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Linus Tovalds the proverbial godfather of Linux announced the official release of a new kernel on Friday bringing it up to version 2.6.27. The new version adds both ath9k wireless drivers from Atheros, and a new gspca driver which will drastically increase the number of webcams supported by the OS out of box. Some of the changes such as “function tracing framework” and “memory-mapped IO’s” are mostly for developers, but this isn’t all that was included. The performance improvements to the Ext4 file system are rumored to be substantial and a new file system called UBIFS was implemented for flash storage devices. Perhaps the most significant change however from 2.6.26 (only 3 months ago) was in the scalability of the OS. Support for up to 4096 processors now works out of box and I for one would like to try out the system they were testing this feature with. A full log of the changes has been released and you can read either the translated or developer editions for more information. Oh and did we mention that Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) received some pretty impressive looking new wallpapers? Click the images to see them full size.
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thefuzz4
October 13, 2008 at 8:52pm
I've been running Kubuntu now since March 08. I have vista installed for when I want to play Flight Sim X but other than that I stay in Kubuntu all the time. I also installed it at work as my native OS. Everyone at work wishes that Vista had some of the graphical enhancements that Compiz offers. When I first demonstrated that they were impressed especially with the cube. I am anxious for this latest release of Kubuntu to come out. I've been tempted to install the beta but with the release coming on Oct 30 I figure that I can wait a few more weeks.
Oh and one last thing I wish MS would get on board with the linux community and figure out how to install hot patches. Having to reboot everytime you update windows is such a pain in the ass. Especially servers I hate having to bring a server down for updates.
maniacm0nk3y
October 13, 2008 at 6:59am
The wallpaper are pretty well thought out, in my opinion. An artisitc flair to a simple outline, which also could simbolize how the Ubuntu history has been. Starting from rocks and hammers and now up to this. Can't wait to download this.
gatorXXX
October 13, 2008 at 3:42am
Look at the wallpapers....whats up with linux's obssesion with chickens??? The third wallpaper looks like a chicken with a mohawk!!! LOL
Keith E. Whisman
October 13, 2008 at 12:07am
Have they solved the problem with the Creative PCI Xfi Extreme Gamer cards not working in linux yet? What I mean is do they have a working driver? I mean what really pissed me off was that most people were just cursing Creative and telling others to just trash their Xfi cards rather than solve the problem and get the card working. I'm not going to toss my $100 sound card that works great in Windows because it works not at all in Linux.
Does Ubunto 8.10 support my Creative Xfi Extreme Gamer card? I can't find any information about it at the site.
ubuwalker31
October 13, 2008 at 3:19pm
I have gotten my X-Fi Xtreme Gamer working under Ubuntu by replacing ALSA and using the OSS drivers, with limited functionality - no surround sound and no mic. Creative's proprietary beta drivers don't work well in Ubuntu. As of October, the ALSA development team seems to be working on porting the OSS drivers to ALSA, but there seems to be a lot of drama trying to create an ALSA only solution. You can read the thread here: http://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipermail/alsa-devel/2008-October/011133.html
steevols
October 12, 2008 at 5:00pm
The fact is, WINE is the single most advanced and effective way to run Windows software natively under Linux. If you aren't completely satisfied with it, though, you can always try installing Windows under VirtualBox and running it "seamlessly", which essentially throws a Start menu on your screen and runs Windows on top of Linux. Performance is not too great, though.
If at first you don't succeed, you fail.
Caboose
October 12, 2008 at 3:36pm
The one thing that I'd really like to see with Linux (Ubuntu specifically) is support for windows apps (Yes, I know there's wine, but it'd be nice to have something that's a little easier to use).
And I hope that with this new kernel, we'll see some better support from team ATI
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
wk
October 13, 2008 at 6:21am
I'm new to linux world and just tried Ubuntu last week (installed inside windows)
my humble opinion; i think its great OS, sure it needs some tweaking and be more user friendly, but i have no doubt that it has great potential to be future OS for everyone.
MPC is my home page
Lord Omega
October 12, 2008 at 1:40pm
I am an advid fan of Ubuntu and this next version looks as promising and reliable as 7.10. I took a good 2-3 months for 8.04 to get all of its bugs fixed, so hopefully this next one will work rather well. Great job guys on the Ubuntu Dev team, keep up the great work!
