Reasons for switching from 2.4 to 2.6?

eNTi

hi everyone.

i'm running gentoo-gaming sources for about 3/4 year now and i'm quite happy, although i've got some major deadlocks and stuff, i've NEVER experienced in a linux environment before. but those are quite rare, so i dont mind them all too much.

the question now is: what offers the 2.6 kernel series and the pain of switching from a very well working 2.4? is there REALLY speed involved? is it more secure? is more reliable? i'd appreciate short and pregnant answers. i'm poised to give it another try. all my past experiences with 2.6. and 2.5.xx where quite disappointing as well as concerning speed, stability and basic functions, like copying larger files from cdrom. i've always had problems with 2.6 and it's sure to be a hell of a workload making my system work with 2.6 as it does now with 2.4. so WHY could i possibly look into that?

(please spare me answers like: it's a matter of taste, or something like that)
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andrew_j_w · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2003 Posts: 534 Location: York, UK

The scheduler in 2.6 is much better than 2.4, this means that multitasking - an importand part of a desktop machine - is much smoother.

I wouldn't expect too much of an improvement with non-cpu intensive functions like file copying - that doesn't have much to do with the kernel.

As to reliability 2.6-test-something's have been powering my machine for a month and I've not had a single problem with them, YMMV though.

2.6 has better hardware support, so if something isn't working for you then it might be worth a try.

It's really not that hard to upgrade, just emerge development-sources - compile, copy the bzImage to your boot directory under a different name to your 2.4 kernel and create a new grub/lilo option. Then reboot and enjoy all the 2.6 goodness.

HTH,
Andrew

slarti` · Retired Dev Joined: 20 Sep 2003 Posts: 376 Location: UK

Speed!!!

God, it is MUCH faster. You WILL notice the difference

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Malakin · Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 6:19 pm Post subject:

Although a little server oriented here are some decent benchmarks showing Linux 2.6 kicking ass:
http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/

gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

of cource, ck sources have the ame schedular and seem to run much smoother on my system. i'll be sticking with them for a while.
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ba747heavy · Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 9:14 pm Post subject:

All of those benchmarks are really nice. But, my main question is, 1) (background info....I use linux for everything, this box is my main desktop machine, and hench I don't want to bork it too much

) Is the kernel advanced enough to take over my desktop machine? Meaning I won't experience more than a few hiccups when I switch? 2) If I do switch, where can I find documentation regarding bootsplash, ALSA, and lm_sensors in 2.6?

Thanks

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standsolid · Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 9:46 pm Post subject:

when i was on 2.4 and woudl be unrarring a file, my mp3s would stutter. after i switch to 2.6 (with identical configuration) -- i unrarred a 600Mb file and not one stutter. it's a big difference on the desktop.
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wdreinhart · Guru Joined: 11 Jun 2003 Posts: 569 Location: 4QFJ12345678

Speed! 2.6 feels faster especially when starting applications, and other times of heavy disk access.

Bugfixes! USB hotplugging now works properly on my system, and there are no more messages about "APIC error on CPU 0 40:40" choking the system logs.

l33tness! Impress your friends by running a beta kernel.

axxackall · Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:46 pm Post subject:

Moled · l33t Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 635

andrew_j_w · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2003 Posts: 534 Location: York, UK

aLEczapKA · Apprentice Joined: 13 Jun 2003 Posts: 192

s p e e d
geez this baby is faaast !

I had bad experiences with 2.5 but since 2.6-test3-mm everything just gets better and better.

I use mm-sources (with Andrew Morton's patches) - his scheduler is really good (best IMHO) and for me it works very well.
Funny thing: I was once running huge mysql query in the background. mysql daemon was using 99% of the CPU time. While the query was beeing executed I ran wine with Tribes2 in a window - and the game was jumpy but playable!
The CPU time was approp. shared between these 2 main threads (more less 50%). When I chanded nicest level and gave 30% of CPU time to mysqld and 70% to wine - tribes2 was running very well.

In short: 2.6 will allow you to work and play in the same time

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eNTi · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 3:37 pm Post subject:

ok, if it's really that much faster i'll give it a try. i'm very interested if this "speed-thing" can actually be true or if it's only another placebo.

EDIT: btw., what about devfs and system-init-tools? first i use on my system and i've heard it's being kicked out of 2.6, and 2nd is required for 2.6, isn't it?
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If you fall off a cliff, you might as well try to fly. After all, you got nothing to lose.

-- John Sheridan - Babylon 5, Season 4

Athas · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 3:47 pm Post subject:

I just upgraded to 2.6-love3 from 2.4.20-gaming-r3 and I only had to do one "advanced thing":

emerge nvidia-kernel && modprobe nvidia

Okay, that, and my mixer settings we're pretty much FUBAR'ed, but that was because I switched from module-ALSA to kernel-ALSA

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gkmac · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 4:45 pm Post subject:

Is the supermount patch available with the 2.6 kernel? I'm keen to upgrade when 2.6 hits stable, but manually mounting and unmounting my CD/DVD-ROM every single time I insert/remove a disc was a pain.

NuclearFusi0n · Apprentice Joined: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 297

hbmartin · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 5:10 pm Post subject:

gkmac · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 5:51 pm Post subject:

supernovus · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 6:15 pm Post subject:

searcher · Apprentice Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Posts: 175 Location: NL

noff · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 8:59 pm Post subject:

Most people consider 2.6 more stable than 2.4, myself included.

I just did a reinstall and only use 2.6 as it works better on my nforce2 board. It is a lot faster and just lacks a couple things like bootsplash. Actually some hardware only works well using 2.6
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eNTi · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 11:41 pm Post subject:

as far as i can tell by now everything seems to run just fine and i even seem to find a little speed improvement, altough it's not THAT significant over the gaming sources.

i need to make some more tests, like watching movies compiling and burning at once... let's see how it performs.
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If you fall off a cliff, you might as well try to fly. After all, you got nothing to lose.

-- John Sheridan - Babylon 5, Season 4

Zeos · n00b Joined: 26 Oct 2003 Posts: 13

The speedup is nice, but not my primary reason for giving it a go ....I LOVE the ability to finally write cd's without the ide-scsi emu....I can finally use my ide 52x burner the way it was meant to be used....

I used to average 19x with the buffer constantly going to 1-2% (near empty) ...the only thing that saved me from coaster city was burnfree (unless I slowed it down to <10x) ...now I'm running around 42x and the buffer stays between 95-100% consistantly

eNTi · Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:11 pm Post subject:

what's that got to do with the 2.6?
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If you fall off a cliff, you might as well try to fly. After all, you got nothing to lose.

-- John Sheridan - Babylon 5, Season 4

Lovechild · Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:26 pm Post subject: