#pragma keywords Linux, Kernel, Operative System, Linus Torvalds, Open Source, drivers
#pragma description Summary of the changes and new features merged in the Linux Kernel during the 2.6.9 development


= 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

 * Drivers & architectures
  * r8169: napi support [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=a774cdb712047ec646b25e823de4496b071ed838|commit]]
  * r8169: ethtool .set_settings [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=a9dbafbca6ede2bc649be898bc9d43342d002600|commit]]
  * r8169: ethtool .get_{settings/link} [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=c74c29fa6e369a13df280b83a53cf6c9268d702c|commit]]
  * Add support of VT1720-based mobo   (still experimental and supporting AC97 only) [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=a43e48357ad72eac6a44d6116bc971c7a63c2ab9|commit]]
  * VIA82xx: add the DXS entry for Mitac/Vobis/Yakumo laptop. [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=d85823dcca278295fe3aa5cde11962b74fa8d682|commit]]
  * Add the experimental support for ALC850. [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=883f8f57de2cc240a876c3e8cc5328d8ddb84399|commit]]
  * input: implement true rawmode for PS/2 keyboards [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=d8c514cfa12b180f41bae49374a4de7e894287a7|commit]], [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=2f3617d6274e31d882cfe47bb31a97dad5464d54|commit]]
  * Input: mousedev - implement tapping for touchpads working in absolute mode, such as Synaptics [[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/commit/?id=9c99b2b0df7c48dc247110e47ef4126b7649df1a|commit]]