Kernel release status

The current development kernel is 2.6.0-test5, which was released by Linus on September 8. Changes this time include new, type-safe ioctl() command code checker (see below), a USB "gadget" framework which enables the creation of user-space drivers, a new CONFIG_64BIT configuration option, a number of futex improvements, a reworked de4x5 driver, "very basic" VIA 8237 serial ATA controller support, support for a software-implemented hard disk activity LED, Intel High Precision Event Timers support, Al Viro's first set of large dev_t support patches (covered here two weeks ago), and his second set (which fixes up filesystems and removes the kdev_t type) as well, some IDE work, a large USB update, lots of network driver fixes, a new set of iptables modules, and many other fixes. The long-format changelog has all the details.

Linus's BitKeeper tree contains a number of patches including some initramfs tweaks, improvements in random driver locking (which was "consuming 60% of CPU resources in Anton's monster power5 boxes"), the removal of some ext3 debugging hooks, direct I/O support for reiserfs, some CPU frequency work, an Intel SpeedStep-SMI driver, and various fixes.

The current stable kernel is 2.4.22; Marcelo has not released any 2.4.23 prepatches since 2.4.23-pre3 on September 3.

---

(Log in to post comments)