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The purpose of this page is tracking and explaining the features added in every release, just like the [http://wiki.dragonflybsd.org/index.php/DragonFly_Status Dragonfly people did]. | Comprehensible changelog of the linux kernel, inspired by [http://wiki.dragonflybsd.org/index.php/DragonFly_Status Dragonfly's status]. Another good places to get more information about the linux kernel are [http://www.kernel-traffic.org Kernel traffic] and [http://www.lwn.net LWN] and their [http://lwn.net/Kernel/ "kernel status" articles], [http://lwn.net/Articles/driver-porting/ driver porting guide] and the [http://lwn.net/Articles/2.6-kernel-api/ API changes in 2.6] - many of the links here are linking to LWN articles and we wouldn't have been able to restore the 2.5.x-2.6.x changelog without them (you may be insterested in subscribing so Jonathan can keep up the good work ;) ) Before adding things here look at the RULES section at the end of the page!! (send a mail if you think something is missing here and you don't want to/can't create an account) |
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It'd be nice if kernel hackers would spend some minutes adding their stuff here. The one place where you can find a comparable changelog are the fabulous LWN kernel articles: http://lwn.net/Kernel/, or the [http://lwn.net/Articles/driver-porting/ driver porting guide] - but there's no reason why the kernel community shouldn't embrace and extend those efforts ;) TODO: * Import [http://kernelnewbies.org/status/latest.html Kernelnewbies status] list (2.5.57 - 2.6.0-test9 done) * Import relevant data from [http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/post-halloween-2.5.txt davej's post halloween document] * Keep track of what gets changed |
===== 2.6.14 ===== * '''STILL NOT RELEASED!!''' * Numa-aware slab allocator [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e498be7dafd72fd68848c1eef1575aa7c5d658df (commit - benchmarks)] * Lazy page table copies in fork(): Defer copying of ptes until fault time when it is possible to reconstruct the pte from backing store, speeding up fork() greatly specially for processes using lots of shared memory [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=d992895ba2b27cf5adf1ba0ad6d27662adc54c5e (commit)] * Add /proc/$PID/smaps: Shows how much memory is resident in each mapping. Useful for people who want to perform memory consumption analysis [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e070ad49f31155d872d8e96cab2142840993e3c0 (commit)] * Four-level page table support for the ppc64 architecture: extends the usable user address range to 44 bits (16T). [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e28f7faf05159f1cfd564596f5e6178edba6bd49 (commit)] * PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) support: [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2637.txt RFC 2637]. Used to implement VPN products (notably, Microsoft in all the Windows versions). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPTP Wikipedia article] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=926b50f92a30090da2c1a8675de954c2d9b09732 (commit)] * [http://fuse.sourceforge.net/ FUSE]: Allows to implement a fully functional filesystem in a userspace program * [http://v9fs.sourceforge.net/ 9P support]: Linux port of the [http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html Plan9]'s [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/man/5/INDEX.html 9P protocol] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=93fa58cb831337fdf5d36b3b913441100a484dae (commit)] * DCCP: "Datagram Congestion Control Protocol". Datagram protocol (like UDP), but with a congestion control mechanism. [http://lwn.net/Articles/149756/ (LWN article)] Currently a [http://www.icir.org/kohler/dcp/draft-ietf-dccp-spec-11.txt RFC draft] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=7c657876b63cb1d8a2ec06f8fc6c37bb8412e66c (commit)] * [http://relayfs.sourceforge.net/ RelayFS]: Relayfs is just a bunch of per-cpu kernel buffers that can be efficiently written into from kernel code. These buffers are represented as files which can be mmap'ed and directly read from in user space. The purpose of this setup is to provide the simplest possible mechanism allowing potentially large amounts of data to be logged in the kernel and 'relayed' to user