LinuxChanges - Linux Kernel Newbies

Comprehensible changelog of the linux kernel, inspired by [http://wiki.dragonflybsd.org/index.php/DragonFly_Status Dragonfly's status]. Other places to get news about the linux kernel are [http://www.kernel-traffic.org Kernel traffic], [http://lwn.net/Kernel/ LWN kernel status], [http://lwn.net/Articles/driver-porting/ LWN driver porting guide] and [http://lwn.net/Articles/2.6-kernel-api/ LWN list of API changes in 2.6] - many articles here link to LWN and much of the 2.6.x changelog was restored from them (you may be be interested in subscribing so Jonathan can keep up the good work ) Changes made to the 2.5.x-2.6.0 development series can be found in the Linux25Changes page. Before adding things here look at the RULES section at the end of the page!!

2.6.15

STILL NOT RELEASED!
Page table scalability improvements: Currently, a single page table lock is used to protect all operations on an address space's page tables. This has been detected to cause scalability problems in largue multiprocessor systems ej: 512-cpu SGI altix, specially in heavily multithreaded workloads (threads of a same process share the same address space and hence the same page table lock). With this patch, a separate spinlock per page-table page is used, to guard the page table entries in that page. Splitting the lock is not quite for free: another cacheline access. So for now enable it by config for machines with 4 or more CPUs. While this (and many other scalability changes) may look high-end oriented now, remember that cheap multi-core desktops CPUs are there. [http://lwn.net/Articles/157151/ (LWN article)] [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=4c21e2f2441dc5fbb957b030333f5a3f2d02dea7 (commit)]
.text page fault SMP scalability optimization: This fixes a case where large systems wouldn't scale well while faulting in the .text. The reason was a useless overwrite of the same pte from all cpu [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=1a44e149084d772a1bcf4cdbdde8a013a8a1cfde (commit)]
Swaptoken tuning: It turns out that the original swap token implementation, by Song Jiang, only enforced the swap token while the task holding the token is handling a page fault, this patch approximates that, like the page fault code does. It has the effect of automatically, and gradually, disabling the enforcement of the swap token when there is little or no paging going on, and "turning up" the intensity of the swap token code the more the task holding the token is thrashing [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=fcdae29aa7a5c79f245110f6680afdc1858d3626 (commit)]
Demand faulting for huge pages [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=4c887265977213985091476be40ab11dfdcb4caf (commit)]
Add generic memory add/remove and supporting functions for memory hotplug [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=3947be1969a9ce455ec30f60ef51efb10e4323d1 (commit)]
IPv4/IPv6: UFO (UDP Fragmentation Offload) Scatter-gather approach: UFO is a feature wherein the Linux kernel network stack will offload the IP fragmentation functionality of large UDP datagram to hardware. This will reduce the overhead of stack in fragmenting the large UDP datagram to MTU sized packets [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e89e9cf539a28df7d0eb1d0a545368e9920b34ac (commit)]
Add the infrastructure to support hotplug CPU on ARM [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=a054a811597a17ffbe92bc4db04a4dc2f1b1ea55 (commit)]
x86 hot plug CPU support of physical add of new processors (hotplug add/remove of already existing CPUs was already supported) [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=9f40a72a7e819789f66910c8cd60aab005cdb413 (commit)]
Add LSM hooks for key management facilities (see link) [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=29db9190634067c5a328ee5fcc2890251b836b4b (commit)]
