Submitted by Linus has released 2.6.13 after a longer testing period and committed to improving the release cycle by merging in the major changes within the first two weeks for 2.6.14 and above as
discussed before in kernel summit recently.
Linus has released 2.6.13 after a longer testing period and committed to improving the release cycle by merging in the major changes within the first two weeks for 2.6.14 and above as
discussed before in kernel summit recently.
Haven’t downloaded/compiled the new kernel yet, but I read something about devfs being removed? Read in kernel docs earlier that this was scheduled to be done around now, but couldn’t find anything about it in the changelog(s). Anyone know firsthand if this is in fact the case, or not?
I suppose most up-to-date distro’s (and users) will have changed to udev by now, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there are still many devfs users out there (and which happen to like running the latest kernel). I’ve always liked the “compile most needed things in-kernel, mount /dev and be done with it”. Not that using udev is bad or anything, but if devfs is removed, it sorta feels like a forced upgrade. Ah well, 2.6 kernel development… still a mess anyway.
People are never happy… always whining …
Removing devfs shouldn’t be a big suprise. There has been a lot of discussion about it.
http://lwn.net/Articles/149479/
Devfs files are there and the configuration has been removed as stated for several years before. Devfs is unmaintained and racy.
“still a mess anyway.”
You figure this it’s a mess, how, exactly? It seems to me to be quite an efficient way of pumping out kernels with new stuff regularly.
Well, at least just saying something like that without having a clue what you’re talking about lets the rest of us know who we shouldn’t be listening to…
Yeah, and some projects even started to exclude support for i286!
Sorry… couldn’t resist.
BTW: Does anybody knows when RaiserFS v4 will get in stable stage? As far as I know it’s still in development… or I missed something?
Also, I’ve seen a lot of fbdev and DRM work had been submitted in this version. Can anybody comment on that?
It’s been at least two years, maybe more, that the kernel devs said devfs would be removed. Move on to the 2nd millenium…
I think he’d be better on continuing to the third millenium. The first was 1AD – 1000AD, second was 1001AD-2000AD, the third is 2001AD-3000AD. I wouldn’t like to try getting DevFS working on the 2.0.36 kernel
Sorry, couldn’t resist 😉
In any event udev does everything DevFS did, does it better, and is actively being maintained. The writing for DevFS has been on the wall for quite some time.
In any event udev does everything DevFS did, does it better, and is actively being maintained. The writing for DevFS has been on the wall for quite some time.
Actually no it doesn’t. It can’t be there before “init” starts for example.
Only recently udev have been reasonnably fast, it wasn’t before.
I can assert it is actively maintained, it is actively changing too. The config files have changed numerous times, and recently, the udev support have been discontinued, forcing most users like me to change numerous OS config files (securetty, inittab, fstab, …) and critical ones at that.
Anyway this kernel introduces good things, improving the desktop usability, especially now that inotify is in the kernel. The gamin server (better french replacement of fam) can take advantage of inotify already, so everything is improving at the same speed as before (“fast”) in Linux OS land.
So, the first millenium only had 999 years?
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev-FAQ
So, that’s why devfs has been pretty much unmaintained and unloved since it was in the kernel…
i can only seem to find the rc7 changelog and would like to see whats all gone in or if anyone knows of a site which breaks it down into a for dummies format even better
Already posted this
http://lwn.net/Articles/149479/
Linus updated the ChangeLog to be the full 2.6.12->2.6.13 log a little while ago.
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.13
Yep it just keeps getting better and better, much faster boot and snappy than 2.4.x, Preemption model really speeds up desktop response. I always use 2.6.X releases in Slackware 10.1 since it’s much better. You dont know what your missing because even the distro’s disable features like preemption. No wonder people think Linux is less snappy on the desktop than say Windows!
We can thank IBM’s input for udev otherwise it would never have been.
Come on, stop being to harsh on udev since it’s not been in development nowhere near as much as devfs. Developing udev is such a complex task and it’s not even version 1.0 yet. Thankfully with have HAL, udev, 2.6.x which makes for desktop device usability much easier.
