# 2.6.8-nitro1 "Brute Horse Attack"

## seppe

Here is the new nitro horsepower for the 2.6.8 kernel!

applied patches:

```

2.6.8-rc3-win4lin.patch.bz2

from_2.6.8-rc4_to_staircase7.I

schedrange.diff

schedbatch2.4.diff

schediso2.4.diff

autotune_swappiness01.diff

autotune_inactivation01.diff

sched-adjust-p4gain

supermount-ng204.diff.bz2

defaultcfq.diff

config_hz.diff

patch-i386-irq_enable_spinlocks2

patch-ool-spinlocks

9000_SuSE-117-writeback-lat.patch

BadRAM-2.6.5.2.patch.bz2

__cleanup_transaction-latency-fix.patch

filemap_sync-latency-fix.patch

get_user_pages-latency-fix.patch

jbd-recovery-latency-fix.patch

journal_clean_checkpoint_list-latency-fix.patch

kjournald-smp-latency-fix.patch

prune_dcache-latency-fix.patch

slab-latency-fix.patch

truncate_inode_pages-latency-fix

unmap_vmas-smp-latency-fix.patch

preempt-timing-2.6.8-rc1

vesafb-tng-0.9-rc3-r3-2.6.8-rc1.patch.bz2

lirc-2.6.5-mm1-20040406.bz2

menuconfig-NAME-v1.0.patch

squashfs2.0-patch

gcloop-2.6-20040527.patch

kernel-events-rml-2.6.8-rc2-6.patch

acpi-20040715-2.6.8.diff.bz2

fbsplash-0.9-r5-2.6.8-rc4-nitro1.dif

write-barriers.patch

2.6.8-rc1-reiser4.diff.bz2

2.6.8-rc4-nitro1-reiser4-fix.diff

```

Yep, it's almost the same as the previous nitro. Except that it's applied on 2.6.8 and write barriers patch is in!

Ebuild at http://www.sepi.be/nitro/2.6.8-nitro1/nitro-sources-2.6.8-r1.ebuild

bz2 file at http://www.sepi.be/nitro/2.6.8-nitro1/patch-2.6.8-nitro1.bz2

Warning: reiser4, win4lin and vesafb-tng could be broken, I couldn't test these myself but they compile all cleanly at my machine. Can anyone test these? Thanks

Good luck!

----------

## WaVeX

Wow that was quick. Screw homework, I have compiling to do!!!!  :Laughing: 

----------

## Pink

Nice one seppe,

Well, it patches and compiles fine.

Reiser4 is working very well here - don't forget to update to reiser4progs v1.0.0 asap!!

win4lin won't work and will continue to fail until I get round to fixing the patch, or if someone else happens to fix it in the meantime (even when I get a working test rig I will still wait until Netraverse release 2.6.8 patches before adding anymore win4lin patches to my site).

Anyway, it feels good and responsive. 

Thanks   :Very Happy: 

P.S. it will be worth adding the 2.6.8.1 patch (an important NFS fix).

See the changelog entry here (also download the patch or an entire 2.6.8.1 kernel from there)Last edited by Pink on Sat Aug 14, 2004 5:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## Cagnulein

is it coming from 2.6.8.1, isn't it?

----------

## seppe

no, I haven't applied the 2.6.8.1 patch. I knew about it  5 minutes after I announced this release.   :Rolling Eyes: 

Anyway, you can apply it yourself if you use NFS and you care much about security:

download http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/patch-2.6.8.1.bz2

cd /usr/src/linux

bzcat /path/to/patch-2.6.8.1.bz2 | patch -p1

I haven't tested it myself, but normally it should apply  without failed hunks.

----------

## DaMouse

seppe, I thought your first few patchsets were utter BS but I'm seeing really good stuff coming from you.. and you just saved me doing this myself  :Very Happy:  Perhaps I can be of some assistance to you with patches and stuff.

Gouranga!

-DaMouse

----------

## seppe

Thanks for the good comments, DaMouse.

I admit that I used your CK snapshots before  :Smile: 

Of course you can help me. Stuff I don't like now is:

1. I use an older reiser4 patch, I tried to apply the latest reiser4 patch but I couldn't fix all the rejects  :Sad:  supermount and win4lin changed a lot of files

2. swsusp2 should be in, but I get many rejects. Though, dryre is working on this too.