space." [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e82894f84dbba130ab46c97748c03647f8204f92 (commit)] * securityfs filesystem [http://lwn.net/Articles/153366/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=b67dbf9d4c1987c370fd18fdc4cf9d8aaea604c2 (commit)] * SAS transport class [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=c7ebbbce366c02e5657ac6b6059933fe0353b175 (commit)] * Remove ACPI S4 BIOS support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=b01d8684e9e5b04270970c97df856d47668267e3 (commit)] * Add netlink connector: userspace <-> kernel space easy to use communication module which implements easy to use bidirectional message bus using netlink as its backend [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=7672d0b54411371e0b6a831c1cb2f0ce615de6dc (commit)], also a "async connector mode" [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=acd042bb2de50d4e6fb969281a00cc8b8b71e46d (commit)] * Suspend support for CIFS filesystem [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=ede1327ea4ca8019ec6df24b3e837def091c26b8 (commit)] * [http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/ ipw2100] and [http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ ipw2200] wireless drivers (intel centrino) [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=2c86c275015c880e810830304a3a4ab94803b38b (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=43f66a6ce8da299344cf1bc2ac2311889cc88555 (commit)] * [http://hostap.epitest.fi/ HostAP]: Adds support to work as "Wireless Access Point" [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=ff1d2767d5a43c85f944e86a45284b721f66196c (commit)] * [http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.Extensions.html Wireless extensions] API update to version 19 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=6582c164f2b3b6e58d1f13c1c031b19ee691eb14 (commit)] * ISA DMA suspend for x86/x86-64 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=795312e763569ce4df67e7a0ca726a9901358fa2 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=7dc24db1757f950f8bd21b7191106d4bf5134be7 (commit)] * Keys: Add possessor permissions to keys. It adds extra permission grants to keys for the possessor of a key in addition to the owner, group and other permissions bits. This makes SUID binaries easier to support without going as far as labelling keys and key targets using the LSM facilities [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=664cceb0093b755739e56572b836a99104ee8a75 (commit)] |
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2.6.14: 2.6.13: |
===== 2.6.13 ===== * Released August 29, 2005 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.13 changelog] * Execute-in-place support: Traditionally, programs are loaded from disk to memory to be executed. However, the current wave of embedded devices store programs in a ROM/flash chip. XIP allows the kernel executing programs directly from that ROM, without being copied to RAM (saving RAM space), and bypassing the page cache/io scheduler layers (since they're not needed). [http://lwn.net/Articles/135472/ (LWN article)] |
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* [http://lwn.net/Articles/104343/ inotify] | * Voluntary preemption patches * build-time configurable clock interrupt frequency: Now HZ defaults to 256 in x86. 1000 is better for "interactivity" (desktops) and 100 is good for performance (servers) and saves some energy in laptops. [http://lwn.net/Articles/145973/ (LWN article)] * inotify [http://lwn.net/Articles/104343/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=0eeca28300df110bd6ed54b31193c83b87921443 (commit)] |
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* [http://lwn.net/Articles/108595/ kexec and kdump]: Kexec allows users to load a new kernel from another running kernel. By preserving the memory contents in a crash scenario, kexec allows to implement kdump. Kdump is able to get a memory dump of the previous kernel, and be used as a debugging tool. * [http://lwn.net/Articles/135472/ Execute-in-place support]: Traditionally, programs are loaded from disk to memory to be executed. However, the current wave of embedded devices store programs in a ROM/flash chip. XIP allows the kernel executing programs directly from that ROM, without being copied to RAM (saving RAM space), and bypassing the page cache/io scheduler layers (since they're not needed). * [http://lwn.net/Articles/145973/ build-time configurable clock interrupt frequency]: * [http://lwn.net/Articles/143474/ Improved CFQ IO scheduler] * Voluntary preemption patches |
