Rejoice! Linux kernel, version 2.6.0, has been released

[Malcolm]

Yea, that's all I got.


The new version of the core, or kernel, of Linux has several changes that make it better suited to powerful computers with numerous processors, a market dominated today by servers running versions of the Unix operating system on which Linux is based.

The new version will be the first major change since 2.4.0 was released in January 2001. From its lowly roots as a student project Linus Torvalds began 12 years ago, the software has matured to become a major competitor to Microsoft and a key part of most computing companies' plans.

[mesman00]

Yea, that's all I got.

just as i was about to do a fresh install of all OS's on my computer. you know if the ebuilds for gentoo have been updated yet?

[Malcolm]

Yep, and they already have the gentoo patch-set ready ^_^

[mesman00]

Yep, and they already have the gentoo patch-set ready ^_^

installing now. thanks for the news.

[mesman00]

hmm, when i "emerge sys-kernel/gentoo-sources" it's still the 2.4 kernel. so it's not updated yet?

[Malcolm]

its still under gentoo-dev-sources

[Matata]

What´s the point of updating the kernel? What is it going to improve??

[mesman00]

ok. i emerged the 2.6 kernel. however, i still have the 2.4 kernel installed on my system. how do i remove the 2.4 kernel and then compile the 2.6 kernel. i figure there is no real reason to keep the 2.4 kernel. however, should i first compile the 2.6 kernel before removing 2.4 to make sure everything works out right, and how do i go about doing this. if i try to do:


cd /usr/src/linux
source /etc/profile
make menuconfig

it just brings me to the 2.4 kernel. a llittle help would be great. thanks.

[AlphaWolf]

ok. i emerged the 2.6 kernel. however, i still have the 2.4 kernel installed on my system. how do i remove the 2.4 kernel and then compile the 2.6 kernel. i figure those no real reason to keep the 2.4 kernel. however, should i first compile the 2.6 kernel before removing 2.4 to make sure everything works out right, and how do i go about doing this. if i try to do:


cd /usr/src/linux
source /etc/profile
make menuconfig

it just brings me to the 2.4 kernel. a llittle help would be great. thanks.

Thats because /usr/src/linux is just a symlink to the 2.4 source directory. You need to make it point to the 2.6 source tree, then compile the new bzimage (make menuconfig to configure it, make dep to compile it), then copy that to /boot (I would back up the old one, and make a new grub entry pointing to the old one in case your new kernel can't boot)

[mesman00]

thanks

[mesman00]

so is the write support for ntfs stable now ins 2.6? it no longer says dangerous so i assume so. i just switched my media partition to fat32 in order to be able to write to it in linux. however, i haven't transfered my files back to it yet. therefore, i'm assuming it's safe to switch the partition back to ntfs and be able to safely write to it from linux. what do you think, or should i leave it as fat32.

[Malcolm]

so is the write support for ntfs stable now ins 2.6? it no longer says dangerous so i assume so. i just switched my media partition to fat32 in order to be able to write to it in linux. however, i haven't transfered my files back to it yet. therefore, i'm assuming it's safe to switch the partition back to ntfs and be able to safely write to it from linux. what do you think, or should i leave it as fat32.
That I'm not sure about, I wouldn't go about testing it tho. If it was stable there'd be a big sign or something about it everywhere, of which I have not seen.


What´s the point of updating the kernel? What is it going to improve??
The new kernel offers alot of changes and improvements, namely: better multi-processor support. It also has many device management improvements.

For big servers I'd wait a month or two for the big boys to work out the little snags that haven't been found yet but desktop users really should update themselves.

[mesman00]

have you tested the built in alsa support yet? i'm still compiling KDE...you know how that is. as for the partition i think i'm just gonna leave it as fat32 to be safe. no big deal.

[Malcolm]

Built-in alsa is more speedy ^_^ and I'm not having any of the previous sound issues I had with previous 2.6-beta or 2.4-version kernels

[Hacktarux]

Anyone's willing to test the various mupen64 sound plugins and report how it works with 2.6 kernel ?

[mesman00]

Built-in alsa is more speedy ^_^ and I'm not having any of the previous sound issues I had with previous 2.6-beta or 2.4-version kernels

did you compile alsa modules, or compile it right into the kernel. i compiled alsa as modules. if you did, how did you go about creating modules.d/alsa (or whatever the alsa config file is, not to sure right now). did youe merge alsa-utils? did you just make the config file yourself? once kde is done compiling i gotta do that. i assume its not gonna be a problem.

*edit* ok malcom, or anyone else, i have a question. i have sound working via alsa. I have compiled everything as modules in my kernel, including the module for my specifici sound card. i then emerged alsa-lib and alsa-utils. i then edited my /etc/modules.d/alsa config file. it looks like:


Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.
# $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules.con$

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore

##
## IMPORTANT:
## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)
## and then run `update-modules' command.
## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.
##
## ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
## alias snd-card-1 snd-ens1371
## OSS/Free portion
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
#

# OSS/Free portion - card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
## OSS/Free portion - card #2
## alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
## alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
## alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

# Set this to the correct number of cards.
options snd cards_limit=1

take notice of the lines


## ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-via82xx
## alias snd-card-1 snd-ens1371
## OSS/Free portion
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

i added in the proper module for my soundcard, and uncommented the line under OSS/Free portion. However, when i load gentoo and alsa is loading, i get the following:


*Loading snd_via82xx
FATAL: Module snd_via82xx already in kernel
*Loading snd-seq-oss
Fatal: Module snd-seq-oss already in kernel

do i get these errors because i uncommented the line in /etc/modules.d/alsa. if i re-comment them i just get different errors. however, with the lines uncommented like i have shown, i still get perfectly fine sound support. i just wish to fix my system so it doesnt try to load those modules and that so everything works fine. thanks.

[Malcolm]

1) un-merge alsa-driver
2) if you want OSS stuff you have to compile those modules
3) I compiled everything into the kernel, also you don't need to configure any of the config files.. at all