I’m not harsh, these are simple facts.
But I find it harsh that devfs is removed, while its replacement is not even in a stable state.
Actually, hal and dbus are not either, and with the next Gnome 2.12 update, I will be stuck with a choice to make : break KDE notification and use the current dbus/hal API, or break Gnome and still use the obsolete API (used by KDE) ?
Apart from that, I find Project Utopia is a very good thing, and it works very well. I know all these glitches are because all of this is pretty new, but I kind of have been spoiled with my powerful stable system lately, and I don’t love heavy migrations like this one.
But I find it harsh that devfs is removed, while its replacement is not even in a stable state.
Devfs is being removed because it’s been unmaintained since the 2.6 series was released – mostly because the original developer disappeared, and no one else wanted to keep it going.
It’s being removed because it’s been dead code for over two years.
Indeed Andrew Morton has said if stuff is not mantained in the kernel it will be removed, devfs is one and has been documented to be removed for along time. Why can’t people read documenation, obviously Andrew Morton thinks udev is stable enough, otherwise it wouldn’t have even made it in.
dbus 0.23.4 and HAL 0.4.8 work perfectly well with GNOME/KDE (kde dont automount like Gnome volume manager does) and yes even the docs say it’s not stable. The fact is that most distros use it without any issues and I use them with Slackware 10.1 without stability issues.
udev is stable enough to use and if you dont like it use a kernel with devfs.
At least you know how to read, contrary to the others (like some people telling me udev does everything that devfs does, while it’s said in the FAQ, and it’s a fact, that it doesn’t).
Of course dbus 0.23.4 and hal 0.4.8 works perfectly well with current stable Gnome/KDE, I didn’t say the contrary. But in case you don’t know (and most of the others replying obviously don’t), these are the obsolete/old API !!!
And the functionality in Gnome 2.12 will probably only work with the current dbus/hal API, which are incompatible with the obsolete ones, and can’t be installed together, that’s what I said. So, once Gnome 2.12 is out, I will have the problem I talked about. I already had a problem with the obsolete dbus API, as the python bindings won’t compile with gcc 4.0. Also, these old dbus/hal are full of bugs corrected in the current API. So I’m pretty sure I’ll have to replace the old API, killing KDE usability, until KDE 3.5 is out, which, I hope, will support the current dbus/hal API.
udev is stable enough to use and if you dont like it use a kernel with devfs
No it’s not, neither you nor the others understood what I said, so I must have said it badly. I LIKE udev, I think I said it. I use it since a long time (0.2x) actually. THAT’S WHY I know the API just is not stable, and specifically the config files (I only repeat what I already said here …). Track the numerous changes distros like gentoo have supported for udev to work, you will be amazed. They didn’t even support all the changes like me. Most distros gave up and still use old udev like 0.34 (IIRC there was a big change at 0.35, breaking everything). Devfs, with all its flaws, does not move anymore, so it’s stable. FYI latest udev (mine is 0.68) is completely incompatible with 0.34, most howto docs are completely obsolete.
udev 0.68 has all kind of new functionality and utilities that did not even exist in 0.34. IIRC, 0.34 did not even support device mapper (so did not support LVM2), which caused me all kind of troubles. Even the hotplug mechanism is obsolete with latest udevs.
That’s why I don’t understand that devfs is removed already, as now people are stuck with a fast moving target to provide nearly same functionality as stable devfs. This won’t affect me anyway. And yes, I know devfs was not adequate and racy, even though I had no problem with it (except spurious messages in the log at startup).
Ookaze
>I’m not harsh, these are simple facts.
No, they’re not. devfs is moderately broken, unmaintained and in an unstable state. udev is actually in a better state in many ways, right now.
>break KDE notification
And, uh, why would it break KDE notification? I’ve used udev with KDE for… 18 months, maybe? Possibly there is something I’m missing here.
udev has worked great for me since release 0.38 and now it’s at 0.68 IIRC. No problems attributable to udev since that time.