* Improved CFQ IO scheduler: With support for I/O priorities [http://lwn.net/Articles/143474/ (LWN article)] * kexec and kdump: Kexec allows users to load a new kernel from another running kernel. By preserving the memory contents in a crash scenario, kexec allows to implement kdump. Kdump is able to get a memory dump of the previous kernel, and be used as a debugging tool. [http://lwn.net/Articles/108595/ (LWN article)] * Runtime selectable TCP congestion algorithm: Allow using setsockopt to set TCP congestion control to use on a per socket basis. [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=5f8ef48d240963093451bcf83df89f1a1364f51d (commit)] - [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=317a76f9a44b437d6301718f4e5d08bd93f98da7 (commit)] * Add several TCP congestion modules: H-TCP [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=a7868ea68d29eb2c037952aeb3b549cf05749a18 commit], TCP Hybla [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=835b3f0c0d7e1f716c45ec576662eac7a68b8548 (commit)], High Speed TCP (HS-TCP) [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=a628d29b56d3f420bf3ff1d7543a9caf3ce3b994 (commit)], TCP Westwood [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=8727076289ec55298a05cabddf02b374d13c1624 (commit)], TCP BIC [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=83803034f4233d810c4adc52008921da060c55d1 (commit)] |
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2.6.12: * [http://lwn.net/Articles/140164/ API changes] * New driver for the "trusted computing" (TPM) crap^Wchip * [http://www.superh.com/products/shyway.htm SuperHyway bus support] * Multilevel security implementation for SELinux * [http://lwn.net/Articles/124703/ device mapper multipath support] * [http://lwn.net/Articles/121845/ Address space randomization] * Restore the Philips webcam driver * I/O barrier support for serial ATA drives * [http://lwn.net/Articles/134460/ "resource limits"] * [http://lwn.net/Articles/127936/ cpusets] * Remove IPV6 "experimental" status 2.6.11: 2.6.10: 2.6.9: 2.6.8: 2.6.7: 2.6.6: 2.6.5: 2.6.4: 2.6.3: 2.6.2: 2.6.1: 2.6.0: 2.6.0-test9: * [http://lwn.net/Articles/44243/ libata driver architecture] 2.6.0-test6: * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=104344596912094&w=2 32-bit dev_t] 2.6.0-test3: * [http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/index.html SELinux] 2.6.0-test1: * [http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/ Linux Virtual Server layer] 2.5.75: * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-mm&m=104529418208788&w=2 Anticipatory Scheduler] 2.5.74: 2.5.73: 2.5.72: 2.5.71: * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=104981044405395&w=2 Switch the IDE I/O layers to taskfile] 2.5.70: * [http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget USB gadget support] 2.5.69: * [http://lwn.net/Articles/29555/ New interrupt handling API] 2.5.68: 2.5.67: 2.5.66: 2.5.65: * [http://www.kerneltrap.org/node.php?id=603 Desktop Interactivity Improvements] 2.5.64: 2.5.63: * [http://high-res-timers.sourceforge.net/ POSIX timers] 2.5.62: * [http://lse.sourceforge.net/locking/dcache/dcache_lock.html Avoid dcache_lock while path walking] 2.5.61: 2.5.60: * New modversions implementation * 64-bit jiffies 2.5.59: * [http://home.arcor.de/efocht/sched/ NUMA aware scheduler extensions] 2.5.68: 2.5.57: * [http://www.zipworld.com.au/~akpm/linux/schedlat.html Remove long-held locks for low scheduling latency] 2.5.56: 2.5.55: 2.5.54: * [http://secure.netroedge.com/~lm78/ Add lm-sensors drivers for hardware health monitoring] * Support for AGP 3.0 2.5.53: * "sysenter" support 2.5.52: 2.5.51: * [http://linuxconsole.sourceforge.net/ Rewrite of the console layer] * Compatibility syscall layer 2.5.50: 2.5.49: 2.5.48: * [http://lists.insecure.org/lists/linux-kernel/2002/Oct/6214.html In-kernel module loader] 2.5.47: * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0204.1/0429.html Zerocopy NFS] 2.5.46: * [http://www.xmailserver.org/linux-patches/nio-improve.html Better I/O performance with epoll] * Per-cpu hot & cold page lists * [http://lists.insecure.org/lists/linux-kernel/2002/Oct/7027.html MMU-less processor support (ucLinux)] * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101095500820185&w=2 Replace initrd by initramfs] * Extended Attributes and