[Tfug] [akpm@osdl.org: Re: Linux 2.6.0]

[Tom Rini]

It's always important to look before you leap (fwiw, I know
debian/unstable has the modutils updates, redhat/fedora probaby too):

----- Forwarded message from Andrew Morton <akpm at osdl.org> -----

Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 21:15:16 -0800
From: Andrew Morton <akpm at osdl.org>
To: linux-kernel at vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Linux 2.6.0

Linus Torvalds <torvalds at osdl.org> wrote:
>
> Andrew has written up some caveats and pointers to information about 2.4.x
>  vs 2.6.x changes, and I'll let him post that. Some known issues were not
>  considered to be release-critical and a number of them have pending fixes
>  in the -mm queue. Generally they just didn't have the kind of verification
>  yet where I was willing to take them in order to make sure a fair 2.6.0
>  release.

It's actually rather short because I started late.  See below.

There are also the "must-fix" and "should-fix" lists of items which we have
identified as still on the 2.6 todo list.  These are at

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/must-fix/must-fix-7.txt and
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/must-fix/should-fix-7.txt




- The 2.6.0 kernel has undergone several weeks of stabilization and we
  expect it to run well on server-class machines.

  Desktops and laptops may have more trouble at this time because of the
  much wider range of hardware and because of as-yet unimplemented fixes for
  the hardware and BIOS bugs from which these machines tend to suffer.

  During the 2.6.0 stabilization period a significant number of less
  serious fixes have accumulated in various auxiliary kernel trees and these
  shall be merged into the 2.6 stream after the 2.6.0 release.  Many of these
  fixes appear in Andrew Morton's "-mm" tree, at

	ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/patches/2.6/

- Please report any problems to the appropriate mailing list.  If you do
  not know which list to use, send the report to linux-kernel at vger.kernel.org
  and it should reach the right person.  Some active subsystem mailing lists
  are:

	linux1394-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
	linux-xfs at oss.sgi.com
	linux-acpi at intel.com
	linux-scsi at vger.kernel.org
	ext2-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
	linux-usb-users at lists.sourceforge.net

  Alternatively, kernel bug reports may be entered into the kernel bug
  tracking system at http://bugme.osdl.org/

- There are significant changes in the module subsystem, the LVM (Device
  Mapper) and RAID subsystems.  Details about these and many other kernel
  changes are presented in David Jones's kernel upgrade document at

	http://www.linux.org.uk/~davej/docs/post-halloween-2.6.txt

  Users who are testing 2.6 kernels for the first time should consult this
  document.

- The ATA RAID drivers (eg the HighPoint RAID driver) have not been ported
  to the new BIO code and are not available under the 2.6 kernel at this
  time.

- cryptoloop doesn't work on highmem machines.  Fixes exist in -mm and are
  queued for 2.6.1.

- There are known performance problems with the default disk I/O scheduler
  which show up when the workload is performing small, random reads and
  writes (ie: database loads).  Largely fixed in -mm.

  In general, the "deadline" I/O scheduler is, and shall remain somewhat
  faster than the default "anticipatory" I/O scheduler with these sorts of
  workloads.  Database admins should consider adding the "elevator=deadline"
  kernel boot parameter.

- There are performance problems due to misbehaviour in the readahead code
  which also impact database-style workloads.  Fixed in -mm, queued for
  2.6.1.

- There are a larger number of as-yet unmerged frame buffer driver fixes.


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----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Tom Rini
http://gate.crashing.org/~trini/