RCU torture-testing kernel module: This adds a tristate CONFIG_RCU_TORTURE_TEST, which enables an intense torture test of the RCU infratructure. This is needed for testing due to the continued changes to the RCU infrastructure [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=a241ec65aeac3d69a08a7b153cccbdb7ea35063f (commit)]
Support for shared HPET interrupts: The driver previously acknowledged interrupts for both edge and level interrupts, but didn't actually allow a shared interrupt in the latter case [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=0d29086177aaa1e7d14e6ebb7fc067b3ca6d5c11 (commit)]
Driver Core: add the ability for class_device structures to be nested: Allows struct class_device to be nested, so that another struct class_device can be the parent of a new one, instead of only having the struct class be the parent [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=51d172d5f3a193e4b8f76179b2e55d7a36b94117 (commit)]
Add vmalloc_node(size, node) (allocate necessary memory on the specified node) and get_vm_area_node(size, flags, node) [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=930fc45a49ddebe7555cc5c837d82b9c27e65ff4 (commit)]
Generic dispatch queue: Implements generic dispatch queue which can replace all dispatch queues implemented by each iosched [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=112238633622498&w=2 (mailing list)] [http://lwn.net/Articles/157208/ (LWN article)] [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=8922e16cf6269e668123acb1ae1fdc62b7a3a4fc (commit)]
Reimplement elevator online switching code [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=cb98fc8bb9c141009e2bda99c0db39d387e142cf (commit)]
Optimized SHA1 implementation for ARM [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=c09f98271f685af349d3f0199360f1c0e85550e0 (commit)]
Add sysfs support for ide tape [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=d5dee80ad69439ad8dccf8fa4d7fed0068aec9cf (commit)]
Add "revision" support for having multiple revisions for each match/target in arp_tables and ip6_tables [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=6b7d31fcdda5938e5d3f1f8b0922cc25aa200dfc (commit)]
Support for the Artemis and ATIK astronomical based USB CCD cameras [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=c9c7746dd333c12f482af2f1e63ea7eafc7cd529 (commit)]
USB: delete the bluetty driver [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=a6c82600d4058346ea6fd801bc21d7abcc1350d8 (commit)]
Nokia 7600/6230(i)/6170/66x0 DKU2 USB driver [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=50260b69bbec383058875de26dbde28b1a6f8d00 (commit)]
Nvidia Geforce 7800 series (7800, 7800 GTX, 7800 GO and 7800 GTX GO cards) framebuffer support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=7015faa7df829876a0f931cd18aa6d7c24a1b581 (commit)]
MPC8xx PCMCIA support (PowerPC 8xx series PCMCIA controller) [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=de957c89b7dadb3147e885d7b6eb9db73d0eea57 (commit)]
Support for SA1100 Jornada flash device support [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=183e1a349466a1b90430a58f3efad25a3e555cb2 (commit)]
Resurrect Cobalt (MIPS-based) support for 2.6 [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=c4ed38a0c6e2e5c4906296758f816ee71373792f (commit)]
Base Au1200 (MIPS-based) 2.6 support [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e3ad1c23ba72214669b364c6fa304531dc768c3e (commit)]
Add support for BCM1480 family of chips (MIPS-based) [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=f137e463b50aadba91bd116f99c59ccb9c15a12f (commit)]
Support for sharp zaurus sl-5500 touchscreen [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=1753298947afe5eb56da755bc057f1868f345ec1 (commit)] and its PCMCIA slot [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=77bb86a1b9f8b872d8efc33c4f4359f809220252 (commit)]

