 11C6 5A29 70B1 30AB E3C4 79BE 3E43 0041 1886

The key used for signing by Torvalds was created only a few months ago, but some known kernel developers have signed it, so there is every indication that this key is authentic.

Facts and figures for the latest versions of the Linux kernel

Linux Version	Files¹	Source lines²	Days	Commits³	Changes⁴
2.6.31	29109	11966406 (10778469)	92	10883	8938 files changed 914135 insertions(+) 504980 deletions(-)
2.6.32	30483	12530119 (11242136)	84	10998	10315 files changed 1092987 insertions(+) 530428 deletions(-)
2.6.33	31563	12910130 (11564768)	83	10871	9673 files changed 859458 insertions(+) 479452 deletions(-)
2.6.34	32295	13241023 (11861616)	82	9443	11154 files changed 609584 insertions(+) 278958 deletions(-)
2.6.35	33314	13465693 (12250679)	77	9801	8889 files changed 691927 insertions(+) 467252 deletions(-)
2.6.36	34301	13499457 (12539782)	80	9501	9202 files changed 582139 insertions(+) 628362 deletions(-)
2.6.37	35186	13916632 (13006967)	76	11446	11104 files changed, 1093202 insertions(+), 598350 deletions(-)
2.6.38	35864	14208866 (13289311)	69	9542	9133 files changed, 747809 insertions(+), 455603 deletions(-)
2.6.39	36705	14533582 (13600071)	65	10268	10985 files changed, 847537 insertions(+), 523387 deletions(-)
3.0	36781	14646952 (13688408)	64	9153	7946 files changed, 555406 insertions(+), 442033 deletions(-)
3.1	37084	14770469 (13804451)	94	8692	9181 files changed, 728892 insertions(+), 604658 deletions(-)
3.2	37617	14998651 (14017008)	73	11881	12608 files changed, 1646421 insertions(+), 1418238 deletions(-)
¹ find . -type f -not -regex '\./\.git/.' \| wc -l ² find . -type f -not -regex '\./\.git.' \| xargs cat \| wc -l (find . -name .[hcS] -not -regex '\./\.git.' \| xargs cat \| wc -l) ³ git-log --no-merges --pretty=oneline v3.(x-1)..v3.(x) \| wc -l ⁴ git diff --shortstat v3.(x-1)..v3.(x)