Torvalds Releases Kernel 2.6.25: GPL Only Restriction Imposed
Linus Torvalds has released the new 2.6.25 kernel just slightly behind schedule. Besides improvements to the CFS scheduler and a plethora of new drivers, the kernel also introduces a political aspect: it debars non-GPLd USB drivers.
Linus Torvalds actually wanted to release version 2.6.25 last weekend, but the large number of patches caused Torvalds and the developer team to wait another couple of days before going for the release, and to introduce an intermediate pre-release. The final release is now here and it considerably boost the range of supported hardware. Many lines of code introduced various improvements for the fairly recent Mac80211 WLAN stack including the new "Ath5k " driver for Atheros WLAN chips, as a successor to the Madwifi driver. The new driver is dual licensed under the GPL and the ISC license, a simplified BSD license, compared to Madwifi which never made the kernel due to proprietary components. "rtl8180" now supports the RTL8180 and RTL8185 WLAN chips by Realtek. Support for chips that support the fast Draft N standard has been introduced and no longer has an experimental tag.
Another fairly recent kernel component has been reworked, the Completely Fair Scheduler, which has been optimized for realtime environments. The SMACK security framework is completely new. It promises improved handling compared to SELinux. A patch that allowed the kernel to use a differentiated system description table (DSDT) in the initial ramdisk has been removed. This re-introduces the kernel's reliance on the DSDT information in the computer BIOS which are often erroneous.
A political dimension has been added in the form of a controversial change to USB support. Developer Kroah-Hartman pushed through his change outlawing proprietary USB drivers. This has been implemented in the form of the USB kernel driver "EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL" flag which has to exist to export required interfaces. This means that drivers will need to be GPLd or released under a compatible license to make the grade. The kernel had a similar patch previously, but it was removed in favor of better hardware support.
The enhanced "ext4" filesystem is not yet suitable for production use and is included in the kernel mainly for test and development purposes. Among other features it includes large file and large filesystem support, along with journal checksums that log changes to the filesystem and thus allow data to be restored after a crash. Progress has been made with respect to the x86 and x86_64 branch merges. New drivers have also been introduced for the network and audio subsystems..
The changelog has an extensive list of changes. As usual, the new kernel is available either as a patch, or as a complete source code package from the kernel.org site.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you've found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
The GNU Project Celebrates Its 40th Birthday
September 27 marks the 40th anniversary of the GNU Project, and it was celebrated with a hacker meeting in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.
-
Linux Kernel Reducing Long-Term Support
LTS support for the Linux kernel is about to undergo some serious changes that will have a considerable impact on the future.
-
Fedora 39 Beta Now Available for Testing
For fans and users of Fedora Linux, the first beta of release 39 is now available, which is a minor upgrade but does include GNOME 45.
-
Fedora Linux 40 to Drop X11 for KDE Plasma
When Fedora 40 arrives in 2024, there will be a few big changes coming, especially for the KDE Plasma option.
-
Real-Time Ubuntu Available in AWS Marketplace
Anyone looking for a Linux distribution for real-time processing could do a whole lot worse than Real-Time Ubuntu.
-
KSMBD Finally Reaches a Stable State
For those who've been looking forward to the first release of KSMBD, after two years it's no longer considered experimental.
-
Nitrux 3.0.0 Has Been Released
The latest version of Nitrux brings plenty of innovation and fresh apps to the table.
-
Linux From Scratch 12.0 Now Available
If you're looking to roll your own Linux distribution, the latest version of Linux From Scratch is now available with plenty of updates.
-
Linux Kernel 6.5 Has Been Released
The newest Linux kernel, version 6.5, now includes initial support for two very exciting features.
-
UbuntuDDE 23.04 Now Available
A new version of the UbuntuDDE remix has finally arrived with all the updates from the Deepin desktop and everything that comes with the Ubuntu 23.04 base.