2.6.14

Released October 27, 2005 [http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.14 changelog]
Numa-aware slab allocator: It creates slabs on multiple nodes and manages slabs in such a way that locality of allocations is optimized. Each node has its own list of partial, free and full slabs. All object allocations for a node occur from node specific slab lists [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() for VMAs without anonymous pages (the ones with anonymous pages are still copied): 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/$PID/smaps: This file will shows how much memory is resident in each mapping. Useful for people who want to perform memory consumption analysis [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e070ad49f31155d872d8e96cab2142840993e3c0 (commit)]
Add /proc/$PID/numa_maps: This file will show on which nodes pages reside [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=6e21c8f145f5052c1c2fb4a4b41bee01c848159b (commit)]
Lock-free file descriptor look-up [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=ab2af1f5005069321c5d130f09cce577b03f43ef (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=b835996f628eadb55c5fb222ba46fe9395bf73c7 (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)]
Support hotplug cpu on 32-bit SMP powermacs: When a cpu is off-lined, it is put into sleep mode with interrupts disabled. It can be on-lined again by asserting its soft-reset pin, which is connected to a GPIO pin [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=31139971b3dc9fbb2e8a8572fb81e6e8470f363a (commit)]
Add TASK_NONINTERACTIVE task state bit to the cpu scheduler: It can be used by blocking points to mark the task's wait as "non-interactive". This does not mean the task will be considered a CPU-hog - the wait will simply not have an effect on the waiting task's priority - positive or negative alike [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=d79fc0fc6645b0cf5cd980da76942ca6d6300fa4 (commit)]
[http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2637.txt PPTP] (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) conntrack support and NAT helper added to allow proper management of multiple NAT'd PPTP connections. PPTP, a Microsoft-designed protocol, is used in many places to provide VPN access due to the native support in Microsoft Windows. [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)]
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)]
Implement SKB fast cloning: Protocols that make extensive use of SKB cloning, for example TCP, eat at least 2 allocations per packet sent as a result. To cut the kmalloc() count in half, we implement a pre-allocation scheme wherein we allocate 2 sk_buff objects in advance, then use a simple reference count to free up the memory at the correct time [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=d179cd12928443f3ec29cfbc3567439644bd0afc (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)]
IPV6: Support several new sockopt / ancillary data in Advanced API (RFC3542): IPV6_RECVPKTINFO, IPV6_PKTINFO, IPV6_RECVHOPOPTS, IPV6_HOPOPTS, IPV6_RECVDSTOPTS, IPV6_DSTOPTS, IPV6_RTHDRDSTOPTS, IPV6_RECVRTHDR, IPV6_RTHDR, IPV6_RECVHOPOPTS, IPV6_HOPOPTS, IPV6_{RECV,}TCLASS [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=333fad5364d6b457c8d837f7d05802d2aaf8a961 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=41a1f8ea4fbfcdc4232f023732584aae2220de31 (commit)]
[http://fuse.sourceforge.net/ FUSE]: Allows to implement a fully functional filesystem in a userspace program [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=d8a5ba45457e4a22aa39c939121efd7bb6c76672 (commit)]
[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)]
[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)]
Suspend support for CIFS filesystem [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=ede1327ea4ca8019ec6df24b3e837def091c26b8 (commit)]
Enable atomic inode security labeling on ext3 and ext2: it enables atomic security labeling of newly created inodes by altering the fs code to invoke a new LSM hook to obtain the security attribute to apply to a newly created inode and to set up the incore inode security state during the inode creation transaction. This parallels the existing processing for setting ACLs on newly created inodes [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=5e41ff9e0650f327a6c819841fa412da95d57319 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=10f47e6a1b8b276323b652053945c87a63a5812d (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=ac50960afa31877493add6d941d8402fa879c452 (commit)]
SELinux memory improvements: Reduce access rules memory usage by 20x [http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_morris/6197.html James Morris explanation] [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=782ebb992ec20b5afdd5786ee8c2f1b58b631f24 (commit)]
NTFS: Support journals ($Logfile) which have been modified by chkdsk. This means users can boot into Windows after we marked the volume dirty. The Windows boot will run chkdsk and then reboot. The user can then immediately boot into Linux rather than having to do a full Windows boot first before rebooting into Linux [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=e7a1033b946f4f2622f2b338ab107f559aad542c (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)]
[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://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-netdev&m=112568599006559&w=2 (mail)] [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)]
PCI: Support PCI PM CAP version 3 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=3fe9d19f9e86a55679f5f2b38ec0a43a1a510cee (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)]
Driver for the IBM Hard Drive Active Protection System (HDAPS), an accelerometer found in most modern Thinkpads [http://lwn.net/Articles/155440/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=860e1d6b46bd4cbc67d8d065f0f682143513382f (commit)]
Add Apple USB touchpad driver for the USB touchpad which can be found on post-February 2005 Apple Powerbooks [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=f7214ff4e8248513ec626212b2c1a3ca0b2a0888 (commit)]
Spinlock consolidation [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=fb1c8f93d869b34cacb8b8932e2b83d96a19d720 (commit)]
Largefile support for accounting: The accounting subsystem in the kernel can not correctly handle files larger than 2GB. This fixes it by adding the O_LARGEFILE flag [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=6c9c0b52b8c6b68b05bb06efd7079a8fc5e9ba60 (commit)]
Detect soft lockups, new debug feature (CONFIG_DETECT_SOFTLOCKUP). When enabled then per-CPU watchdog threads are started, which try to run once per second. If they get delayed for more than 10 seconds then a callback from the timer interrupt detects this condition and prints out a warning message and a stack dump [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=8446f1d391f3d27e6bf9c43d4cbcdac0ca720417 (commit)]
Add kzalloc(): new function, it allows to obtain pre-zeroed memory [http://lwn.net/Articles/147014/ (LWN article)] [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=dd3927105b6f65afb7dac17682172cdfb86d3f00 (commit)]
Add schedule_timeout_{,un}interruptible() [http://lwn.net/Articles/149019 (LWN article)] [http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=64ed93a268bc18fa6f72f61420d0e0022c5e38d1 (commit)]