ACLs for ext2/ext3 2.5.45: * [http://www.xs4all.nl/~zippel/lc/ New Linux configuration system: kconfig] * [http://samba.org/~jamesm/crypto/ CryptoAPI] * [ftp://ftp.linux-ipv6.org/pub/usagi/patch/ipsec/ IPSEC] * [http://www.linuxtv.org/dvb/ Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) layer] * [http://www.sistina.com/products_lvm.htm Device mapper for Logical Volume Manager (LVM2)] 2.5.44: * New sysfs filesystem (formerly known as driverfs) * Plug'N Play Layer Rewrite * [http://lwn.net/Articles/9042/ x86 BIOS Enhanced Disk Device (EDD) polling] 2.5.43: * [http://www.psc.edu/general/filesys/afs/ Andrew File System (AFS) support] * [http://oprofile.sourceforge.net/ OProfile, a low-overhead profiler] * [http://lse.sourceforge.net/locking Read-Copy Update (RCU) Mutual Exclusion] * [http://www.citi.umich.edu/projects/nfsv4/ Add support for NFS v4] * Remove kiobufs 2.5.42: * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=103298446916066&w=2 ext2/ext3 large directory support: HTree index] * [http://us1.samba.org/samba/Linux_CIFS_client.html Add new CIFS (Common Internet File System)] * [http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/ Remove the 2TB block device limit] * Improved i2o (Intelligent Input/Ouput) layer 2.5.41: 2.5.40: * [http://lse.sourceforge.net/numa Parallelizing page replacement] * [http://lse.sourceforge.net/numa NUMA topology support * [http://www.brodo.de/cpufreq/ Add support for CPU clock/voltage scaling] 2.5.39: * New IO scheduler ("deadline") 2.5.38: 2.5.37: * [http://users.pandora.be/bart.de.schuymer/ebtables/ Ethernet bridge tables support] * Remove the global tasklist 2.5.36: * Hugepage support * [http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/ XFS filesystem from SGI] 2.5.35: * Serial ATA support * [http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/index.html Add User-Mode Linux (UML)] 2.5.34: * POSIX threading support for signals * [http://lse.sourceforge.net/numa discontigmem support (ia32)] 2.5.33: * TCP segmentation offload * [http://www.sf.net/projects/lksctp SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol)] 2.5.32: * [http://people.redhat.com/drepper/nptl-design.pdf Improved POSIX threading support] * [http://freshmeat.net/projects/linux-aio/ Asynchronous IO (aio) support] * Porting all input devices over to input API * New MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) driver 2.5.31: * Support insane number of processes * Disk description cleanups * Remove incomplete SPX network stack 2.5.30: * Remove khttpd 2.5.29: * Strict address space accounting * [http://lsm.immunix.org/ Add Linux Security Module (LSM)] * [http://people.redhat.com/mingo/tls-patches/ Thread-Local Storage (TLS) support] 2.5.28: * Remove the "Big IRQ lock" * Serial driver restructure 2.5.27: * [http://surriel.com/patches/ New VM with reverse mappings] 2.5.26: * Direct pagecache <-> BIO disk I/O 2.5.25: * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0207.0/0741.html Faster internal kernel clock frequency] 2.5.24: 2.5.23: * [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/patches/Hotcpu/ Hotplug CPU support] * [http://bazar.conectiva.com.br/~acme/patches/wip More complete IEEE 802.2 stack] 2.5.22: 2.5.21: 2.5.20: 2.5.19: 2.5.18: * [http://falcon.sch.bme.hu/~seasons/linux/swsusp.html Software suspend (to disk & RAM)] * ->getattr() ->setattr() ->permission() changes 2.5.17: * Move ISDN4Linux to CAPI based interface * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-fsdevel&m=101586205801483&w=2 New quota system supporting plugins] 2.5.16: 2.5.15: 2.5.14: * Bluetooth support (no longer experimental!) * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0204.1/1250.html Support for IDE TCQ (Tagged Command Queueing)] 2.5.13: 2.5.12: * Rewrite of the buffer layer 2.5.11: * Rewrite of the framebuffer layer * [http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0204.3/0129.html Fast walk dcache] * [http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/ Replace old NTFS driver with NTFS TNG driver] 2.5.10: 2.5.9: * Smarter IRQ balancing 2.5.8: * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0204.1/0215.html Radix-tree pagecache] * [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rml/cpu-affinity Syscall interface for CPU task affinity] 2.5.7: * [http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi/ ACPI (Advanced Configuration & Power Interface)] * [ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/NAPI/ NAPI network interrupt mitigation] * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0203.0/0884.html Futexes (Fast Lightweight Userspace Semaphores] * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0203.0/0335.html Video for Linux (V4L) redesign] * [http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Tools.html New driver API for Wireless Extensions] 2.5.6: * [http://www.hojdpunkten.ac.se/054/samba/ http://www.hojdpunkten.ac.se/054/samba/] * [http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2002-01/0438.html HDLC (High-level Data Link Control) update] * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0202.2/0920.html per_cpu infrastructure] * [http://www-124.ibm.com/jfs/ Add JFS (Journaling FileSystem from IBM)] * Killing kdev_t for block devices 2.5.5: * [http://linuxppc64.org/ New architecture: PowerPC 64-bit (ppc64)] * [http://www.x86-64.org/ New architecture: AMD 64-bit (x86-64)] * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0202.2/0297.html Pagetables in highmem support] * [http://www.alsa-project.org/ Add ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture] 2.5.4: * [http://www-124.ibm.com/developerworks/oss/pthreads/ Support for Next Generation POSIX Threading] * [ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rml/preempt-kernel/ Add preempt kernel option] * Per network protocol slabcache & sock.h * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=100942323913586&w=2 Per filesystem slabcache & fs.h] 2.5.3: * [http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/mochel/doc/ New driver model & unified device tree] * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0109.3/1341.html PnP BIOS driver] * [http://www.geocrawler.com/mail/msg.php3?msg_id=7686796&list=35 Generic Extended Attribute support] * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101077476005939&w=2 Support reiserfs external journal] * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101121711408999&w=2 IDE layer update] * [http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0202.0/0260.html Untangle sched.h & fs.h include dependancies] * [http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/Linux/35/100/7642826/ Break Configure.help into multiple files] 2.5.2: * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=100992347220716&w=2 New kernel device structure (kdev_t)] * [http://people.redhat.com/mingo/O(1)-scheduler/ O(1) scheduler for improved scalability] * [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-fsdevel&m=98307457705210&w=2 Filesystem per-process namespaces, late-boot cleanups] * [http://www.linux-usb.org/usb2.html Initial support for USB 2.0] 2.5.1: * Rewrite of the block IO (bio) layer |
===== 2.6.12 ===== * Released June 17, 2005 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.12 changelog] * Pageout throttling: With silly pageout testcases it is possible to place huge amounts of memory under I/O. With a large request queue (CFQ uses 8192 requests) it is possible to place _all_ memory under I/O at the same time. This means that all memory is pinned and unreclaimable and the VM gets upset and goes oom. This patch limits the amount of memory which is under pageout writeout to be a little more than the amount of memory at which balance_dirty_pages() callers will synchronously throttle. This means that heavy pageout activity can starve heavy writeback activity completely, but heavy writeback activity will not cause starvation of pageout [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit |
Comprehensible changelog of the linux kernel, inspired by [http://wiki.dragonflybsd.org/index.php/DragonFly_Status Dragonfly's status]. Another good places to get more information about the linux kernel are [http://www.kernel-traffic.org Kernel traffic] and [http://www.lwn.net LWN] and their [http://lwn.net/Kernel/ "kernel status" articles], [http://lwn.net/Articles/driver-porting/ driver porting guide] and the [http://lwn.net/Articles/2.6-kernel-api/ API changes in 2.6] - many of the links here are linking to LWN articles and we wouldn't have been able to restore the 2.5.x-2.6.x changelog without them (you may be insterested in subscribing so Jonathan can keep up the good work ) Before adding things here look at the RULES section at the end of the page!! (send a mail if you think something is missing here and you don't want to/can't create an account)
2.6.14
STILL NOT RELEASED!!
