Stable Kernel 2.6.25.8

Well, look like the 2.6.25 development tree quite fast recently. Stable 2.6.25 development according to  Greg Kroah Hartman on his presentation at Google Tech Talk earlier this month achieved higher statistics compared to other releases.

There are some bug fixes that apply to x86 system. I think i should upgrade my current 2.6.25.4 that running on my slackware box to this one.

Indonesian Linux user can view the changelog here and download here .

Popularity: 14% [?]

Nvidia Linux Driver x86 173.14.09

Less than two weeks ago, I posted about Nvidia Linux Driver 173.14.05, and now Nvidia already released their latest driver again.

This release added preliminary support for upcoming kernel 2.6.26.

Here their release highlight :

Fixed aliased font rendering corruption on X.Org server 1.5.

Fixed a display corruption problem driving two dual-link DFPs with Quadro FX 1700 GPUs.

Fixed a regression that prevented the X driver from starting on some GeForce FX, 6 and 7 mobile GPUs.

Fixed a locale-interaction issue in the nvidia-settings X server configuration file parser.

Added preliminary support for Linux 2.6.26

Download page can be found here.

Popularity: 19% [?]

CPU Usage Limiter For Linux

For you guys who manage shared server based on Linux and having problem with your users CPU consumption, now there is a CPU Usage Limiter for Linux.

cpulimit is a simple program that attempts to limit the cpu usage of a process (expressed in percentage, not in cpu time). This is useful to control batch jobs, when you don’t want them to eat too much cpu. It does not act on the nice value or other scheduling priority stuff, but on the real cpu usage. Also, it is able to adapt itself to the overall system load, dynamically and quickly.

I haven’t tried this on latest 2.6.25.4 kernel, but the author said that cpulimit should work on every linux kernel 2.2 or greater.

More detail can be found here.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Nvidia Linux Driver x86 173.14.05

Nvidia latest Linux Driver version 173.14.05 has been released on May 28th,2008. With this version, you don’t have to patch the driver for kernel 2.6.25.

Here are the their Release Highlight :

Added support for the following new GPUs:

• Quadro FX 3600M
• GeForce 9800 GX2
• GeForce 9800 GTX
• GeForce 9600 GT
• GeForce 9600 GSO
• GeForce 9600 GS

GeForce 9500M GS

GeForce 8400

GeForce 8400 GS

Added support for Quadro FX 5600/4600 SDI and Quadro G-Sync II.

Resolved a bug causing left and right eyes to be reversed in stereo mode on some Quadro FX GPUs.

Fixed a problem that caused OpenGL to stop rendering to windows with origins at or beyond 4096 pixels (horizontally) on GeForce 8 and 9 GPUs.

Fixed a bug causing some Quadro FX 4500 SDI configurations to take a long time to achieve synchronization.

Added preliminary support for X.Org server 1.5.

Addressed a problem causing visual corruption when using GeForce 8 GPUs to drive Chi Mei 56″ displays.

Addressed visual corruption when driving Cintiq 20WSX wide format tables with some GeForce 6 and 7 GPUs.

Fixed OpenGL rendering corruption with textures compressed using the DXT5 compression algorithm.

Fixed a regression that caused invalid EDIDs to be detected for the internal display device on some notebooks.

Improved hotkey switching and power management support on some GeForce 8 notebooks.

Fixed a regression causing some GeForce 6100/6150 systems to fail to restore the screen after DPMS cycles.

Fixed a bug that prevented the console from being restored correctly in SLI mode on GeForce 6 and 7 GPUs.

Fixed interlaced modes on GeForce 8 GPUs.

Fixed a problem that caused the synchronization signal polarity to always be positive for DVI devices on GeForce 8 and 9 GPUs.

Resolved a problem resulting in X startup to fail on some GeForce 8 and 9 systems without swap space.

Fixed a bug resulting in X crashes when using GeForce 8 and 9 GPUs in SLI to drive X screens at depth 8.

Fixed a problem that caused TV output on secondary TVs to be black and white on some GPUs.

Restored compatibility with recent Linux 2.6 kernels.

Download and installation instruction can be found here.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Sheryl Nome starring May’n Live R-Zero Appearance

For all you Macross Frontier and Japanese music fans out there, Nakabayashi May (Sheryl’s voice in all the songs) made an appearance several days ago on TBS’s Live R-Zero program and sang Diamond Crevasse in its entirety. Here’s the video from Daily Motion :

Can’t wait until the first Macross Frontier OST release on next Wednesday.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Update to Slackware 12.1

Slackware community already released their latest stable version, Slackware 12.1 last week. Here’s the announcement :

Well folks, it’s that time to announce a new stable Slackware release again. So, without further ado, announcing Slackware version 12.1! Since we’ve moved to supporting the 2.6 kernel series exclusively (and fine-tuned the system to get the most out of it), we feel that Slackware 12.1 has many improvements over our last release (Slackware 12.0) and is a must-have upgrade for any Slackware user.