2.6.9

Released October 19, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.9 changelog]
Token-based thrashing control [http://lwn.net/Articles/96621 (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=e6a32818710d24cc910ec4d4333f99972b3cf563 (commit)]
Concurrent O_SYNC write support: In databases it is common to have multiple threads or processes performing O_SYNC writes against different parts of the same file.[http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=96deebee4470587bc1a855c787d6919df681cdac (commit)]
Reiserfs v3 barrier support: Add reiserfs support for flush barriers, mount with -o barrier=flush to enable them. Barriers are triggered on fsync and for log commits [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=b736095823b073209ef38622227c64c593260b73 (commit)]
ext3 barrier support: Mount with "mount -o barrier=1" to enable barriers [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=52a75614f1f753e01a5a9610c5390b5b7f795912 (commit)]
Support of disk barriers: [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=74c50b2c1af1b3535cf6c39ce684e60fa9f5dfdb (commit)]
m32r architecture support
Scheduler statistics: adds lots of CPU scheduler stats in /proc/$PID/stat [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=34b334118622daae225ab8fd56c79f54f6e15774 (commit)]
RLIMIT_MEMLOCK semantics change: In Linux kernels before 2.6.9, only privileged processes (CAP_IPC_LOCK) could lock memory, and the RLIMIT_MEMLOCK soft resource limit placed an upper limit on the number of bytes that a privileged process can lock. Since kernel 2.6.9: no limits are placed on the amount of memory that a privileged process can lock; and an unprivileged process is now able to lock memory up to the soft limit defined by RLIMIT_MEMLOC [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=adaeb8014406050050cf09416d1b0e3c23838fdb (commit)]
Tunable "max sectors" limit for block I/O requests (can help latency reduction)
New prctl() option allowing programs to change their name (PR_GET_NAME)
AMD dual-core support
Out-of-line spinlocks [http://lwn.net/Articles/97537/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=2ea380e357f23ad37c1a06c6af509b68e9d57bb6 (commit)]
Support for POSIX's waitid() Also, now linux now supports the POSIX specification that SIGCHLD is sent to the parent when one of its children resumes as a consequence of receiving a SIGCONT signal. Also, WCONTINUED flag is added to waitpid() and waitid() [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=8e81583bfd488bb0b10aa799f7ec5f7b4a79fe73 (commit)].
Shared memory scalability improvements
"flex mmap" user-space memory layout [http://lwn.net/Articles/91829/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=0f7c9b1849d5365d27d4553e471a8e721c8dabb7 (commit)]
x86 PAE swapspace expansion. PAE is artificially limited in terms of swapspace to the same bitsplit as ordinary i386, a 5/24 split (32 swapfiles, 64GB max swapfile size), when a 5/27 split (32 swapfiles, 512GB max swapfile size) is feasible. This patch transparently removes that limitation by using more of the space available in PAE's wider ptes for swap ptes [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=7c1c60d14d175c41c5db03f20f44c80c4d683e52 (commit)]
Show Active/Inactive on per-node meminfo: The patch below enable to display the size of Active/Inactive pages on per-node meminfo (/sys/devices/system/node/node%d/meminfo) like /proc/meminfo [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=6d4a504b45abc756eac6374591f74c7afb722b6a (commit)]
Change in TCP ICMP source quench behavior
[http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget/h2-otg.html USB "on the go" support]
New USB storage driver
Support for more than eight partitions on BSD-labeled disks
Ethtool support in the loopback driver
NETIF_F_LLTX interface [http://lwn.net/Articles/101215/ (LWN article)]
DSCP decapsulation for IPsec [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=cac8c9f3e6cd37a3dd079e12a01fc41d2650bf39 (commit)]
Removal of the ancient "busmouse" driver
Infrastructure for cluster-wide file locking
DRM subsystem cleanups
"fake NUMA" mode for x86-64 testing
Small-footprint tmpfs implementation
Support for scheduler profiling (seeing where context switches come from)
Automatic TCP window scaling calculation
Some VFS interface improvements
Executable support in hugetlb mappings
The Whirlpool digest algorithm
Removal of the very last suser() call