Numa-aware slab allocator [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e498be7dafd72fd68848c1eef1575aa7c5d658df (commit - benchmarks)]
Lazy page table copies in fork(): Defer copying of ptes until fault time when it is possible to reconstruct the pte from backing store, speeding up fork() greatly specially for processes using lots of shared memory [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=d992895ba2b27cf5adf1ba0ad6d27662adc54c5e (commit)]
Add /proc/$PID/smaps: Shows how much memory is resident in each mapping. Useful for people who want to perform memory consumption analysis [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e070ad49f31155d872d8e96cab2142840993e3c0 (commit)]
Four-level page table support for the ppc64 architecture: extends the usable user address range to 44 bits (16T). [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e28f7faf05159f1cfd564596f5e6178edba6bd49 (commit)]
PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) support: [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2637.txt RFC 2637]. Used to implement VPN products (notably, Microsoft in all the Windows versions). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPTP Wikipedia article] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=926b50f92a30090da2c1a8675de954c2d9b09732 (commit)]
[http://fuse.sourceforge.net/ FUSE]: Allows to implement a fully functional filesystem in a userspace program
[http://v9fs.sourceforge.net/ 9P support]: Linux port of the [http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html Plan9]'s [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/man/5/INDEX.html 9P protocol] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=93fa58cb831337fdf5d36b3b913441100a484dae (commit)]
DCCP: "Datagram Congestion Control Protocol". Datagram protocol (like UDP), but with a congestion control mechanism. [http://lwn.net/Articles/149756/ (LWN article)] Currently a [http://www.icir.org/kohler/dcp/draft-ietf-dccp-spec-11.txt RFC draft] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=7c657876b63cb1d8a2ec06f8fc6c37bb8412e66c (commit)]
[http://relayfs.sourceforge.net/ RelayFS]: Relayfs is just a bunch of per-cpu kernel buffers that can be efficiently written into from kernel code. These buffers are represented as files which can be mmap'ed and directly read from in user space. The purpose of this setup is to provide the simplest possible mechanism allowing potentially large amounts of data to be logged in the kernel and 'relayed' to user space." [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e82894f84dbba130ab46c97748c03647f8204f92 (commit)]
securityfs filesystem [http://lwn.net/Articles/153366/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=b67dbf9d4c1987c370fd18fdc4cf9d8aaea604c2 (commit)]
SAS transport class [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=c7ebbbce366c02e5657ac6b6059933fe0353b175 (commit)]
Remove ACPI S4 BIOS support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=b01d8684e9e5b04270970c97df856d47668267e3 (commit)]
Add netlink connector: userspace <-> kernel space easy to use communication module which implements easy to use bidirectional message bus using netlink as its backend [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=7672d0b54411371e0b6a831c1cb2f0ce615de6dc (commit)], also a "async connector mode" [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=acd042bb2de50d4e6fb969281a00cc8b8b71e46d (commit)]
Suspend support for CIFS filesystem [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=ede1327ea4ca8019ec6df24b3e837def091c26b8 (commit)]
[http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/ ipw2100] and [http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ ipw2200] wireless drivers (intel centrino) [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=2c86c275015c880e810830304a3a4ab94803b38b (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=43f66a6ce8da299344cf1bc2ac2311889cc88555 (commit)]
[http://hostap.epitest.fi/ HostAP]: Adds support to work as "Wireless Access Point" [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=ff1d2767d5a43c85f944e86a45284b721f66196c (commit)]
