2.5 kernels anyone? Re: [Techtalk] Re: Linux Versions

[Akkana]

/dev/null writes:
> what i was wondering was... is anyone running 2.5 kernels? Caitlin, i 
> noticed you were...

One of my lilo options is a 2.5 kernel: pulled from the usb bitkeeper
tree a few weeks ago, calls itself 2.5.8.  I've used it for a few hours
at a time and it's been fine, but I don't use it for everyday work.

There's been some talk on linux-kernel in the last few days about
bad IDE filesystem corruption in the latest 2.5 tree (I think it's
up to .11 or .12 now?) so I'm not pulling new bits until it sounds
like that's straightened out.  I don't mind other drivers temporarily
not working, but I have enough IDE problems anyway without running a
kernel that might trash my filesystems.  (My backup machine, running
a 2.4.7 kernel, is having IDE problems itself, and suddenly stopped
seeing the CD-RW yesterday, so I have to get that straightened out
before I can back up the main machine. :-( )

Ordinarily I run fairly recent 2.4 kernels with additional patches.
I ran 2.4.17 plus some usbserial patches for quite a while, but recently
I pulled the 2.4 tree (currently calling itself 2.4.19-pre7) and patched
in the new sddr09 driver plus a driver for this QX3 toy video microscope I
just bought, and it works well enough that I'm running it for daily use.

> i'm curious to try a 2.5 and see if it will help with the sound problems 
> i've been having)...

It might well help.  I *love* the ALSA integration in 2.5.  It's so much
easier to just do make *config and turn on the right driver, as opposed
to fiddling with a separate ALSA directory and /usr/src/linux symlink
and hoping it installs modules to the right kernel and doesn't break
some other kernel that you didn't want to modify.

Re distro: I mostly run Redhat 7.1 and 7.2 (I have a few other distros
on other partitions, for playing around), and I like RPM -- I've used,
and written, install packages on older Unix systems, and RPM is better
than most.  But it looks like apt-get is even better (because of the
dependency handling) and I do want to find time to do a Debian install
one of these days.

	...Akkana