2.6.8

Released August 14, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.8 changelog]
Allow x86 to reenable interrupts on lock contention [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=e61229e7fab63f09bcab5f6d54477453ca98684c (commit)]
VFS shrinkage tuning: This adds /proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure, which tunes the vfs cache versus pagecache scanning pressure. At vfs_cache_pressure=0 we don't shrink dcache and icache at all, at vfs_cache_pressure=100 there is no change in behaviour, at vfs_cache_pressure > 100 we reclaim dentries and inodes harder [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=95afb3658a8217ff2c262e202601340323ef2803 (commit)]
Conversion to the new symbolic link resolution code (which will eventually allow an increase in the maximum link depth) [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=c989bc66ec92aabcf88f429da52a798003edc505 (commit)]
Add O_NOATIME open flag support (GNU extension): If this bit is set, read will not update the access time of the file. It is useful if you want to do something with the file atime (for instance, moving files that have not been accessed in a while to somewhere else, or something like Debian's popularity-contest) but you also want to read all files periodically (for instance, tripwire or debsums) [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=037c5577398a9d87f0b9f8d68cbf17324b5b05fe (commit)]
MNT_EXPIRE for umount(): Intrinsic automount and mountpoint degradation support. This adds support for a filesystem (such as kAFS) to perform automounting intrinsically without the need for a userspace daemon. It also adds support for such mountpoints to be degraded at the filesystem's behest until they've been untouched long enough that they'll be removed [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=92b2af55e9bd44724700c8eef889c7b368df6c94 (commit)]
Process Accounting Version 3 format added [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=f0743e893fb6ede7126ee6bb9ebad092fc2e346c (commit)]
RLIMIT_SIGPENDING added, introducing per user rlimits for both queued signals and POSIX message queues [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=05eecc7a8a3765f2dd4b4d5d8a2e928f27c620f0 (commit)], and remove unused queued_signals global accounting - rtsig-max and rtsig-nr /proc interfaces went away [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=31c7f302112bb18a7fd93cf07f52478a2688f62b (commit)]
support for 64-bit Super-H hardware
Removal of the PC9800 subarchitecture (lack of mainteinance) [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=3f7da6b29ad4612b09ddb39dd7938d11e9551ba6 (commit)]
Preemptible kernel support for the PPC64 architecture [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=5cc01b3b2ec3228457146904098dbaed01fbe0f8 (commit)]
Oprofile support for ppc32 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=1383f594343b33211e1755524ecfd6c70ea8d1c9 (commit)]
Support for new Apple Powerbooks [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=eb5b2db2e449555fb06da1a6c81506f7593a7ad3 (commit)]
x86 no-execute support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=3d543a2d0ce112d99d584fa99a5005629bc3c871 (commit)]
Asynchronous I/O support for USB gadgets
HPET (High Precision Event Timer) support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=d4e2cce3c8d7a766e474e9643514f1e6be7d758d (commit)]
Reworked symbolic link lookup implementation [http://lwn.net/Articles/91959/ (LWN article)]
Lockless loopback [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=b2079a04d5b73b7cf82bb88897e86e2aee91bbc4 (commit)]
New "CPU mask" implementation
RCU performance improvements [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=48adcee8afd0838517a7e3150daa617f5b0a0c25 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=2321dce287dbaf69028be4678956451c9f1157b1 (commit)]
New wait_event_interruptible_exclusive() macro
Sysfs knobs for tuning the CFQ I/O scheduler [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=cde1f64d5ecbc78bc605937540421914b4f8cb8f (commit)]
Mirroring, snapshot and dm-zero targets for the device mapper [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=82fe372266fddf32677a7e0b4e2908bbcecf90dd (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=9665bd2e2f0ac296d7e4c40a50978dfa9f6dce07 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=db40a292b7da5640a8a464b1e8a8251eaf175fd8 (commit)]
Reiserfs data=journal support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=e4861db92ba98c0280abf75bbbe344a14254997b (commit)]
Added permissions checking on raw SCSI commands from user space [http://lwn.net/Articles/98379/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=edfbc0a1c7df14728a31734ecafbbcacac85ac20 (commit)]
Removal of the fcntl() file operations method
New internal infrastructure for handling file positioning and seekability [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=9286c49cc35e0a5a4ed240a80ae9ef17b37948d8 (commit)]
Removal of the (non-functional) "fastroute" networking option
TEA, XTEA, Khazad crypto algorithms [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=ca28e25885ef28aeb01553d46e225805f9f26b10 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=1dbd347b7c1f8d879361609eabed7100b5f30754 (commit)]
Add deb-pkg build option [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=4c25efaec1f969b16102dea37a38f33a2848cca5 (commit)]
TCP/IP congestion control changes from Reno to BIC

