# 2.6.8-rc2-nitro3 "Shaken, not stirred"

## seppe

The new nitro-sources patchset is here!

notes:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> 2.6.8-rc2-win4lin.patch.bz2
> 
> from_2.6.8-rc2_to_staircase7.A.bz2
> ...

 

I left out voluntary-preemption since it's still in heavy development (mingo, the maintainer, updates this patch almost more than 2 times a day) and a lot of people have problems with it.

ebuild at http://www.sepi.be/nitro/2.6.8-rc2-nitro3/nitro-sources-2.6.8_rc2-r3.ebuild

For a complete 'how to install this', look at http://sepi.be/index.php?itemid=793

For those who don't know what this is. Well, nitro-sources is a new patchset based on Con Kolivas' patches + other popular patches like win4lin, lirc, reiser4, bootsplash and vesafb-tng. It's a bit like love-sources, with the main difference that nitro-sources uses the Staircase scheduler from Con Kolivas and love-sources uses Nick Piggins' scheduler. Nitro-sources is as well optimized for desktop use and gaming.

WARNING I haven't tested Reiser4 myself, but it compiled cleanly. Can anyone test it? Thanks!

UPDATE Reiser4 seems to work without any problems

Feel free to suggest other patches. Helping me to maintain this patch set is also welcome, because I'm still new to all this patchset stuff.

Many thanks to PickledOnion for helping me out with failed hunks and his great win4lin patches as well to the #love-sources community and Con Kolivas and all the other people who created those excellent patches. 

Have fun with it  :Smile: 

----------

## Rainmaker

kernel running fine on my reiser4 system

it works!

Thanks

BTW: is staircase enabled by default? or do I need to pass elevator=?

----------

## seppe

Good!  :Smile: 

----------

## seppe

 *Quote:*   

> BTW: is staircase enabled by default? or do I need to pass elevator=?

 

It's enabled by default. 

elevator is for I/O scheduler I think.

----------

## Rainmaker

damn, I keep mixing i/o with cpu schedulers   :Laughing: 

I'll never learn  :Razz: 

----------

## seppe

nitro-sources uses the cfq I/O scheduler btw, thanks to the defaultcfq.diff patch.

----------

## GentooBox

I would really like to test your kernel, but i get this error:

 *Quote:*   

>   CC      drivers/video/fbmem.o
> 
> In file included from drivers/video/fbmem.c:39:
> 
> include/video/vesa.h:22: error: field `regs' has incomplete type
> ...

 

I think its the vesa patch you put in the kernel, so i will try to reverse the patch in a moment.

btw: there is a new version of the vesa patch:

http://dev.gentoo.org/~spock/projects/vesafb-tng/

----------

## GaryMercer

Hmmm, FB and bootsplash don't seem to be working for me.

Everything else is running sweet tho.

Here's my grub.conf

```

title=Gentoo 2.6.8 rc2 Nitro3

root (hd0,0)

kernel /bzImage-2.6.8-rc2-nitro3 root=/dev/hda3 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,noedid,nocrtc,1280x1024@-1660

initrd=/boot/initrd-1280x1024

```

Relevant kernel bits

```

<*>   VESA VGA graphics support                                                        

 (1280x1024@60) VESA default mode

```

```

<*> Loopback device support                                                                                                                                <*> RAM disk support  

 [*]   Initial RAM disk (initrd) support

```

```

  --- VGA text console

[*]   Video mode selection support                                                   

 <*> Framebuffer Console support                                                      

```

EDIT - Spotted my error.  Changed my GRUB.CONF to this

```

title=Gentoo 2.6.8 rc2 Nitro3

root (hd0,0)

kernel /bzImage-2.6.8-rc2-nitro3 root=/dev/hda3 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,noedid,nocrtc,1280x1024-16@60

initrd=/boot/initrd-1280x1024

```

The only thing now is how do I get bootsplash to start straight away

----------

## GentooBox

I reversed the vesa patch, and it compiles now.

----------

## GentooBox

I rebooted, and the kernel is now running. - and.... it feels faster than gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.7-r10.

firefox is faster, juk is faster and kde startup is faster.

nitro-sources was based on ck's patchset right ? maby you should write that in you list.

