Vanilla Kernel 2.6 Stability vs 2.4? 129
chromis asks: "I am a 'Linux-from-scratch' like Linux user. I maintain my system for almost 4 years that way. I'm still using kernel 2.4, and I'm a little bit afraid for updating to 2.6 because of the problems like stability issues, driver subsystem problems, etc. I once tried 2.6.0 a long time ago, but I experienced random freezes which I could not diagnose. We all know about the development model issues, and I often read complaints about current kernel development practices. Now that kernel 2.6.13 is out, I really want to ask Slashdot: if you are a vanilla 2.6 kernel user, how are your experiences with these plain kernel.org 2.6 kernels? Is it really as bad as some people claim, or is 2.6 only usable when using a distro from a large vendor like Red Hat, SuSE, etc? I really would like to upgrade to the new vanilla 2.6 kernel eventually, but I'm a little hesitant. Any advice?"
This I know (Score:5, Funny)
Works for me (Score:4, Informative)
The advantages of the 2.6 kernels (udev, nptl, device driver model) outweigh the disadvantages (i.e. risk) for my situation, in my opinion.
That said, I still use linux-2.4 on my headless server, mainly because I haven't been bothered to upgrade it recently. It works fine, so I see little point in changing it.
Re:Works for me (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I moved from Win2k to linux (gentoo) due to instability in 3rd party software which I could get decent replacements for in linux. I generally run the lastest gentoo kernel, and haven't noticed any instability other than what my n00bishness has artificially created. Not that that helps you at all, I'm guesing.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Works for me (Score:1)
i just rebooted the server for a ram upgrade and general cleaning, but before that it was up 54 days. i don't want to have to move the server duties to my workstation or my dad's laptop because they released
Re:Works for me (Score:2)
An explaination is in order. Red Hat, as well as some other linux distributions, have a tendency to back-port wanted new features into older kernels. In my experience, the mish-mash of shared libs required to achieve back-porting makes th
Re:Works for me (Score:2)
What it does mean, however, is that I can skip badly bugged versions, and I don't get burned if something goes badly wrong with a release.
Seems ok. (Score:5, Informative)
Number of times it's had a kernel panic over the last year? Zero. Good enough for me.
And as other posters have said, the advantages with hardware, latency patches, acpi support help too.
same here for stability... (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean there are few things as easy as installing a new kernel and then removing it later if it doesn't satisfy you...
Re:Seems ok. (Score:4, Informative)
My point is that the 2.6 kernel is not without its flaws - it depends which particular kernel version you get and which warts it has.
My advice is if it ain't broke...
Do you really *need* the hassle of the upgrade?
Re:Seems ok. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Seems ok. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seems ok. (Score:2)
Personally, if it's stable for a few weeks , then you've only really got a couple of rarely-encountered corner cases that could cause it to fall over. And I rarely encounter them
Re:Seems ok. (Score:2)
Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:5, Informative)
I use vanilla sources regularly, and haven't experienced any problems as a result. I recommend them to all of my Linux friends, too.
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that Gentoo doesn't add patches to fix known kernel bugs, they add patches to resolve user problems.
Guess what that does to stability.
Debian packaged kernels, like msot of Debian's stable branch, are very...stable, in contrast.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:2)
# uname -r
2.6.8-gentoo-r3
# uptime
09:55:26 up 299 days, 19:41, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.08, 0.10
# uname -r
2.6.7-gentoo-r11
# uptime
10:00:01 up 252 days, 19:58, 1 user, load average: 0.57, 0.29, 0.18
So clearly Gentoo kernels aren't necessarily the kiss of death for stability. Maybe it's a recent development in Gentoo-land.
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:2)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:5, Interesting)
I run a 2.6.12 on my desktop, and we are playing with 2.6.12 in a high-load embedded system. They both seem to work well enough here. I've only ever seen kernel panics when my network switch fails (damn dicky power connector; been meaning to replace) and the NFS-mounted root on the embedded box goes away.