3. I want to add ipw2100 patch, but it doesn't generate the right Makefile or something :/

There is a #nitro-sources channel at irc.freenode.net 

perhaps you can catch me there?  :Smile: 

I have also a patchfile of this release that includes everything except reiser4, maybe thats handy?

----------

## Cagnulein

 *seppe wrote:*   

> no, I haven't applied the 2.6.8.1 patch. I knew about it  5 minutes after I announced this release.  
> 
> 

 

you could make the 2.6.8-nitro1.1 version  :Smile: 

----------

## black hole sun

Okay I just applied the patch in the vanilla 2.6.8 dir, compiling kernel now. Lets see how it goes...Last edited by black hole sun on Sat Aug 14, 2004 8:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## Robin79

Thanx i hope this will be in the same class as rc2-nitro1  :Razz:  the most stable kernel i ve ever used  :Razz:  and i will always have it in here for some nice not locking time  :Razz:  See after reboot  :Razz:  lot of reboots latley  :Razz: 

Edit. thanx for the write barriers paches in this one edit.

----------

## luqas

Damn seppe you are a machine.... Trying it now!!!  Still working on swsusp though  :Sad: .

----------

## Illissius

Emerging it now  :Smile: . Great name btw.

----------

## Tazok

The 2.6.8.1 patch does not apply...   :Sad: 

 *Quote:*   

> patching file Makefile
> 
> Hunk #1 FAILED at 1.
> 
> 1 out of 1 hunk FAILED -- saving rejects to file Makefile.rej
> ...

 

----------

## seppe

 *Tazok wrote:*   

> The 2.6.8.1 patch does not apply...  
> 
>  *Quote:*   patching file Makefile
> 
> Hunk #1 FAILED at 1.
> ...

 

I haven't done it myself, but just do this:

1. nano -w /usr/src/linux/Makefile

2. change this:

```

VERSION = 2

PATCHLEVEL = 6

SUBLEVEL = 8

EXTRAVERSION = -nitro1

NAME=Brute Horse Attack

```

to

```

VERSION = 2

PATCHLEVEL = 6

SUBLEVEL = 8

EXTRAVERSION =

NAME=Zonked Quokka

```

And try to apply that 2.6.8.1 patch again

I think that this will fix the reject. Please note that I haven't tested this

 *Illissius wrote:*   

> Emerging it now Smile. Great name btw.

 

Thanks, but just after I uploaded this release, I found a better one "Brute Source Attack"  :Smile: 

----------

## Illissius

I thought of that too actually, but like Brute Horse Attack better.

----------

## Tazok

 *seppe wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I haven't done it myself, but just do this:
> 
> 1. nano -w /usr/src/linux/Makefile
> ...

 

Unfortunately, this did not change anything.

----------

## luqas

Don't worry about the Makefile rej.  All it is having problems with is changing the version number.  Just manually edit the Makefile before you compile to equal:

```

VERSION = 2

PATCHLEVEL = 6

SUBLEVEL = 8

EXTRAVERSION = -nitro1

NAME=Brute Horse Attack 

```

----------

## Isaiah

It's nice to be able to play ET again on the old test box - thanks seppe  :Cool: 

----------

## Illissius

When I add barrier=1 to the fs options in fstab for /, which is ext3, upon bootup it can't remount the partition rw. When it last did this the kernel didn't have writebarriers so that was to be expected and pretty stupid of me, but this release supposedly has them and it still does it. Is there an option in the menuconfig for enabling it that I overlooked?

(Also, is there any way to fix it without having to use a LiveCD? Knoppix starts up ssllllooowwww. I tried mounting it with -o remount, in which case it said wtf am I saying it's not mounted, and then without, and then it told me that it was, in fact, already mounted.  :Rolling Eyes: )

----------

## Tazok

 *Dryre wrote:*   

> Don't worry about the Makefile rej.  All it is having problems with is changing the version number.  Just manually edit the Makefile before you compile to equal:
> 
> ```
> 
> VERSION = 2
> ...

 

Uhm, that was the original state of the Makefile.

It won't apply with that one, but it won't apply with the one seppe proposed, too.