Is the ck-patches included in the patch-2.6.8-rc2-nitro3.bz2 file ?

Stuff that dont work on my box:

I cant mount fat partitions. 

 *Quote:*   

>  mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda2,
> 
> or too many mounted file systems

 

it works with gentoo-dev-sources

The nitro-sources dont compile with the vesa patch, it works if i reverse the patch. I have an amd64.

EDIT: DAMN ! this kernel really rocks ass... startup times is very fast !

----------

## seppe

That's weird, vesafb works perfectly here.

----------

## GentooBox

 *seppe wrote:*   

> That's weird, vesafb works perfectly here.

 

I just edited my last post, It is maby because i have an AMD64 CPU.

----------

## seppe

yes, nitro-sources uses all ck patches + lirc, bootsplash, vesafb, win4lin, reiser4 and some other nifty things.

I think I wrote it clearly enough in my first post that it's based at ck, no?

I used love sources for a long time, but when I checked out ck again I was amazed ... that staircase scheduler is just awesome! All my apps started up much quickier. But I missed a lot of things in ck, like bootsplash and win4lin, and that's why I decided to create this patchset.

Have fun

----------

## GentooBox

Yes, you did point out that it was based on ck's patchset.

but you should still include it in your kernel patch list.

just so we know witch version of ck's patchset you used.

plus - when a new kernel pops up at this forum, then some  people want to know is what it include, so they look at the kernel patch list, and nothing more.

----------

## seppe

You could try to reverse the vesa-tng patch first and then apply the vesa-rrc patch (or that newer vesa-tng you told me about, maybe it's fixed?). I don't know about bootsplash, I don't use it anymore because I'm too lazy to fix my bootsplash config file  :Smile: 

And I don't know what's wrong with those fat partitions, sorry.

----------

## seppe

I posted the notes, they let you see which patches + their versions I applied. I used the latest snapshot I found in the ck mailing list created by DaMouse; 2.6.8-rc2-bk1 that is. Only ck6version.diff was left out, because it generated failed hunks and is not really needed here. Isn't that what you mean and need?

----------

## GentooBox

 *seppe wrote:*   

> You could try to reverse the vesa-tng patch first and then apply the vesa-rrc patch (or that newer vesa-tng you told me about, maybe it's fixed?). I don't know about bootsplash, I don't use it anymore because I'm too lazy to fix my bootsplash config file 
> 
> And I don't know what's wrong with those fat partitions, sorry.

 

The new vesa patch (r3) dont work ether...

hehe, too lazy ? lazyness is a bad thing.   :Twisted Evil: 

I think i know why my fat partitons dont work... i noticed that 2 new options was presented in the filesystems menu:

CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE=437

CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET="iso8859-1"

I think that they screw up my fat partitions.

I had a look at "man mount" and there is fat specific mount options called codepage and iocharset, and they are set to 437 and iso8859-1 as default, so i dont know why they dont work.

----------

## brankob

On my Opteron it doesn't  compile.

It seems thatReiser4 patch is killing it :

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
>  CC      fs/reiser4/stats.o
> 
>   CC      fs/reiser4/jnode.o
> ...

 

----------

## GentooBox

 *brankob wrote:*   

> On my Opteron it doesn't  compile.
> 
> It seems thatReiser4 patch is killing it :
> 
>  *Quote:*   
> ...

 

This guy has the same problem:

http://www.mail-archive.com/reiserfs-list@namesys.com/msg13521.html

EDIT: I have the same problem on my AMD64.

----------

## GentooBox

seppe - I dont know if you are doing it already, but it would be a good idea if you tested (if it compiles) the kernel before releasing it.

You can test it by:

```

make allyesconfig

make

```

----------

## WaVeX

I would just like to say thx for providing these sources. 

I just got done moving from love-2.6.8-rc1-love1 to this kernel. Don't get me wrong love is great but I wanted to give something else a try for awhile. . 

This source compiled fine and is working great!!!

----------

## Pink

 *GentooBox wrote:*   

> seppe - I dont know if you are doing it already, but it would be a good idea if you tested (if it compiles) the kernel before releasing it.
> 
> You can test it by:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

You would rarely get a heavily patched kernel to compile that way.

Take the reiser4 patch for example -  if you choose all the options it will not compile, at least that was the case a few weeks ago.

Also, how does you test it for single processor support and so on -  choose make allyesconfig, but then go and uncheck some options?

Not putting your idea down but I have always found that compiling with most of the common options is the best bet. 

Proof of the pudding is shown above where somethings work for some people and not others - even if a make allyesconfig did work, so what? It doesn't mean it will work on a 64 or a ppc or a smp with raid, etc.

You can't get it to work for all possible combinations and an allyes just takes you on an endless journey trying to find the conflicts. 

Out of interest - have you tried an allyes on a vanilla 2.6.7 straight from kernel.org? It doesn't work   :Very Happy: 

----------

## seppe

I couldn't test reiser4 myself, because I don't have a reiser4 partition .. and I'm planning to have one soon as reiser4 goes final. But I compiled reiser4 support in my kernel to check it compiles or not. And another guy in this thread is able to run this kernel with his reiser4 partition, so it looked ok to me. But when it suddenly fails at another architecture, I couldn't really know.

It's the same story with the vesa-tng patch as well, it works perfectly here at my machine. So I expect it to run without any problems on other machines as well. 

To summarize: I try to test it as much as possible, but some errors occur only on specific architectures (like the AMD64) so I can't track them down while testing.

----------

## blaster999

Well, it works, and works great!

Sorry for a n00bish question: how to reverse the vesa-tng?

EDIT: Never mind, I did it myself. Now compiling...

----------

## Rainmaker

well, reiser and everything compiles clean... Can't notice a significant speed-up though, and experiencing strange lock-ups during emerges (not only big merges, but small merges too). Back to 2.6.7 for me  :Sad: 

----------

## seppe

Rainmaker > did you changed PORTAGE_NICENESS in /etc/make.conf? Because the Staircase scheduler of this kernel is very sensitive to nice values. The goal of this scheduler is to handle nice values like they should (nice value 0 gets 20 times less time to do something then nice value 20). Read CK's notes at http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/ and his annoucement at http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/2744#comment-7871

----------

## blaster999

Everything works, except for bootsplash  :Sad:  How to make it work with vesafb-tng (I didn't manage to cleanly revert it  :Sad:  )? What kernel parameters should I pass?

----------

## scaba

on your kernel line put something like

```
video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1024x768-16@60
```

can't get it to work, though   :Sad: 

----------

## blaster999

Thanks for the tip! However the results are even stranger: at first it complains that no video mode has been set, after I press the spacebar it starts in 80x25 mode, after some seconds it goes to 1024x768 framebuffer (no fb image though) and only at the end of booting the background shows up. Is there a way to revert vesafb-tng without breaking the kernel (last time I tried there was a kernel panic  :Sad: )?

----------

## Rainmaker

Nope, not using PORTAGE_NICENESS

I am renicing reiser4 on bootup, as recommended by love-sources though... Might try without it.

----------

## GentooBox

 *PickledOnion wrote:*   

>  *GentooBox wrote:*   seppe - I dont know if you are doing it already, but it would be a good idea if you tested (if it compiles) the kernel before releasing it.
> 
> You can test it by:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

Why release a kernel that dont work ?

You dont need to run the kernel you test (make allyesconfig).

if something fails, then find out why it fails, and fix it.

then try again. - In this nitro kernel version, the only thing that dont compile is reiser4, lirc and vesa on an AMD64.

I reversed vesa, reiserfs4 and unchecked lirc - and it compiles fine.

being a kernel maintainer is a lot more than just patching a kernel.

----------

## Pink

You misunderstood my point - doing an allyesconfig will make no difference as it will work for some people and not for others. 

Actually you proved my point rather nicely (thankyou   :Very Happy:  ) by showing that if you reversed some patches it compiled fine (presumably by doing an allyesconfig otherwise is was a pointless post) and yet on other computers it is running just dandy.