I recently upgraded my laptop to 2.6.13 and it brought all manner of problems (wireless didn't work anymore. Sound problems that were fixed in 2.6.12 reappeared, etc). I think most of my problems are with the IPW2200 driver modules I have loaded, so I just rolled back to 2.6.12 where it all works well.
Stick with 2.6.12 for now if you're scared of problems. I can safely say that it is pretty damned reliable.
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:4, Informative)
I've heard of several issues with Gentoo kernels on Multi-processor systems.
I just remembered the exact problems I'd heard of, and it wasn't Gentoo-specific (but it only appeared on Gentoo for some strange reason)... It was a CPU freq scaling thing with AMD64 CPUS. Apparantly the latest driver is broken and when the frequency scales down in one CPU the kernel detects a loss of sync and panics, instead of realising that the CPU frequency is scaling and compensating for it.
It's fixed by disabling CPU frequency scaling. Apparantly AMD are working on a PowerNow patch for it, but that is just hear-say AFIK.
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:2)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:2, Interesting)
You do know that this release dropped support of devfs ? From now on, you'll need a udev system.
Took me half an hour to convert to udev on 2.6.12, and everything went right.
But again, I as reboot on 2.6.13 after typing this, maybe I'll regret it
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:1)
1. make sure you drop devfs and devfs mount at boot from kernel
2. make a `make mrproper` (save your
3. I see that I'm still having devfsd installed; don't seems to be a problem in my case.
4. I edited
--
Decided to compile 2.6.13 with the default timer frequency at 250 hz (was at 1000hz with 2.6 before)
I also selected the premption level to 2 (desktop).
--
Only bug so far:
i
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:2)
this release dropped support of devfs ? From now on, you'll need a udev system.
My god. My laziness has finally to wake up. As obsolete as devfs is, it still worked ok for me on my Gentoo...
Re:Gentoo 2.6.13 (Score:2, Informative)
Just try it out! (Score:1)
2.6 vanilla kernels (Score:2)
No real awful speedbumps I couldn't get around except one: Around the 2.6.10 series, ran into some strange data corruption problems with the data in extremely large files (~1GB range per file) when transferring them. Never managed to pin it down strictly to the kernel, so I can't blame it for certain.
Apart from the fact that I need one out-of-tree driver, no issues with vanilla 2.6 ever since 2.6.11.
very stable (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:very stable (Score:5, Informative)
That's not a vanilla kernel, it's a patched up kernel from RedHat.
Re:very stable (Score:3)
Bah, yes. I completely missed the "vanilla versus patched-up" aspect of the question. I should go to sleep.
Note however that FC tries to
So, let me correct myself: No idea about "vanilla", but FC kernels have been rock solid for me, and FC kernels should be pretty close to "va
I use 2.6.13 (Score:1)
Does this help? (Score:2)
>uname -a && uptime
Linux maverick 2.6.6 #15 SMP Fri Jun 4 19:58:51 EDT 2004 i686 GNU/Linux
21:47:15 up 92 days, 25 min, 2 users, load average: 1.40, 1.38, 1.37
It would be longer, but that's exactly the amount of time it's been since I moved into my house.
Re:Does this help? (Score:2)
Re:Does this help? (Score:2)
A running system never changes. A changing system never runs.
Re:Does this help? (Score:1)
Re:Does this help? (Score:2)
I briefly considered moving the machine connected to the UPS the entire way... The UPS can power it for about 7 hours (APS SmartUPS4000, AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ with PowerNow enabled), but the UPS alone was heavy enough to carry on the stairs, so it ended up getting switched off... It's not like it would have been connected to the network for those few hours anyway, and unless it's online and serving I don't consider it "up" anyway.
Re:Does this help? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Does this help? (Score:2)
stability (Score:2)
I've been running 2.6 on all desktop & laptop systems without problems since 2.6.9 (about a year). I certainly would not want to give up the better interactivity, better MM performance, wide hardware support, and features like udev.
