Linux 2.6.29 Kernel Released; Hello KMS and Btrfs!

[Hephasteus]

I wouldn't count it out. Even RAM (or virtual address space) fragmentation is a serious problem with some applications.

Didn't think about it that way. Learn something new every day.

[kraftman]

I wouldn't count it out. Even RAM (or virtual address space) fragmentation is a serious problem with some applications.

Thankfully Linux devs introduced patches few releases ago to prevent RAM fragmentation.

[tronath]

Also don't forget the very good changelog that kernelnewbies.org always does: http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_29

Thank you!

[Ex-Cyber]

Defragmentation is welcome as well but really only applies to platter drives

I wouldn't count it out. Even RAM (or virtual address space) fragmentation is a serious problem with some applications.

[Hephasteus]

Which would therefore make it largely untested compared to ext3, no?
I don't know, online fsck and defragmentation might actually make it viable for storage of smaller files. I could certainly go for a filesystem that does that well; my collection of internet memes is burgeoning. :P

Ignoring the seemingly paranoid aspects of the first part and the general cannot-parse-ness of the end there, you make a good point about SSDs changing the way we manage on-disk formats, at least in the near term. My thought is it's not inconceivable that an SSD-optimised ext4 will come out in the next year or so. Indeed, I rather expect that there are already people working on this issue. Though really, I expect the SSD to move away from the current NAND Flash in a few years anyway.

Defragmentation is welcome as well but really only applies to platter drives which are probably on the way out. Unless of course the people with the monsterous databases intend to buy up all the monsterously fast disk drives for a long time before we get access to them.
Online fsck will help some people but I still would like there to be plenty of opertunity for the huge database crowd to have their databases fsucked for any and all likely and unlikely reasons. Including but not limited to massive solar flares, genetically modified electro-kitten attacks, extended power outages, etc etc.

[Veerappan]

Which userspace components are necessary to get KMS running on an Intel G965? When I enable KMS by default, my machine hardlocks as soon as X starts up.

I got:
xorg-server 1.5.3
xorg-video-intel 2.6.3
linux 2.6.29-rc8
libdrm 2.4.5

no framebuffer drivers loaded.

From: http://http://kernelnewbies.org/Linu...ddc779a66509d1

However, trying modesetting in this release is not easy. In the kernel side, only the Intel driver is getting modesetting support in this release (support for other drivers is being worked on and will be merged in future releases). In the X.org side, it's even more difficult. Because when the kernel modesetting support is enabled, it is REQUIRED that the X.org driver also has modesetting support. If you enable kernel modesetting and you don't have a modesetting-enabled driver, X.org will NOT be able to work in any way and it even may crash your machine. There's no way to workaround this, except disabling kernel modesetting (running a modesetting enabled X.org driver in a modesetting disabled kernel is allowed). Right now, only the Intel driver seems to have a stable release with modesetting support, alpha support is being worked on for other drivers.

Looking at the X.Org versions you've got installed, you're probably running too old of X.Org and xorg-video-intel. Once those are up to speed, you should be able to get it all working together.

[yoshi314]

still encrypting filenames is...pretty abstract to me. if you want to hide files that badly, maybe entire encrypted partition would be more reasonable.

[blueskynis]

Encrypting filenames is useful. I don't think you would like others to see filenames like "Best_of_Jenna_Jameson.avi"

ROFL

[kraftman]

... Btrfs is incredibly slow, especially for desktop and game-related tasks that deal with small files.

ZFS is very slow. I'd love to see BTRFS vs ZFS benchmark. It's very probable IBM to buy SUN and release ZFS on GPL license.

[Wyatt]

what is the point in encrypting filenames ? ;-)

Well, I don't know about everyone else, but I certainly envision a future where I need never worry about (or even think about) the name of a file...