As to your question of 'Why release a kernel that dont work ?'. Um, who siad the vanilla 2.6.7 doesn't work? I think you missed my point (again) as I said doing an allyes doesn't work on that kernel on my machine, thus showing that it makes no difference doing an allyes as it works for some and not others, I used the vanilla kernel as an example as it is an obvously working and well constructed kernel. A fairly simple and understandable point I thought.

As to your last point - I assume that is a little dig at me - please could you point to the post (in any thread) where I even suggest I am a kernel maintainer - (I'm not, I've got no programming expereince and I have never claimed or even suggested to be one - so, again, um, what was your point?)

----------

## MrApples

i actually think he was referring the seppe, which is not to say it was warranted

----------

## joki

nice kernel!

compiled cleanly and works smoothly  :Smile: 

big thx

----------

## seppe

@GentooBox: I tested this kernel on my machine, and it worked perfectly. Vesafb-tng worked, lirc worked, win4lin worked, the ck patches worked, etc ..

The only thing I hadn't tested was reiser4, simply because I don't have a reiser4 partition .. I'd like to wait to the final version instead of risking my precious Gentoo box now. But I did compiled reiser4 support in my kernel, and it compiled cleanly here without any problems.

Bootsplash didn't worked perfectly, but I thought that was due to etc-update who overwrote my bootsplash conf file the last time I updated my system.

BUT everything compiled cleanly here at my pentium 3 with 800Mhz, and I had no problems with running it.  Too bad I don't own a AMD64, then I would have a killer system and maybe I got the same errors as you and then I wouldn't have released this kernel.

My point: how can I know that the compilation fails on other architecture like the AMD 64? I don't know, but I think I can't  :Smile:  If it compiles cleanly and runs without problems on the architecture(s) *I* own, then it looks stable for me.

Btw, read the warning message when you emerge nitro-sources, it says that this is an experimental patch set etc ..

----------

## GentooBox

 *seppe wrote:*   

> @GentooBox: I tested this kernel on my machine, and it worked perfectly. Vesafb-tng worked, lirc worked, win4lin worked, the ck patches worked, etc ..
> 
> The only thing I hadn't tested was reiser4, simply because I don't have a reiser4 partition .. I'd like to wait to the final version instead of risking my precious Gentoo box now. But I did compiled reiser4 support in my kernel, and it compiled cleanly here without any problems.
> 
> Bootsplash didn't worked perfectly, but I thought that was due to etc-update who overwrote my bootsplash conf file the last time I updated my system.
> ...

 

Oh, i am very sorry if i assaulted your kernel, that was not planned.   :Embarassed: 

I was only suggesting that it would be an idea to test the kernel to see if it even compiled.

and since its such a heavy patched kernel, the best thing you can do is a "make allyesconfig"

i can see that you tested the kernel, good job.

Its better to release a kernel that compile on a x86 cpu than releasing a kernel  that dont  :Smile: 

I am running your kernel right now, and its faster than my normal kernel from gentoo-dev-sources.

I dont know why everything expermental just have to fail on AMD64  :Wink:  - I've got used to it.

----------

## seppe

 *Quote:*   

> Oh, i am very sorry if i assaulted your kernel, that was not planned

 

Hey, you weren't assaulting it, and I said suggestions and comments were welcome  :Smile: 

The AMD64 architecture is just different to a 'normal' x86 architecture, and compatibility looks still like a problem from time to time.

I try to test the kernel as much as possible, but as I said before .. I can't know how it compiles and runs on a different architecture than I have  :Smile: 

But thanks to the 'make allyesconfig' tip, maybe I'll try that. Although that's actually not a good idea .. why would I need ALL possible drivers and options?  I just need to test the patches I provide in this patchset, not the things the base kernel (2.6.8-rc2) provides .. that is not my job, but the official 2.6 kernel maintainer(s)  :Smile: 

----------

## GentooBox

 *seppe wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Oh, i am very sorry if i assaulted your kernel, that was not planned 
> 
> Hey, you weren't assaulting it, and I said suggestions and comments were welcome 
> 
> The AMD64 architecture is just different to a 'normal' x86 architecture, and compatibility looks still like a problem from time to time.
> ...

