Who here has upgraded to the 2.6 Linux kernel?

[Elledan]

Having read many (very) positive reviews of the new 2.6 kernel (esp. regarding the new scheduler), I'm itching to try it out as well on one of my systems which is currently running Slackware 8.1.

So how did upgrading to the 2.6 kernel work for you? Which distro did you start with? What about drivers? Any issues?

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

upgrading was so close to the best day of my life (fun times with friends probably takes the top)
i've had nothign but awesomeness from 2.6
gentoo - no issues what-so-ever. awesomely faster, more responsive, ATAPI burning, better libata drivers - that's just starting the list.

i highly recommend you atleast give it a shot and have lilo/grub default back to your 2.4 if you can't get 2.6 to work. i'm a fan of the mm-sources patch set, but the stock kernel isn't half bad either (2.6.0 and 2.6.1 lack a lot of device support. ok not really for the desktop user - the devs just wanted to get 2.6 out, and stable, without worrying about a whole lot of device fixes - they're all in mm-sources)

good luck man! nah just kidding it's easy. DO IT and LOVE IT.

[XOR != OR]

I've been running it for a couple weeks now, very nice. I never really noticed a latency problem with the default kernels in FC1, however, so the upgrade didn't give me a whole lot there.

All in all, I like the new kernel, however.

[cloaked]

i am also running 2.6.1, very nice. I have had no bugs, very fast, and the native atapi burning is a huge relief, although beware i dont think k3b (kde burning software) supports native ata burning yet.
I havent tried the mm sources, i have heard good things about them too. how can i patch my 2.6.1 tree with emerge? Otherwise i will have to download the .diff file....:)

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

k3b 11.1 is fully 2.6 compatible. before with 10.3 you could hack the cdrdao drivers so it would work, but it was sorta ugly.

[cloaked]

ok sorry for that misinformation
i dont use kde so i dont really keep it updated.
btw i am updating my sources now to 2.6.2-r3 mm :D

[Elledan]

What are those mm-sources, exactly?

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

it's a patch set of more bleeding edge, less tested stuff. many of them are awaiting admission to the stable kernel tree after more testing can be done to determine they are fully stable. for example new features, driver improvements, new compatability, etc.

edit. if you look at kernel.org you see stuff all the way back to 2.0.48 and then the latest mm-patch is....(now) 2.6.2-rc3-mm1

[Elledan]

Alright, thanks :)

I'll try 2.6.1 first and if something doesn't work right, I might try the mm patches.

Everyone, thanks for your replies so far!

[Elledan]

Another question: which version of GCC did you guys use to compile the kernel with?

[Kriegführung]

I have gcc 3.2.3-r3 on my system. I am running the 2.6.2_rc3-love4 sources (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=131832). This patch set included the mm patch set plus others. I have had great luck with this. There are some people that have had issues, so you as your own risk ;).

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

bash-2.05b$ gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 3.3.2 20031218 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.2-r5, propolice-3.3-7)

[86reddawg]

i've been running 2.6.0-test9 with mm patch for a while now (last fall sometime) using gentoo, and i love it...

the best part in my opinion is that they finally did something with the sound archtecture - now alsa doesn't require much work at all to get running

Also, they changed some of the kernel compiling commands to make it easier.

all in all, it is great!

[Oopsz]

still running 2.4.24 on my server, its in jersey and I don't want to upgrade a major kernel version remotely. I'll upgrade my workstations to 2.6-x when I have time.. love sources looks like fun.. :D

[NewBlackDak]

Been running 2.6 since the first love patch came out for it. Alsa has been borked sinc 2.6.2_rc3-love whatever though. It is noticeably faster than 2.4.x especially if you use the preemptive kernel option.

[tim_m]

i recently upgraded from 2.4 to 2.6 on my redhat 9 server. this was my first time compiling a kernet, w00t :p. it only took me a couple tries.

i guess i can't offer any criticism of it since i don't deal too much with linux. this is only my personal web server at home. there is some problem at boot time about usb, something usb related comes up as fail but i don't have any usb devices so i can just leave it. i'm sure it's just some config option i need to compile into the kernel instead of as a module.

[Elledan]

Well, like I'm being encouraged, 2.6.2 stable was just released :)

Anyway, so GCC 3.x now works fine with compiling the newer kernels? That's great news because I dislike installing two versions of the same compiler on a single system.

Thanks again for the replies! :)

BTW, one other thing: do you need a new driver for nVidia cards because they're binary-only?

[cloaked]

since when did gcc not support making new kernels?
and yes, you ccan get new nvidia drivers after you boot into the new kernel, i think there are some at the nvidia.com page. If you are using gentoo, emerge -k nvidia-kernel will work, otherwise you might need a patch.

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

every time i emerge a nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx gentoo appears to be applying a 2.6 compatibility patch, i'm not sure if it's an improvement or a neccesity.

[cloaked]

it is nessecary for that version of the nvidia driver.
Other distros have to patch the nvidia driver themselves, but it is the same thing.