2.6.7

Released June 16, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.7 changelog]:
Scheduling Domains [http://lwn.net/Articles/80911/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=5a2bc24fc647c9dfb10faae4b3a86ef05fc6f596 (commit)]
Full object-based reverse-mapping scheme and removal of the per-page PTE chains [http://lwn.net/Articles/86715/ (LWN article)]
Filtered Wakeups [http://lwn.net/Articles/83633/ (LWN article)]
Ability to re-enable interrupts while waiting in spin_lock_irqsave() (for all architectures now)
msleep() function for millisecond-scale waits
del_singleshot_timer(): Deleting timers quickly [http://lwn.net/Articles/84836/ (LWN article)]
shrink "dentry" structure
Speedup readahead for seeky workloads [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=ef12b3c1abce83e8e25d27bdaab6380238e792ff (commit)]
Support for quotas, extended attributes, ACLs, SELinux in reiserfs [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=783206fcd4123700cf1bdced342dcd44d1b18e20 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=c6df36c4c37c02dc45d390f7e78cbae51e4dcb2c (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=c86d577034339a7f7c149320be204d2ad0e3dbe2 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=98ca2698e94ce62fa4f34ed6256019cabb74c8a5 (commit)]
Removal of the Intermezzo filesystem (lack of mainteinance) [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=4b18ece918a95d42904ea80a7dd62075e90d2f84 (commit)]
Remove IDE PATA TCQ support: It's been disabled some time ago, PATA TCQ has so many technical short comings, that it was never really interesting [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=066298b9347991e663ab9b0005e5fe36bad1b22c (commit)]
Dynamic addition of virtual disks on PPC64 iSeries [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=280fbb169c2d81004d866fdd6d51fc73b85b8210 (commit)]
Implement separate per-cpu stacks for processing interrupts and softirqs, along the lines of the CONFIG_4KSTACKS stuff on x86 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=93836954c881c4c70d5cd8e64440ec17a841bfa8 (commit)]
PowerPC 750GX support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=19f21bf97946de6637ff9d788f6fa0f5956e2597 (commit)]
new API for NUMA systems
Debugging option to put data symbols in kallsyms [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=e9bc643950e4125f25c73a12abf07669074709f5 (commit)]