Among the many program updates and distribution enhancements, you’ll find better support for RAID, LVM, and cryptsetup; a network capable (FTP and HTTP, not only NFS) installer; and two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.4.2, a fast, lightweight, and visually appealing desktop environment, and KDE 3.5.9, the latest 3.x version of the full-featured K Desktop Environment.

The official announcement has more details. Also please consider helping to support the project financially at http://store.slackware.com (the CD set and DVD are off to replication, but pre-orders are being taken now). Your kind support and the help of many volunteers is what makes this project possible. Huge thanks are due to everybody who pitched in and helped with bug reports, patches, testing, suggestions, other comments, and everything else. Without this valuable input, Slackware would be nowhere near what it is today. Special thanks to the CREW, to the people developing and testing for slackbuilds.org (where many of Slackware’s future additions are first built and tested), and to everyone on linuxquestions.org, various #slackware or ##slackware IRC channels, other Slackware related web sites, and other places where the community shares their needs and concerns with the team. On behalf of everyone here, thanks. We think you’ll enjoy this new release, and hope that you’ll find it to be much more than 0.1 better than Slackware 12.0.

Have fun!

Pat and the Slackware team

You can find complete release announcement here.

Last Sunday, I already updated my distribution to Slackware 12.1 with full re-install from Slackware 12.1 I have to do this because of an failed attempt of manual upgrade following the instruction from UPGRADE.TXT and CHANGES_AND_HINT>TXT that ruined my Dropline Gnome installation.

Now my Slackware 12.1 is working perfectly .

Popularity: 49% [?]

Phoronix Test Suite

Sometimes feels so hard to find an reliable benchmark suite on Linux, until recently I found Phoronix Test Suite.

What is Phoronix Test Suite ?

The Phoronix Test Suite is the most comprehensive testing and benchmarking platform available for Linux and is designed to carry out qualitative and quantitative benchmarks in a clean, reproducible, and easy-to-use manner. This software is based upon the internal tools and extensive Linux benchmarking work done by Phoronix since 2004, with input from tier-one computer hardware vendors. This software is open-source and licensed under the GNU GPLv3 and consists of a lightweight core (pts-core) with each benchmark consisting of an XML-based profile with related utility scripts. The process from the benchmark installation, to the actual benchmarking, to the parsing of important hardware and software components is heavily automated and completely repatable, asking users only for confirmation of actions.

You can also post and compare your benchmark result online via Phoronix Test Suite Global . I’ll try this benchmark suite on my overclocked E2160 and post the result later.

Detailed info can be found here .

Popularity: 52% [?]

Linux Kernel 2.6.26-rc1 Released

After 2.6.25 became mainline kernel last month, now it’s the time for the successor. Linux kernel 2.6.26-rc1 (release candidate 1) has been announced last Saturday by Linus Torvalds.

Among the changes in the Linux 2.6.26-rc1 kernel are x86 PAT support, file-system updates (including EXT4), a generic 802.11 layer, and mainline kgdb support for kernel debugging.

The Linux 2.6.26-rc1 release announcement can be read at LKML.org.

Popularity: 56% [?]

Dell XPS 730 H2C For Your Rig!?

Recently, Dell just announced their custom based build PC for high end gaming desktop and entertainment called XPS 730.

These rig have price range from $3999 to $5999 and their main specification consist of :

• Intel Core 2 Q9450/ Core 2 Extreme QX9650
• 2 - 4 GB DDR 3 SDRAM
• 500 GB - 1TB SATA II HDD
• Single or Dual Card ATI Radeon 3870 / 3870X2
• Sound Blaster XFI X-Treme Gamer Sound Card.

Do you dare to build these custom based PC from Dell?? If I have that amount of money, I’ll use it for my postgraduate college or build my own custom based server.

More Info at Dell .

Popularity: 57% [?]

Update to Kernel 2.6.25

Last night, I updated my slackware box using kernel 2.6.25. It took 45 minutes to compile on my E2160 processor.
As usual, after upgrading into a new kernel i had to re-ran Nvidia Driver installer to compile driver for my new kernel. Unfortunately, current driver that i use (169.12) can not installed on 2.6.25 without prior modification.

Thanks to Willy Sudiarto Rahardjo , for his patch information on Nvidia driver. You can find the patch on here.

Popularity: 67% [?]