This is a description of the changes made across the 2.6.x development series. Changes made to the 2.5.x-2.6.0 development series can be found in the Linux25Changes page
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_14 Linux 2.6.14] Released October 27, 2005
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_13 Linux 2.6.13] Released August 29, 2005
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_12 Linux 2.6.12] Released June 17, 2005
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_11 Linux 2.6.11] Released March 2, 2005
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_10 Linux 2.6.10] Released December 24, 2004
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_9 Linux 2.6.9] Released October 19, 2004
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_8 Linux 2.6.8] Released August 14, 2004
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_7 Linux 2.6.7] Released June 16, 2004
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_6 Linux 2.6.6] Released May 10, 2004
[http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_5 Linux 2.6.5] Released April 4, 2004
2.6.4
Released March 11, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.4 changelog]
NGROUPS_MAX, which sets the maximum number of groups a user can belong to has increased the value to 65536 (was previously 32). This limit is also visible via the read-only /proc/sys/kernel/ngroups_max file. [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=60f095f22d9325fc88f128df204242f932c261dc (commit)]
HFS rewrite and HFS+ support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=b20f09ad0ab9e8ef215b5c6e0ead9effc6b80aee (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=367a470ffe60c58c69ae8bf288cbb4615002729b (commit)]
Add SOCK_SEQPACKET for Unix domain sockets [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=32b46f96d41dfc67ad9d81c39487242ecc84be16 (commit)]
- Support for the Intel "ia32e" arch
PPC64 iommu and TBL flush rework [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=aeb9bd1688d76c938acc4b17da8db33e8cbe1133 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=7fb3b50550a866099fc8ea34b8565f12a104e2fa (commit)]
UTF-8 tty mode [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=8026954da2b98a1a97af65d82c492816681c0faa (commit)]
- Dynamic PTY allocation (up to a million PTY devices)
- Sysfs support for SCSI tapes and bluetooth devices
- ARC4 crypto module Support for large numbers of groups
Generic kernel thread infrastructure [http://lwn.net/Articles/65178/ (LWN article)]
- Groundwork for the hotplug CPU code
ARC4 crypto module [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=d0119535d80f4f46d831fb48f1747e732c539c79 (commit)]
Add dm-crypto crypto module [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=f3abc91effde1fd547e6005f36c94313fe970dd2 (commit)]
Enable coredumps > 2 GB [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=0d274048bea986c7498a52ea5152d66833cd2cec (commit)]
Add -mregparm=3 config option [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=cef3796e3aa0003e818a64374f439d353c49d574 (commit)]
2.6.3
Released February 18, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.3 changelog]
G5 support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=7f13170c2069ff86a2a0bfc3a247ade8aefeb6aa (commit)]
Support up to 255 char columns in virtual terminals [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=f3706e57b8e26db88ddaa5b0558e5db545f2fed7 (commit)]
Set HZ to 1000 in PPC32 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=eb6e9d736fa3e79f97ee19325c996f69079f276e (commit)]
- Removal of the USB scanner code: moved support to userspace (libusb)
New DMA pool abstraction [http://lwn.net/Articles/69402/ (LWN article)]
- "context mount" support for SELinux
2.6.2
Released February 4, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.2 changelog]
RAID 6 implementation [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=8869ce42bfc6301d645eabb64eea343569be9575 (commit)]
One-shot support for epoll [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=b248eb341da327a418e3fdd55bcad209c3802892 (commit)]
Add support for m68knommu [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=ccc218ff4f93913018f735201586caa19dc022db (commit)]
Schedulers interactivity improvements [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=80605ac9c461beed318da1af7f0355c66d90f66c (commit)]
- New Qlogic SCSI driver
2.6.1
Released January 9, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.1 changelog]
Message Signaled Interrupt support - MSI [http://lwn.net/Articles/44135/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=805bdfd65d2a8866870d1813cd39d739d1e2942e (commit)]
Add 32bit a.out support for x86-64 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=dabe6cb0fc24dd4d3ee5b51c99f551a883dc2d66 (commit)]
Add `gcc -Os' config option [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=4b8ca7b0c8fb01ba87f9f6fa23f287e683f06346 (commit)]
Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) support. [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=556bd742f63bdc0d0fdbfb28f907e272ed61d370 (commit)]
2.6.0
Released December 18, 2003 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.0 changelog]