[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.Extensions.html Wireless extensions] API update to version 19 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=6582c164f2b3b6e58d1f13c1c031b19ee691eb14 (commit)]
ISA DMA suspend for x86/x86-64 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=795312e763569ce4df67e7a0ca726a9901358fa2 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=7dc24db1757f950f8bd21b7191106d4bf5134be7 (commit)]
Keys: Add possessor permissions to keys. It adds extra permission grants to keys for the possessor of a key in addition to the owner, group and other permissions bits. This makes SUID binaries easier to support without going as far as labelling keys and key targets using the LSM facilities [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=664cceb0093b755739e56572b836a99104ee8a75 (commit)]
2.6.13
Released August 29, 2005 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.13 changelog]
Execute-in-place support: Traditionally, programs are loaded from disk to memory to be executed. However, the current wave of embedded devices store programs in a ROM/flash chip. XIP allows the kernel executing programs directly from that ROM, without being copied to RAM (saving RAM space), and bypassing the page cache/io scheduler layers (since they're not needed). [http://lwn.net/Articles/135472/ (LWN article)]
- x86 now uses the generic PCI bus setup code for assigning unassigned resources
- Voluntary preemption patches
build-time configurable clock interrupt frequency: Now HZ defaults to 256 in x86. 1000 is better for "interactivity" (desktops) and 100 is good for performance (servers) and saves some energy in laptops. [http://lwn.net/Articles/145973/ (LWN article)]
inotify [http://lwn.net/Articles/104343/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=0eeca28300df110bd6ed54b31193c83b87921443 (commit)]
Support for the Xtensa architecture: [http://www.tensilica.com/products/xtensa_architecture.htm 32-bit architecture] used in embedded devices
Improved CFQ IO scheduler: With support for I/O priorities [http://lwn.net/Articles/143474/ (LWN article)]
kexec and kdump: Kexec allows users to load a new kernel from another running kernel. By preserving the memory contents in a crash scenario, kexec allows to implement kdump. Kdump is able to get a memory dump of the previous kernel, and be used as a debugging tool. [http://lwn.net/Articles/108595/ (LWN article)]
Runtime selectable TCP congestion algorithm: Allow using setsockopt to set TCP congestion control to use on a per socket basis. [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=5f8ef48d240963093451bcf83df89f1a1364f51d (commit)] - [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=317a76f9a44b437d6301718f4e5d08bd93f98da7 (commit)]
Add several TCP congestion modules: H-TCP [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=a7868ea68d29eb2c037952aeb3b549cf05749a18 commit], TCP Hybla [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=835b3f0c0d7e1f716c45ec576662eac7a68b8548 (commit)], High Speed TCP (HS-TCP) [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=a628d29b56d3f420bf3ff1d7543a9caf3ce3b994 (commit)], TCP Westwood [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=8727076289ec55298a05cabddf02b374d13c1624 (commit)], TCP BIC [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=83803034f4233d810c4adc52008921da060c55d1 (commit)]
- Removal of the devfs configuration option
2.6.12
Released June 17, 2005 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.12 changelog]
- Pageout throttling: With silly pageout testcases it is possible to place huge amounts of memory under I/O. With a large request queue (CFQ uses 8192 requests) it is
possible to place _all_ memory under I/O at the same time. This means that all memory is pinned and unreclaimable and the VM gets upset and goes oom. This patch limits the amount of memory which is under pageout writeout to be a little more than the amount of memory at which balance_dirty_pages() callers will synchronously throttle. This means that heavy pageout activity can starve heavy writeback activity completely, but heavy writeback activity will not cause starvation of pageout [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit