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Mainly out of boredom but with a strong dose of curiosity I built my first production 2.6.3 kernel today, also the first one I had built from this tree since the (then-disastrous) release-candidate 2.5-series. I have to say, I'm rather impressed with the results on the test system (2.4GHz P4 Northwood, i845 chipset, Slackware 9.1 as base OS).
For an early-release kernel, the i845 support is notably better than under 2.4 - an odd sound glitch involving mp3 decompression is gone, and YUY2 video overlay support now works properly (tvtime is actually operational). Performance actually seems a bit snappier, too. Not that I've conducted extensive tests at this point - these are all just first-run observations.
The new menuconfig system takes a bit of getting used to, but the new hierarchy means that options are laid out more logically than in past releases. One thing I did notice: no more prompting if you build a kernel that's too large to fit on a boot floppy, though the option is there to install the kernel to the floppy.
I'm pretty impressed with it on the first run - it seems like modern hardware is supported much better than under 2.4. Obviously I'm running it on my semi-sacrificial desktop, so critical production-environment components like RAID support, SMP, 10Gbit interfaces, and hardcore routing haven't been tested. However, it looks like it could mature into a better-managed kernel series than 2.4 turned out to be.
Anyone else care to weigh in? It'd be good to hear others' opinions on this.
For an early-release kernel, the i845 support is notably better than under 2.4 - an odd sound glitch involving mp3 decompression is gone, and YUY2 video overlay support now works properly (tvtime is actually operational). Performance actually seems a bit snappier, too. Not that I've conducted extensive tests at this point - these are all just first-run observations.
The new menuconfig system takes a bit of getting used to, but the new hierarchy means that options are laid out more logically than in past releases. One thing I did notice: no more prompting if you build a kernel that's too large to fit on a boot floppy, though the option is there to install the kernel to the floppy.
I'm pretty impressed with it on the first run - it seems like modern hardware is supported much better than under 2.4. Obviously I'm running it on my semi-sacrificial desktop, so critical production-environment components like RAID support, SMP, 10Gbit interfaces, and hardcore routing haven't been tested. However, it looks like it could mature into a better-managed kernel series than 2.4 turned out to be.
Anyone else care to weigh in? It'd be good to hear others' opinions on this.
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