 

Is it a bad idea to be sure ?  :Wink: 

Well, unless you know excatly what have been patched you dont need allyesconfig but only check the options that have been patched.

----------

## scaba

 *seppe wrote:*   

> The new nitro-sources patchset is here!

 

2.6.8-rc2-nitro3 working fine here. thanks very much for these enhanced ck-sources. looking forward to the next one   :Wink: 

 *blaster999 wrote:*   

> Thanks for the tip! However the results are even stranger: at first it complains that no video mode has been set, after I press the spacebar it starts in 80x25 mode, after some seconds it goes to 1024x768 framebuffer (no fb image though) and only at the end of booting the background shows up. Is there a way to revert vesafb-tng without breaking the kernel (last time I tried there was a kernel panic )?

 

i don't know, sorry. i'm just leaving bootsplash out at the moment. framebuffer works fine w/out bootsplash for me.

----------

## Realmaker

Since i rebooted with this patch-set, sim city 4 isn't working fluently anymore under cedega  :Confused: 

----------

## Pain

I tried this kernel and it toasted my system   :Confused:  Somehow my kernel tree became corrupt so I has to fsck and rebuild it. After that I found all my system files were no longer installed. emerge -s whatever reported no glibc no xorg no nothing and nothing would emerge, had to use the live cd. All part of the fun of new kernels. System going again but despite the trouble  won't stop me trying new stuff.  :Rolling Eyes: . It was almost fun  :Shocked: 

Pain.

----------

## FirechilD

- had a soundproblem witch ut2k4 (im using alsa) -> it was constantly chopped into pieces

- firefox and other apps crashed while their were in use

switched back to the love-sources and everthing is fine ^ ^ 

system specs:

amd 2800+ barton

asus a7n8x deluxe

audigy 2 zs

----------

## scoobydu

Nice patchset  :Smile: 

Tried your latest nitro4 and get the same errors as nitro3;

The fbmem error ... (seems to be amd64 specific)

uhci hangs as well, which is really annoying, as my keyboard is attached to it!?

Not sure it the uhci is a 2.6.8 thing or a nitro specific problem ..

Oh well, back to 2.6.7 for now  :Smile: 

----------

## hotplainrice

Is it possible to patch this kernel with swsusp ?

Sorry cos i dont do programming, i dont get the concept well.

----------

## scaba

 *scoobydu wrote:*   

> Nice patchset 
> 
> Tried your latest nitro4 and get the same errors as nitro3; [...]

 

did i somehow miss the nitro4 thread?

----------

## seppe

The nitro4 thread is coming  :Smile: 

----------

## Elementl

I realize this may be a newbie question -

Why dont I show the nitro sources when i do an emerge search?

Am I missing something?

----------

## d0nju4n

 *Elementl wrote:*   

> I realize this may be a newbie question -
> 
> Why dont I show the nitro sources when i do an emerge search?
> 
> Am I missing something?

 

Elementl:  There is a nice set of instructions about using portage overlay to install these sources here.

It was in the first post of this thread...   :Razz: 

----------

## blk_jack

Maybe you guys should write a detailed HOWTO on what kind of NICE levels people should be having.  There are a *lot* (read: most) of kernels that suggest you change the nice levels of certain applications (X, xmms, etc) to -10 or -15 even.  For instance, I have the verynice daemon setup to change the nice levels of some of my applications to negative.  This works VERY well for love-sources and any other kernels that DON'T use the staircase scheduler.

Here's my problem, though.  I recently installed nitro-sources to check it out and the kernel went nuts with all my default nice values.  Applications (galeon, rhythmbox, etc) were choppy and slow as hell.  I could barely play mp3s without having them skip when I switched windows and all my games in winex were slower and less fluent.

I know it's not your 'job' to detail these kinds of things, but a little heads up or a general reference would be nice.  I bet you lose more than a few people trying out nitro-sources for the first time just because you don't give a simple link to information on nice levels and the difference between schedulers in your kernel posts.

Food for thought.

----------