2.6.x will have have hickups now and again because that is where the development occurs. That's why a few kernel hackers (Chris Wrigh
Most importantly, read the expert documentation. (Score:4, Informative)
The 2.6.8 kernel had an issue with CD writing (only root could do this). This has been corrected in later kernels. You may have to delv into the udev rules to get things setup the way you like. Read the fine HOWTO [reactivated.net] on writing rules for udev.
My cd-rom did not get recognized after boot unless the ide-cd module was called before udev started. There was a mixup with tty and pty in the default udev rules around the time of switch between 2.6.7 and 2.6.8 and it obliterated the 'less' and 'man' commands. How convenient is it that I can't run 'man udev.rules'?
I believe this has also been remedied since then. If in doubt I suggest taking the following steps.
Title of the second document is "The post-halloween document. v0.48 (aka, 2.6 - what to expect)". That should tell you everything you need to know about upgrading from 2.4.
Re:Most importantly, read the expert documentation (Score:2)
what /boot is for.. (Score:2, Informative)
I have this on my Slackware -current computer. A vanilla 2.4, vanilla 2.6.10, and compiled 2.6.10 which I use and have had no issues with. I plan on compiling 2.6.13 soon, to keep up to date with bug fixes and improvements.
Trick Question... (Score:2)
Re:Trick Question... (Score:2, Informative)
Worked Fine For Me, So Far (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been using the latest 2.6 kernel, patched with Gentoo [gentoo.org] and Suspend2 [suspend2.net] patches. I started with 2.6.9, and it had some ACPI problems, but once I upgraded my BIOS to the latest version and upgraded the kernel to 2.6.10, everything worked well. Other than those specific ACPI issues, I've had no general stability problems. Everything works well.
I used to run Slackware, and I have to say that when I upgraded it from a 2.4 kernel to 2.6, the system did perform better. I think that if people just upgrade cau
Re:Worked Fine For Me, So Far (Score:1)
I am using the unmasked 2.6.12 and it has been working fantastically, with a flawless hibernate working "right out of the box".
Something doesn't add up here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since you cross-compiled and built your libraries, compiler, toolchain, etc from scratch, why are you worried about upgrading your kernel? Surely, you know that it's trivial to modify your boot loader so you can boot multiple kernels and try them out without consequence to your system.
Second, why are you interested in using a Vanilla 2.6 kernel if you built your entire Linux system from scratch?
Please pardon me if I'm mistaken, but you certainly don't sound like a 'tweaker'. Your question is analogous to: "I'm a die hard car tuner, I've modded my hotrod and tweaked my cam's, changed my gear ratios and added 2 inches to my manifold: Should I use premium gasoline in my new Hot Rod?"
Re:Something doesn't add up here... (Score:2)
The car analogy is actually very good -- should I use premium gas, given the number of horror stories I've heard about it? Many tweakers also like to do their research first... after all, why make your own mistakes if you can learn from others'.
Re:Something doesn't add up here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Something doesn't add up here... (Score:2)
Whoa whoa, I was following you until you brought sex into the mix. Now I'm completely lost
Do you mean that we should watch what the pornstars do when they want to upgrade their Linux kernel?
(Unrelated side note: If you've ever bought anything from IKEA, you know that's its hard to get the damn stickers with the barcodes off the bottom of the item you bought. A few days after visiting IKEA, I noticed the funniest thing in a pr0n movie -- they were usi
Re:Something doesn't add up here... (Score:2)
Regardless, given your interest in the background minutiae of porn films, I think this link is just made for you: http://www.whitelead.com/jrh/ISPs/index.html [whitelead.com]
By the way, that ought to be considered work safe, but I wouldn't risk it if I were you...