----------

## y0zza

Changing Makefile as seppe suggested works.

```
blah linux # bzcat /usr/src/patch-2.6.8.1.bz2 | patch -p1

patching file Makefile

patching file fs/nfs/file.c

```

It doesn't matter anyway, as the patch on fs/nfs/file.c for NFS succeeds. It only fails on changing the version number in the Makefile.

----------

## Tazok

Yes, you are right.

Changing the Makefile did not work for me, so I just deleted the first diff of the patch.

Now running fine here.   :Smile: 

----------

## y0zza

Ok, all seems to be working pretty well after some tinkering. vesafb-tng still doesn't work for me - same oops very early during bootup as in 2.6.8-rc3-nitro1. UHCI USB also hangs during bootup when compiled into the kernel, but works fine when compiled as a module O.o.

The system does feel very responsive compared to 2.6.7-gentoo-r11, so I'm happy  :Smile: 

Many thanks indeed for this patchset.

----------

## Pink

If you want to update this nitro with the 2.6.8.1 error fix then apply the patch below.

essential to update nitro1 if:

You use nfs

not essential to update if:

You don't use nfs

For some reason, a lot of fuss has been made over this simple fix. It is not a nice little upgrade or security fix that could be ignored if you use nfs. It is code that was simply forgotten to be put in the kernel, a simple mistake. It is required to make nfs work correctly.

So, to apply the simple fix without having to fix rejects and the like yourself, do the following things, in this order and all will be fixed for you:

1. download the adjusted fix from here

2. cd into your nitro1 kernel directory (ie: cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-nitro1)

3. enter the following command:

```
patch -p1 < /path/to/nitro1_2.6.8.1_fix.patch
```

4. You will see one line telling you code has been patched

5. recompile the kernel using:

```
make && make modules_install
```

This will take less than 10 seconds as you are not recompiling the whole kernel again   :Very Happy: 

6. Mount /boot

7. copy the new bzImage over

8. reboot

Just my opinion and 1st request, but can we leave this alone now? The fix is here. End of story. 

2nd request from me to the patch builders, please don't leave people to fix rejects by saying 'adjust this patch before you apply the fix' or 'ignore this reject', etc. If people are able to do that sort of thing confidently they would use their own kernels. This took me less than 3 minutes to sort out, try to remember why people use your patches and how you felt the first time you saw a reject in your kernel and were then told to ignore it   :Shocked: 

----------

## pleusicles

I have the same problem as Illissius with reiserfs + barrier=flush  :Sad: 

----------

## SysOP XXL

Barriers aren't working here either...

Illisius: What about the Gentoo LiveCD? That should do the job too.

----------

## Illissius

I haven't downloaded that, and doing so would likely take a bit longer than Knoppix does to boot  :Wink: .

----------

## butters

Sweet! This nitro mounts my reiser4 root filesystem without core dumping!  Everything seems to be working here, and very responsive as usual.  Thank you PickledOnion for clearing up the 2.6.8.1 confusions, your patch applies and compiles uneventfully.  In the corporate world, those responsible for 2.6.8 would already be cleaning out their desks, but we'll glady run a four-digit kernel as long as the forum threads speak of it kindly  :Smile: 

Two stupid questions:

1. I've been blessed with hardware that NEVER works with vesafb, or any other type of framebuffer, while everyone else's hardware I've set up does framebuffer just fine.  Needless to say I haven't been paying attention to the posts about vesa-tng, since I don't use framebuffer.  So, is the normal VESA framebuffer option in the graphics section actually the vesa-tng you speak of?  I think I'll give it a try and see if anything drastic has changed to make either my i810e or Intel Extreme (sigh) i855GM work... after all they should be VESA compliant.

2. Write barriers work with ext3 and ReiserFS, but NOT Reiser4, right?  Just wanted to clear this up.

----------

## pleusicles

It seems that 2.6.8-nitro1 doesn't actually have the write barriers patch. I've searched for the string 'blk_queue_ordered' in the patchset, but it can't be found.

----------

## Anarcho

Could so be so kind to give me (as a kernel-patching newbie) a brief description of what the pathes are for?

So I can decide whether to use them or not.

The framebuffer-ng i already know, but the other are very unfamiliar.

Thanks in advance!

----------

## seppe

Weird, write barriers should be in. I even fixed at reject on it. I guess I did something wrong then, sorry for that :/

vesafb-tng doesn't work at my machine either, but I *think* that I haven't set it up right.

