In association with heise online

10 June 2008, 15:20

Kernel-Log: Users of 2.4 provide feedback, 2.4.36.5 and 2.6.26-rc5 released

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • submit to slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • submit to reddit

Kernel log logo Having requested feedback from users of series 2.4 on the LKML a few weeks ago, kernel series 2.4 maintainer Willy Tarreau recently published an evaluation of the 22 relevant replies. About half of those who replied use the 2.4 kernel on "general purpose" servers (WWW, Mail, DNS, Samba, NFS). According to the information received by Tarreau most of them see no reason why they should switch to a more recent kernel. Survey respondents said that often there just isn't enough time and switching to a new kernel might cause problems.

According to the survey, 20 per cent of the installed 2.4 kernels run on application-specific servers which require an involved set up procedure and are vitally important. One tenth of those who replied use the 2.4 kernel with embedded systems, routers, firewalls or VPN servers. Only about 5 per cent of users run series 2.4 kernels on old notebooks and desktop PCs.

In early June, Tarreau released another new series 2.4 kernel, Linux 2.4.36.5. Among other things, this version fixes three "medium" security holes: One is located in the Code for SIT (Simple Internet Transition), another in Sparc support and the third in the Moxa driver. On the 5th of June, Linus Torvalds released Linux 2.6.26-rc5, the fifth pre-release version of 2.6.26. A release date for the finished version has not yet been established. It will probably take another two or three weeks to finalise. A few days ago the list of errors not contained in 2.6.25 was still 115 entries long.

Kernel log in brief:

  • In his blog, kernel developer Dave Jones criticises processor and chipset manufacturer VIA for not providing any source code or developers' documentation one month after the launch with a lot of publicity of the new Linux portal. This was set up to promote co-operation with the open source community. He also critically notes that VIA sells precompiled kernel modules labelled as GPL releases without providing the respective sources.
  • On the DRI mailing list, the developers of the Radeon and Radeonhd graphics drivers are discussing how to best integrate 3D support for the R600 chips used in the series 2000 and 3000 Radeon HD models.
  • Chris Mason has published version 0.15 of the experimental Btrfs file system.
  • Matthew Garrett has presented a driver for the WMI interface found in modern HP notebooks in the form of a patch; among other things, the driver enables or disables light sensors, WLANs or Bluetooth via selected keys or key combinations.
  • Xen programmers have set up a new page in their wiki to deal specifically with the current and future development of the Xen version based on Paravirt_ops which has been part of the kernel since Linux 2.6.23.
  • Mark Lord has released Version 8.7 of hdparm.
  • Intel developers of the Linuxwimax project have released version 1.2 of the Linux-Wimax driver for Intel hardware.

Find more background information about the developments around the Linux kernel and its environment in previous editions of the kernel log at heise Open:

Find previous editions of the kernel log in the archive or through the search function at heise open.

(trk)

Print Version | Send by email | Permalink: http://h-online.com/-735437
 


  • July's Community Calendar





The H Open

The H Security

The H Developer

The H Internet Toolkit