Linux 2.6.34-rc4 Kernel Pulls In Two Weeks Of Work

For those not paying close attention to the development cycle for the Linux 2.6.34 kernel, two weeks have passed since the Linux 2.6.34-rc3 release (compared to the usual weekly -rc versions), but today 2.6.34-rc4 is hitting the hands of testers. It's taken longer to get the fourth release candidate of 2.6.34 out the door due to a "really annoying" VM regression that took some days to resolve.

The VM code almost ended up being reverted, but in the end the issue was tracked down and corrected. Many other bugs have also been squashed in 2.6.34-rc4 and a new network driver has been added. The new Linux network driver is cxgb4 and is for Chelsio's new 1G and 10G T4 adapters. There's also a fairly sizable kernel DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) pull in this release that brings a few Radeon KMS fixes and a healthy set of Nouveau DRM changes.

The Linux 2.6.34-rc4 release announcement with the short change-log can be found at LKML.org. We continue to monitor the performance of the very latest Linux kernel code on a daily basis at kernel-tracker.phoromatic.com.