----------

## fro5tbite

everything runs perfect, my machine feels snapier   :Very Happy:  .. but i dont know why i cant get the vesafb workin..    :Crying or Very sad:   ... my box just froze when it boot up with the vesafb enabled on the kernel

----------

## PLum

there is problem with madwifi drivers - i work on 2.6.8-rc3nitro

but now it cant compile  :Sad:  .. i didnt have time to check is that problem on the vanila 2.6.8,

----------

## qxek

I have problems with vesa-ntg too :/

If i compile this option in kernel, it doesn't want to boot. I tried various ways and always was this same.

----------

## thedumbkid

I guess vesa-tng is working for me

only problem I have is that gensplash doesn't work so well...

it shows my silent bootsplash... then somewhere during boot it switches to verbose by itself and the entire screen gets messed up graphics  :Sad: 

oh well

at one point I had it perfectly though, not sure what I messed up

also, Win4Lin's not gonna work with this kernel is it?

----------

## Illissius

Hmm, this has a problem where it freezes for a few seconds sometimes when I'm loading multiple webpages at once, so I'll go back to 2.6.7-ck5 for now. Anyone know what could be causing it? (And yes, I added the routeirq=pci (or whatever it was) thingy to the kernel line, it was a lot worse before I did that.)

----------

## Anarcho

So it seems that nobody really knows what these patches are for?

Good...I installed them.

But can't notifie any diffs to my vanilla....

Only that it starts slower, 'cause the videomode switch from the vesafb-ng takes longer than the original vesafb.

vesafb-ng works but it does not use the @85 frequency setting.

I got a ATI Radeo 9700. 

Any ideas ?

----------

## qxek

There is new staircase seppo: http://ck.kolivas.org/patches/2.6/2.6.8.1/from_2.6.8.1_to_staircase7.I

----------

## Pink

 *thedumbkid wrote:*   

> also, Win4Lin's not gonna work with this kernel is it?

 

I'm afraid not. Hopefully I will sort it out (or someone else will as I'm not the only person in the world doing win4lin patches) next week when I get my system fixed. 

HTH   :Very Happy: 

----------

## Pink

deleted: double post. 

These forums are getting worse and worse every bloody day, the promise of new hardware never seems to materialise either   :Evil or Very Mad: 

----------

## Deepu Sudhakar

Sorry...this may have been covered before, but how do you switch schedulers?

What options do I have with this kernel, and what are the differences between them?

Thanks in advance.

----------

## Raku

what are these bariers for?

can you give me a short introdution, please?

----------

## teutzz

it depends: 

a. for i/o schedulers you append to your boot loader append line something like 

```
elevator=something
```

 where something is either cfq, as, deadline etc. some kernels even support doing this on the fly but that's a diffrent story

b. for cpu schedulers there are only a few that have more then one (the first that comes to my mind are the xx-sources); but like I said kernels usually have only one cpu scheduler and depending on the source you are using the scheduler may very (some names: staircase, Xched, np, just to name a few)  :Very Happy: 

----------

## teutzz

BTW thanks seppe for a really great kernel

----------

## scaba

 *raku wrote:*   

> what are these bariers for?
> 
> can you give me a short introdution, please?

 

from a -love thread: http://lwn.net/Articles/77074/

----------

## seppe

I checked it and indeed .. I forgot to add write-barriers in this release.

So I made a write-barriers patch for this release.

Download at http://www.sepi.be/nitro/patches/2.6.8-nitro1-write-barriers

How to apply?

I assume that /usr/src/linux points to /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-nitro1

```

cd /usr/src/linux

patch -p1 < /path/to/2.6.8-nitro1-write-barriers

```

recompile your kernel .. et voila, you have write-barriers support  :Wink: 

----------

## thedumbkid

what is write-barriers support for???   :Question: 

----------

## seppe

 *thedumbkid wrote:*   

> what is write-barriers support for???  

 

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> The return of write barriers
> 
> One of the tasks on the 2.5 "to do" list was the implementation of proper write barriers in the block I/O subsystem. Any code which attempts to implement true transactional behavior on disk-based files needs this capability. Without it, systems like journaling filesystems and database managers lack the control they need over the order in which data is written to disk. Mis-ordered writes can lead to data corruption and other unfortunate things.
> ...

