Linux Kernel 2.6.24 Released

It's here and it is the hottest Linux kernel ever! Why? Because it includes CPU "group scheduling", tickless support for x86-64/PPC and other architectures, memory fragmentation avoidance, new wireless drivers and a new wireless configuration interface, SPI/SDIO MMC support, USB authorization, per-device dirty memory thresholds, support for PID and network namespaces, support for static probe markers, read-only bind mounts, SELinux performance improvements, CIFS ACLs support, SATA link power management and port multiplier support, Large Receive Offload in network devices, memory hot-remove support, a new framework for controlling the idle processor power management, many new drivers and many other features, improvements and bugfixes.

"The release is out there (both git trees and as tarballs/patches), and for the next week many kernel developers will be at (or flying into/out of) LCA in Melbourne, so let's hope it's
a good one. Nothing earth-shattering happened since -rc8, although the new set of ACPI blacklist entries and some network driver updates makes the diffstat show that there was more than the random sprinkling of one-liners all over the tree," said Linus Torvalds.

Let's have a look now at the most important technologies introduced in this release:

• CFS improvements
• Tickless support for x86-64, PPC, UML, ARM, MIPS
• New wireless drivers and configuration interface
• Anti-fragmentation patches
• SPI/SDIO support in the MMC layer
• USB authorization
• Per-device dirty memory thresholds
• PID and network namespaces
• Large Receive Offload (LRO) support for TCP traffic
• Task Control Groups
• Linux Kernel Markers
• Read-only bind mounts
• x86-32/64 arch reunification

Among the new drivers introduced in this release we can mention:

Bluetooth drivers
• Added generic driver for Bluetooth SDIO and USB devices
• Added UART driver for Texas Instruments' BRF63xx chips

Sound drivers
• Added driver for the AT73C213 DAC using Atmel SSC
• Added ASoC CS4270 codec device driver
• Added driver for Gallant SC-6000 card and clones: Audio Excel DSP 16 and Zoltrix AV302

Hwmon drivers
• Added driver for FSC chips
• Added driver for Fintek F71882FG and F71883FG Super-I/O chips
• Added driver for Analog Devices ADT7470 chips
• Added driver for Fintek F75375S/SP and F75373 chips
• IBM power meter driver
• Added driver for the SMSC SCH3112, SCH3114, and SCH3116 Super-I/O chips
• New driver to read FB-DIMM temperature sensors on systems with the Intel 5000 series chipsets
• Added Davinci I2C controller support

Network drivers
• Added ixgbe driver for Intel(R) 82598 PCI-Express 10GbE adapters (v4)
• Added new E1000E pci-express e1000 driver (currently for ICH9 devices only)
• Added Sun Neptune ethernet driver
• Added fast ethernet controller driver for mpc52xx
• Added driver for IP1000A GBit cards
• Added Tehuti network driver
• Added AR7 ethernet driver
• Added device tree-aware EMAC driver
• Virtual ethernet device driver
• Added IrDA driver for Kingsun Dazzle IrDA USB
• Added IrDA driver for Kingsun KS-959 IrDA USB

USB drivers
• Added atmel_usba_udc driver
• Added driver for CH341 USB-serial adaptor
• Eagle IV chipset support

SATA/IDE drivers
• Added driver for bf548 on chip ATAPI controller
• Added AVR32 PATA driver
• Added platform IDE driver, used mostly for Memory Mapped IDE devices, like Compact Flashes running in True IDE mode
• Added driver pata_cs5536 ATA driver for Geode companion chip
• Added driver for Freescale 3.0Gbps SATA Controllers

I2C drivers
• Added Davinci I2C controller support

Graphics drivers
• Added the uvesafb driver; uvesafb is an enhanced version of vesafb. It uses a userspace helper (v86d) to execute calls to the x86 Video BIOS functions. The driver is not limited to any specific arch and whether it works on a given arch or not depends on that arch being supported by the userspace daemon.
• Added a framebuffer driver for Blackfin BF54x framebuffer device driver

MTD drivers
• Added map driver for NOR flash on the Intel Vermilion Range chipset
• Added blackfin on-chip NAND Flash Controller driver
• Added NAND Driver for Olympus MAUSB-10 and Fujifilm DPC-R1 card readers

V4L/DVB
• Added ivtv-fb framebuffer driver for cx23415 devices
• Added a driver for Toshiba TCM825x VGA camera sensor
• Added driver for the internal MPX of the Panasonic VP27s tuner
• Added driver for the silicon baseband tuner MT2266 from Microtune
• Added driver for the silicon baseband tuner MT2131 from Microtune tuner
• Added driver for the Samsung S5h1409 demodulator, also known as the Conexant CX24227 demodulator
• Added driver for the silicon baseband tuner DIBB0070 from DIBcom
• Added CX23885/CX23887 PCIe bridge driver

For a full change-log with all the new features, drivers and improvements, please click here.

The Linux Kernel is the essential part of all Linux Distributions, responsible for resource allocation, low-level hardware interfaces, security, simple communications, and basic file system management.

Linux is a clone of the Unix operating system, initially written from scratch by Linus Torvalds, assisted by a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims to achieve POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

Source: news.softpedia.com