Kernels 2.6.8, 2.6.8.1 released [LWN.net]

Linus has announced the availability of the 2.6.8 allegedly stable kernel. Unfortunately, a "brown paper bag" problem turned up in the NFS code, and 2.6.8.1 was rushed out to fix it. This would be the first time that the kernel has used a four-number version. Changes since -rc4 include the "Khazad" crypto algorithm, some added permissions checking on raw SCSI commands from user space, and the removal of the fcntl() file operations method. For those just tuning in, changes from 2.6.7 include snapshot and mirror support in the device mapper, unbelievable numbers of "sparse" annotations, a bunch of read-copy-update performance improvements, 64-bit SuperH support, some security fixes, a reworked symbolic link lookup mechanism (which will eventually enable raising the maximum link depth), and lots of fixes. The long-format changelog has the details; the 2.6.8.1 changelog is also out there for the curious.

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Version numbering

Posted Aug 14, 2004 14:18 UTC (Sat) by mk270 (guest, #4485) [Link]

Pity - it would have been nice to have kept the version numbering textually constistent, and called it 2.6.9, to avoid breaking any code which made assumptions about the format of the version string.

Version numbering

Posted Aug 14, 2004 15:18 UTC (Sat) by Gunner (subscriber, #1448) [Link]

They already considered that, but Linus thought it was about time:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/225784

Version numbering

Posted Aug 14, 2004 17:55 UTC (Sat) by nosnilmot (subscriber, #746) [Link]

From Linus' email:

Will it break automated scripts? Maybe. But on the other hand, we'll never even find out unless we try it some time.

It looks like it did break someone's "script" :)

Version numbering

Posted Aug 14, 2004 15:20 UTC (Sat) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

The reports on last month's Kernel Summit made clear that this sort of
numbering was coming.

Version numbering

Posted Aug 15, 2004 4:11 UTC (Sun) by jmayer (subscriber, #595) [Link]

Looks like I missed that part. Can you please post a link?

Version numbering

Posted Aug 15, 2004 6:40 UTC (Sun) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

Looks like it was in the post-Summit discussion on linux-kernel.
http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/3522

It's broken here

Posted Aug 16, 2004 13:32 UTC (Mon) by Gunner (subscriber, #1448) [Link]

Well, this version didn't exactly impress me.
It seems there are at least 2 (semi-)serious bugs in this release.

1. CD-Writing
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/226125

2. QoS & Routing
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/226213

At least #2 has been fixed, but maybe they're both history by now.