2.6.6

Released May 10, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.6 changelog]
Removal of (struct page)->list and page dirty/clean/free lists, replaced by radix-tree tagging [http://lwn.net/Articles/80472/ (LWN article)]
Network packet timestamping optimization
Binary Increase Control (BIC) TCP developed by NCSU. It is yet another TCP congestion control algorithm for handling big fat pipes. For normal size congestion windows it behaves the same as existing TCP Reno, but when window is large it uses additive increase to ensure fairness and when window is small it uses binary search increase [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=d009df2d52345441873340c5b75ecc09b9343a22 (commit)]
[http://www.geocities.com/wronski12/posix_ipc/index.html POSIX message queues] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=3bc45e612c620d7477b9ed3f285c9222b3bb558b (commit)]
fsync() and fdatasync() speed improvements to ext2/3 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=c67ebc7f2644d612f7838a7f3aee1b766ce11e69 (commit)]
Addition of the fcntl() method to the file_operations structure [http://lwn.net/Articles/77190/ (LWN article)]
Laptop Mode [http://lwn.net/Articles/65437/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=166054344dda21795e3735af51edf1a261177e7e (commit)]
Oprofile for s390 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=f42022413a50489115f36c5e9a16f5d13e4831a4 (commit)]
4KB kernel stacks option for the i386 architecture [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=f061c2ccd81f62b777327aa3696d652b5fb34c6f (commit)]
Non-executable stack support for several architectures [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=9abd312fda38fb2ba7b3dfe147ecbadf5cf8f57f (commit)]
Make sysfs configurable [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=7aa1fb8cb5813bfe0a33e49975f1cceb0740251f (commit)]
Reiserfs updates: data=ordered support, space preallocation, laptop mode support, logging rework, support for nested transactions [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=d4265dd282789d98d47f2febea1e60ff2a494b82 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=502c984ae4ddae1964c5aae6625e56516106c396 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=050ff9c100d0a9e9cb45f575783ca801d2ca42c3 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=3b0970c6144b4e5cb777d8b54926c1dbeb2e2b64 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=46d1f3648ddccf15793a057f7aef3e2ce5be4f0e (commit)]
Reiserfs and ext3 "commit=0 support": Restores commit interval to the default value [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=9a9b4f749ce975a57994207e7c0c5fe57148ef60 (commit)] - [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=a4fe3fb94e6ea2e27d61abd8b141856f9d662fbd (commit)]
Ext3 journalled quotas [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=c69e3890a7a5d8c0587d958e618d303fad9d941a (commit)]
NFS v4: Implement server-side reboot recovery (mostly) [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=82107aa303e744b0e67f9daa44748c5abbf01d69 (commit)]
IPv6 support in SELinux [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=bdee92e07efd44da1dc87d47485c3f9ffaf0d976 (commit)]
The lightweight auditing framework [http://lwn.net/Articles/79326/ (LWN article)] [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=4527a30f157fca45c102ea49a2fb34a4502264eb (commit)]
A mechanism which allows block drivers to respond to queries about the congestion state of their queues
"per-device unplugging patch" [http://lwn.net/Articles/75233/ (LWN article)]
CFQ scheduler [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=a7c3e7eee4fe04953547e408f8db0d615c4c1afe (commmit)]
External module support [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=eeb0e992ae01bc7c68628c20df6df0bdc1c7fd28 (commit)]
Generic snapshot support code for filesystems (taken from XFS) [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=9a6f9f9177e7403e661eb876500d57d139c0d034 (commit)]

2.6.5

Released April 4, 2004 [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.5 changelog]
Adaptative lazy readahead [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=87698a351b86822dabbd8c1a34c8a6d3e62e5a77 (commit)]
CDROMREADAUDIO dma support: support DMA for extrating audio [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=6cea839a9cb769215c2a3cf2056ff1b09ea08378 (commit)]
Netpoll infrastructure [http://lwn.net/Articles/75944 (LWN article)]
New "kref" reference counting mechanism [http://lwn.net/Articles/75920 (LWN article)]
AIO support for reiserfs [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=71b95e3ebaa658cdb361c78b613267776957995b (commit)]
Read-only support for UFS2 [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=e935d5b963465e88c09896056578d8ece381dc9a (commit)]
Display number of slab, mapped and pagetable pages in the sysrq-M output [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git;a=commit;h=53c3a164bde6946bb9ca65eb021b0cf96035b5d3 (commit)]

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]

Rules:

Name of the new feature/description of the change, including a small explanation if possible
If its a feature and the feature has some web page add a link to it
If there's a paper (OLS!) or an article add a link to it. Or write one
If there's a interesting mail (benchmarks, announcements if there's no web page, etc) about it in the mailing list, get a link in one of the list's archives (at [http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel] please) and add the link here
Add commit's link if possible. For commits add a "(commit)" word and add the link there. Don't add the commit link to another word (please).
Searching commits for a given feature is easy. Just look for it in the shortlog, or try to find a file related with that change, then search it in the GIT tree representation and click the "history" link to see all the changes made which affects that file. The release dates will help you too.
There're two main GIT trees where you can search for commits: [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git the one which has all the stuff commited after 2.6.12-rc2] and [http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/old-2.6-bkcvs.git the one which has all the stuff BEFORE 2.6.12-rc2]

TODO:

Import relevant data from [http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/patches/2.6/2.6.14-rc5/2.6.14-rc5-mm1/broken-out/post-halloween-doc.patch davej's post halloween document] or remaining stuff from [http://kernelnewbies.org/status/latest.html Kernelnewbies status]
Find links to corresponding changesets (!!)
Keep track of what gets changed