Re:Something doesn't add up here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, i'm not a real tweaker in the sense that I compile and tune everything for maximum performance. I rather tune the system to my specific software needs and stability in the sense of "if i don't ask for x, i don't have x". My system is very basic and i have a good overview. It contains only things that I need. I really like to put some effort in installing software so that I am aware of all it's features, dependencies and caveats. I like to do this by hand and by reading documentation from the software authors themselves. Yes, perhaps it is a tedious approach but it works very nice for me and i have a system which i can really trust. For me, this is the power of Open source actually.
Before I upgrade to a major version (be it a major GCC version - I worked with gcc 2.95.2+some patch for a long, long time before i upgraded to 3+, or in this case the kernel), I always spend some time researching if the upgrade is worthwhile and good.
So, yes: I cross-compiled and built libraries myself ofcourse, but i always try to choose stable versions. Also with kernels: i never tried an odd (2.1, 2.3, 2.5) kernel release.
In case of the kernel, I am little bit confused because of the development model (no 2.7), fast development cycles, in relation to the comments and complaints I sometimes read on the internet and here on Slashdot. Regarding kernel stability, it is my understanding that 'stability should be guaranteed by vendors' ie. 'use a vendor kernel'. I am my own vendor, so to speak. Hence my question.
In my years of experience, i know that critical parts of the system (toolchain, kernel) can produce very strange problems not directly noticable in a week of testing.
Yes, such risks are always present when using free software, but software from a stable chain always worked perfectly for me. Especially software where no-one complains about
I found it very difficult to find information regarding this, hence i tried Ask Slashdot.
Re:Something doesn't add up here... (Score:2)
(I'm now running a mixture of Gentoo and Debian kernels. No crashes from them either.)
Another analogy would be: (Score:3, Funny)
Personal opinion (Score:1)
not perfect (Score:3, Informative)
On the down side, I'm running Ubuntu 5.04 on a Sony S270 laptop. I use the 2.6.11 when I want sound to work at all and 2.6.10 when I want my touch pad to work right. I've tried a couple of custom compiles of 2.6.10 and 2.6.11 but haven't gotten either to work right yet.
Jim
Re:not perfect (Score:1)
I have very good reasons to believe that MP3/Ogg skips are not a kernel problem, but a set up problem.
I have a
Faster (more responsive) and udev works for me (Score:3, Informative)
2.6 mostly OK on newer hardware only (Score:2)
There are some great features in 2.6, however for a production environment where it just has to work, the safer bet is 2.4.
For me, it's really pretty annoying. Used to, you could generally count on "released" kernels to be pretty stable (1.2, 2.0), but that
Re:2.6 mostly OK on newer hardware only (Score:2)
"released"
"released" should have been "stable"
Time scale problems (Score:1)
I tried 1.1 a "long time ago". (11 years or so.) If I'd known that 2.6.0 was available back then, I'd have tried it. (I still keep the Slackware 2.1 CD handy for quicky 486 installs.)
My experiences with vanilla 2.6 (Score:3, Interesting)
So far, I'd recommend staying away from udev - it's just way too flaky for words - it seems OK if your hardware doesn't change, but when you start hotplugging and the device nodes don't show up unless you "sudo
Stability-wise it's OK, I'm using it on two desktops, three servers and my laptop, and haven't had a crash or oops. (Although I've only been running it for a couple of months.)
General desktop performance (KDE) is OK - I saw no noticeable difference from 2.4.
NWN is noticeably slower however - there seems to be a lot more disk thrashing while playing, even though swap is unused and there is a ton of free RAM (I think I might need to tweak something in
Re:My experiences with vanilla 2.6 (Score:2)
And you'd suggest what as an alternative? The pile of broken crap that is devfs? The whole point of udev is that new devices do show up; it sounds like you have some misconfiguration issue.
Re:My experiences with vanilla 2.6 (Score:2)
How about static device files in
I can live with
The whole point of udev is that new devices do show up
Yes, and it's currently broken (at least in my experience.) That makes it rather pointless, no?
it sounds like you have some misconfiguration issue
That's entirely possible, however t
Gentoo 2.6.12 is great (Score:1)
2.6 is nice, kinda, maybe... (Score:3, Interesting)
Configuration: I could run through the 2.4 configure tree in 20 mins or less. It takes me at least twice that in 2.6. Too much IP and an effed up broken patent/copyright system creating too many incompatible devices at levels that aren't easily segmented into kernel layers.
Compilation: Yeah. It takes a lot longer.
Performance: I noticed that mouse response in X is a lot faster. That's probably an artificial representative, though. I haven't really noticed load or response times to be much different from 2.4 to 2.6. Running on 400 MHz machines, I still notice this when it actually improves.
Modules: On a Debian 2.4 kernel I had maybe 12 modules loaded. On a LFS 2.4 kernel I had maybe 4. On Debian 2.6 kernel I have 91 modules loaded and many of them are for hardware which I don't have (see the section on configuration: there are too many devices which look the same to the kernel but are different due to IP pissing matches).
Udev: I hate it. I don't hotplug. I don't want to hotplug. Hotplugging is evil. My system shouldn't be doing anything with a device until I say I'm good and ready for it. Except for hotplugging, there's no real need for udev.
Mostly I'm upgrading to 2.6 because I can't afford to be left in the dust.
PS. No real LFS'er would call it Linux-from-scratch. Lose the hyphens.
Re:2.6 is nice, kinda, maybe... (Score:1)
Could you not have started your comment with that line? Then I could have avoided wasting my time reading the rest of it.
Are you saying that you can successfully build an LFS system, but you can't work out how to stop kernel modules from loading?
What exactly did you learn from LFS?
Re:2.6 is nice, kinda, maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't hotplug. I don't want to hotplug. Hotplugging is evil. My system shouldn't be doing anything with a device until I say I'm good and ready for it. Except for hotplugging, there's no real need for udev.
I'm with you on this. That's why I'm pissed off at the lack of support for devfs from 2.6.13
My god, the Linux kernel still supports dinosaur-era things like Minix file systems or m68k cpus (and it's good it supports them IMHO) but suddenly stops to support the device filesystem management it had un
whoa whoa whoa (Score:2)
That's just fucking fantastic.
I had read previously that devfs was going to remain for the life of 2.6. Of course, with the constant turmoil happening in 2.6 development, I really shouldn't be surprised.
Yay, more fun stuff to deal with down the line.
Re:whoa whoa whoa (Score:2)
I read it on /. comments, but now I checked the 2.6.13 changelog. It seems it's true. Sigh. See for example below.
[PATCH] devfs: remove devfs from Kconfig preventing it from being built
Here's a much smaller patch to simply disable devfs from the build. If this goes well, and there are no complaints for a few weeks, I'll resend my big "devfs-die-die-die" series of patches that rip the whole thing out of the kernel tree.
Re:2.6 is nice, kinda, maybe... (Score:3, Informative)
The version of devfs that you use right now is horrifyingly buggy, especially on SMP systems. Switching to udev will take less time in the long run than trying to the keep bloaty and rusted devfs code working. Switching to udev is generally very easy.
Re:2.6 is nice, kinda, maybe... (Score:2)
I don't say devfs is good, just that it works on my machine right now and I don't feel committed to change. They could leave devfs in the kernel, perhaps saying something like *deprecated-use at your own risk* and dropping it in 2.8, not in 2.6.13
This isn't by any means a statistical sample, (Score:2)
Never had any hardware problems with any of them. (Although I haven't upgraded the two older machines since around 6.5 or so - and it's possible I just happened to lu
Loving my Linux From Scratch, kernel 2.6.11.12 (Score:3, Informative)
Details:
3GHz Intel Pentium 4 Processor, 1Gb RAM
11,878.40 BogoMIPS Total, 250Gb Hard Drive
GCC 3.4.3
Samba 3.0.14a
HylaFAX 4.2.1
Gotta say it's way ahead of expectations.
I won't touch another distro now for my mission critical.
