2.6.9

• Released October 19, 2004 changelog

• Token-based thrashing control (LWN article) (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.(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 (commit)

• ext3 barrier support: Mount with "mount -o barrier=1" to enable barriers (commit)

• Support of disk barriers: (commit)

• m32r architecture support

• Scheduler statistics: adds lots of CPU scheduler stats in /proc/$PID/stat (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 (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 (LWN article) (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() (commit).

• Shared memory scalability improvements

• "flex mmap" user-space memory layout (LWN article) (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 (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 (commit)

• Change in TCP ICMP source quench behavior

• 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 (LWN article)

• DSCP decapsulation for IPsec (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

• Drivers & architectures

  • r8169: napi support commit

  • r8169: ethtool .set_settings commit

  • r8169: ethtool .get_{settings/link} commit

  • Add support of VT1720-based mobo (still experimental and supporting AC97 only) commit

  • VIA82xx: add the DXS entry for Mitac/Vobis/Yakumo laptop. commit

  • Add the experimental support for ALC850. commit

  • input: implement true rawmode for PS/2 keyboards commit, commit

  • Input: mousedev - implement tapping for touchpads working in absolute mode, such as Synaptics commit

• NETFILTER: Connection based accounting commit

• NETFILTER: New ip_sctp match commit

• NETFILTER: Add conntrack runtime statistics commit

• NETFILTER: Add tcp window tracking commit

• NTFS: Add support for readv/writev and aio_read/aio_write. commit

• NTFS: Implement fsync, fdatasync, and msync both for files and directories commit

• export legacy pty info via sysfs commit

• Drivers & architectures

  • ARM: Add IXP2000 support commit, commit, commit, commit, commit, commit, commit

  • ARM: Add support for ENP-2611 platform commit

  • PPC32: Add a watchdog driver on PPC8xx. commit

  • via-rhine: Add WOL support commit

  • CPUFREQ: new Dothan variant for speedstep-centrino commit

  • New driver for MV64340 GigE commit

  • input: Enhancements/fixes for PSX pad support: commit

  • Intel8x0: Added the PCI ID for nVidia CK8. commit

  • input: Add Dell SB Live! PCI ID to the emu10k1-gp driver. commit

  • input: Add Audigy LS PCI ID to emu10k1-gp.c commit

  • Input: Add serio_raw driver that binds to serio ports and provides unobstructed access to the underlying serio port via a char device commit

  • EMU10K1/EMU10K2: Audigy 2 ZS - side support commit

  • add new ethernet driver 'gianfar' commit

  • Add pci=firmware command line option commit

  • PCI Hotplug: acpiphp extension commit, commit

  • ACPI: add SMP suport to processor driver commit

  • ACPI: ACPI bus support for wakeup GPE commit

  • natsemi netpoll support commit

  • ATIIXP-modem: Added snd-atiixp driver for ATI IXP AC97 modem controllers. commit

  • ICE1712: Added the (experimental) support of Terratec Phase 88. commit

  • e100 - Support for Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection (82562) adapter commit

  • e100 - Auto MDI/MDI-X support commit

  • e100 - Support to load device firmware commit

  • ICE1724: Added the support of Pontis MS300 to snd-ice1724 driver. commit

  • USB: add CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND commit

  • USB: Add support for FT2232C chip to ftdi_sio commit

  • Add CONFIG_PM_DEBUG option commit

  • I2C: Add Intel IXP2000 GPIO-based I2C adapter commit

  • I2C: new device for sis630 commit

  • Intel8x0: Added the support of nVidia CK804. commit

  • Intel8x0: Added the support of MCP04. commit

  • Intel8x0-modem: Added the support of Nvidia modem. commit

  • ICE1712: Added the support of ZNF3-250 (supposed to be ZNF3-150 compatible). commit

  • AWACS: PPC Beep,PPC PMAC driver,PPC PowerMac driver Added the PCM beep support. commit

  • CPUFREQ: Adding SMP capability to MSR based Enhanced Speedstep. commit

  • USB USX2Y: snd-usb-usx2y driver for Tascam US-122/224/428 support commit

  • Intel8x0: Added buggy_irq module parameter to intel8x0 driver. commit

  • I2C: bus driver for multiple PowerPCs commit

  • USB: ipaq module: product id for HTC Himalaya commit

  • I2C: algorithm and bus driver for PCA9564 commit

  • USB: add ub driver commit

  • w1: Added driver for Dallas' DS9490* USB <-> W1 master. commit

  • Intel8x0-modem: Add the support of SIS7013 modem. commit

  • AGPGART: SiS 635 support. commit

  • CPUFREQ: Initial Dothan speedstep support. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Make pmdisk dependent on swsusp. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Remove duplicate relocate_pagedir() from pmdisk. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Remove more duplicate code from pmdisk. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Share variables between pmdisk and swsusp. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Merge first part of image writing code. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Consolidate code for allocating image pages in pmdisk and swsusp commit

• [Power Mgmt] Consolidate page count/copy code of pmdisk and swsusp. commit

• [swsusp] Add helper suspend_finish, move common code there. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Consolidate pmdisk and swsusp low-level handling. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Remove arch/i386/power/pmdisk.S commit

• [Power Mgmt] Fix up call in kernel/power/disk.c to swsusp_suspend(). commit

• [Power Mgmt] Consolidate pmdisk and swsusp early swap access. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Merge pmdisk/swsusp image reading code. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Merge swsusp and pmdisk info headers. commit

• [swsusp] Fix nasty bug in calculating next address to read from. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Merge pmdisk and swsusp signature handling. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Merge pmdisk and swsusp pagedir handling. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Merge pmdisk and swsusp read wrappers. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Merge pmdisk and swsusp write wrappers. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Remove pmdisk_free() commit

• [Power Mgmt] Make default partition config option part of swsusp. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Remove pmdisk. commit

• [swsusp] Remove unneeded suspend_pagedir_lock. commit

• [Power Mgmt] Merge swsusp entry points with the PM core. commit