 

In other words, it controls write actions to your filesystem so you'll have less chance to end up with a corrupted filesystem. Correct me if I'm wrong.

----------

## kos

Worked a whole day without problems on this kernel but just got this error while compiling xine-ui (4k stacks are off):

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 8000000f
> 
>  printing eip:
> ...

 

waiting for a version with fresh r4 snapshot..

----------

## Raku

kos:

i've got the same starting from 2.6.8-rc3-nitro1, but it was with 4k stacks on

whenever i started to compile anything, i got system crush (only hard reset helped).

i switched 4k off just a minute ago (new 2.6.8-nitro1) and kdelibs is compiling for almost half an hour (not possible before)

----------

## jse86

what the heck is a nitro patched source?

----------

## butters

To those confused about the purpose of the nitro patchset, or any of the others (love, xx, mm, ck, etc.):

As you can see on the first post in this thread, this kernel is kernel.org's vanilla 2.6.8 kernel, with a bunch of patches applied that make changes to the kernel source code.  Some of these patches enable support for features not available in the mainline kernel:

reiser4, win4lin, supermount, squashfs, BadRAM workaround, lirc remote controls

And some of these patches are improvements on existing kernel technologies:

CFQ i/o scheduler, vesafb-tng, gensplash, staircase process scheduler

But the majority are patches to reduce latency (response time) for desktop users.  This patchset is by far the fastest kernel I have ever used, in terms of the snappy response and general interactivity.

The hidden purpose of these patchsets is to allow many users to use and test new technologies that will one day make it to the mainline kernel.  For example, reiser4 will soon become a standard filesystem option in the vanilla kernel.  The testing made possible by nitro-sources and other reiser4-enabled patchsets helps developers iron out any wrinkles that remain so that the general release will go smoothly.

A word of advice is to always keep a backup kernel in your /boot partition that you know will boot your system.  Although most of the problems I've had with various patchsets are minor stability problems, somtimes they won't boot at all for one reason or another.  So make sure to keep your trusty stable kernel in your bootloader menu just in case.

----------

## jj11888

 *butters wrote:*   

> 
> 
> 1. I've been blessed with hardware that NEVER works with vesafb, or any other type of framebuffer, while everyone else's hardware I've set up does framebuffer just fine.  Needless to say I haven't been paying attention to the posts about vesa-tng, since I don't use framebuffer.  So, is the normal VESA framebuffer option in the graphics section actually the vesa-tng you speak of?  I think I'll give it a try and see if anything drastic has changed to make either my i810e or Intel Extreme (sigh) i855GM work... after all they should be VESA compliant.

 

I dont no about the i855gm, but the i810e i can help you with

vesa and vesafb and vesa-tng is NOT compatable with intel cards, dont even waste your time tring

Theres a i810fb driver that you can use, look at Documentation/fb/i810.txt, i use this in my grub.conf:

```
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda3 dev=/dev/hdc video=i810fb:vram:2,xres:1024,yres:768,bpp:16,hsync1:30,hsync2:66,vsync1:50,vsync2:130 gentoo=nodevfs elevator=cfq splash=verbose,theme:EvenNewerTux

```

----------

## pleusicles

seppe: thanks for the barriers patch  :Smile: 

----------

## Archangel1

 *jj11888 wrote:*   

> 
> 
> vesa and vesafb and vesa-tng is NOT compatable with intel cards, dont even waste your time tring
> 
> 

 

That's a bit of a generalisation.... framebuffer & bootsplash are working absolutely fine on my i830 notebook. Admittedly it's been _really_ weird with vesafb-tng so far, but none of those kernels have worked terribly well on my machine yet anyway.

----------

## kos

 *raku wrote:*   

> kos:
> 
> i've got the same starting from 2.6.8-rc3-nitro1, but it was with 4k stacks on
> 
> whenever i started to compile anything, i got system crush (only hard reset helped).
> ...

 

4k stacks is a known r4 problem, they aren't supported yet. Tried lots of kernels in attempt to find one that won't fail on compilation before found out this fact. But 2.6.8-nitro1 oopses even with 8k stacks. Rolled back to 2.6.8-rc3-nitro1 for now, had no problems with it for several weeks.

----------