Although, Knoppix, http://www.knoppix.org/ [knoppix.org] and Ubuntoo, http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ [ubuntulinux.org] are great "insert CD and run" distros, for workstations.
Working with SlackWare seems effortless also, http://www.slackware.org/ [slackware.org].
Was fortunate enough to meet the fine gent who started the LFS project: Gerard Beekmans
Highly recommended support for the project, even if it's just $5 for a beer via donations
Works good for me (Score:1)
No problems here (Score:2)
No problem here - I have bog standard hardware and everything works perfectly.
---
jon_edwards@spanners4us.com
here's my experience with vanilla 2.6 (Score:2)
Uptime------------System----Boot up
62 days, 14:02:05 Linux 2.6.9 Wed Jun 29 19:06:18 2005
90 days, 18:28:05 Linux 2.6.9 Tue Mar 22 20:54:33 2005
28 days, 08:41:03 Linux 2.6.9 Tue Feb 22 12:02:50 2005
31 days, 14:05:41 Linux 2.6.9 Fri Jan 21 19:42:01 2005
49 days, 07:58:12 Linux 2.6.9 Fri Dec 3 11:40:11 2004
31 days, 06:14:18 Linux 2.6.8-rc2 Mon Oct 4 19:32:10 2004
39 days, 16:12:23 Linux 2.6.8-rc2 Thu Aug 26 03:14:37 2004
33 days, 16:05:05 Lin
Go for the latest bugfix release (Score:1)
i.e. use kernel 2.6.12.6 because it should be more stable than the new 2.6.13.
Eh, and I've been waiting for 2.6.13... (Score:2)
It's stable (Score:3, Informative)
Note: You can install triple dotted releases (2.6.x.y asap as they only contain minor upgrades or security fixes)
I had freezes (Score:1)
Stop being paranoid. If you configure the kernel correctly it wont freeze. And for all the great things 2.6 has to offer I don't know why anyone would choose to use an older kernel if they have a choice.
2.6 development method (Score:2)
Rule Number One: for any software, hardware, computer, vehicle, anything -- never buy version .0 unless you are willing to suffer instabilities.
Rule Number Two: See Rule Number One
You said you suffered instabilities in the 2.6.0 release. No .. duh!
I thought you would be more concerned with their change in practice to do away with the odd/even stable/development model that they used up to kernel 2.4. As I understand it, now all the development problems are rolled into the kernel intended for public use
2.6.13 is very stable (Score:3, Informative)
oh my god (Score:3, Funny)
I ran continuously from 2.5.56 (after my SCSI driver started working again) until 2.6.13 ? or so that was out about 4 weeks ago.
Had virtually no kernel related problems.
Then I switched to Windows.
Life is much easier now.
Re:oh my god (Score:2)
No problems here (Score:2)
I switched from 2.4.x to 2.6.7 when it came out, and haven't had a single problem. Some of the newer ones seem iffy, but 2.6.7 is rock-solid as far as I can tell.
I still prefer to use 2.4.x series kernels in servers, just to have that extra insurance (the servers I run have very little need for the features in 2.6.7), but desktop machines get 2.6.7 all the way.
They actually work really well. (Score:2)
root@prodserver:~$ uptime
08:22:38 up 89 days, 21:59, 2 users, load average: 0.08, 0.06, 0.01
root@prodserver:~$ uname -a
Linux nli-aus-srv01 2.6.11.11 #1 SMP Thu Jun 2 09:36:16 CDT 2005 i686 GNU/Linux
2.6.13 + EPIA BIOS bugs = HellReiser (Score:2)
The machine has had related problems with e
So Far So Good (Score:2)
Kernel + nVidia drivers (Score:2)
The first thing I noticed with 2.6 is that something changed for the worse in memory management - closing programs which eat up a lot of RAM make the system completely unresponsive for several seconds. Then I started getting crashes (kernel oops) when doing OpenGL
I completely understand (Score:2)
Compiling source modules (Score:2)
Once something compiles though, I generally don't have kernel problems with common hardware.