Current release status [LWN.net]

The current development kernel is 2.5.23, which was announced by Linus on June 18. Says Linus:

I asked 'what more can you ask for' for 2.5.22, and somebody immediately piped up with raid5 working again. Well, here you have a big MD merge from Neil Brown, which may or may not get you there. Good luck.

Other stuff in this release includes an x86-64 merge, a number of VM/filesystem patches from Andrew Morton, some asynchronous I/O precursor patches from Ben LaHaise (see below), more kbuild tweaks, another set of IDE fixes, and numerous other changes. The long-format changelog is available for people wanting all the details.

Linus released 2.5.22 on June 16; this release included a big x86-64 merge, some important bug fixes, an IrDA update, another set of kbuild tweaks, more IDE work, and a bunch of other changes. Once again, the long-format changelog is also available.

The current prepatch from Dave Jones is 2.5.23-dj2. The patch has been pruned somewhat; various obsolete bits have been thrown out. It also features a visit by the "mad axemen," who have been carving up large, monolithic files (such as the MTRR code). A new, optimized select/poll implementation by Andi Kleen went in, along with a number of compile fixes.

Guillaume Boissiere's latest 2.5 status summary came out on June 19. It takes a quick look at what has been accomplished since the last kernel summit, and what remains to be discussed at the next one.

The current stable kernel is 2.4.18. There have been no 2.4.19 prepatches released since June 4. Rumor has it that Marcelo is too busy following the Brazilian team's fortunes in the World Cup, but that could not be confirmed.

(Log in to post comments)

Current release status

Posted Jun 20, 2002 3:50 UTC (Thu) by DeletedUser1291 ((unknown), #1291) [Link]

Rumor has it that Marcelo is too busy following the Brazilian team's fortunes in the World Cup, but that could not be confirmed.

I can't decide wether this is a bad joke, or your accound of a real, nasty rumor. In either case, I find this to be very bad journalism. As a joke, this is a vexing personal insult, as a rumor-report, this has nothing to do in Linux Weekly News. If such a rumor existed, it should be investigated and dispelled or explained, not merely written as-is.

I for one am worried about what Marcelo is doing, and would like to have some explanations. It seems to me that Marcelo is not up to its job, and would like to have some explanations about what he is doing, or more importantly, not doing. I don't mean to accuse him of anything, being a kernel maintainer is likely a daunting task. But I would really like to know what is happening, so that at least I know what to expect. There has been no stable release for four months!

Current release status

Posted Jun 20, 2002 6:23 UTC (Thu) by dang (subscriber, #310) [Link]

If you follow the kernel list ( or even, I am pretty sure, past issues of LWN ), you will see that Marcello is taking things slowly because of some largish changes to the IDE code. He is doing the right thing here. It would be unacceptable for the stabile tree to start eating disks.

Current release status

Posted Jun 20, 2002 11:24 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

You are being a troll. Marcelo is working, the humor was good, and all of us Brazilians care about the World Cup. Please don't.

regards,

--h.

Current release status

Posted Jun 20, 2002 20:37 UTC (Thu) by sab39 (guest, #2185) [Link]

Sorry dude, Brazil are getting knocked out tonight ;)

Brazil won !

Posted Jun 22, 2002 10:41 UTC (Sat) by penang (guest, #1467) [Link]

And the Brits got their asses kicked !

So do Uncle Sam !

Hooray !!

that's why it's the stable release

Posted Jun 20, 2002 13:05 UTC (Thu) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

There has been no stable release for four months!

That is exactly how it should be -- that's what "stable" is supposed to mean, after all. In any case, while I'm sure Marcelo is, in fact, hard at work, everyone deserves a vacation now and then -- no sense in getting burned-out.

Current release status

Posted Jun 20, 2002 13:08 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

For what it's worth, it was a joke, following similar jokes which were posted to the linux-kernel list. Perhaps it's a bad joke; if so, I apologize. Certainly it won't be my first.

As has already been posted, the real issue with 2.4.19 is being really sure that the IDE changes are stable. This is, in fact, a job which can not be rushed. We want 2.4.19 to have rock-solid IDE...