Linus introduces 2.6.18 kernel on Talk Like a Pirate Day

Cap’n Linus Torvalds announced the release of the 2.6.18 kernel yesterday with a lightly-coded message decipherable only by pirates. The message on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) had a subject line of “Arrr! Linux 2.6.18” and touted many of his crew for their contributions.

Torvalds said in the introduction:

Ahoy!

She’s good to go, hoist anchor!

Here’s some real booty for all you land-lubbers.

There’s not too many changes, with t’bulk of the patch bein’ defconfig
updates, but the shortlog at the aft of this here email describes the
details if you care, you scurvy dogs.

Header cleanups, various one-liners, and random other fixes.

Linus “but you can call me Cap’n”

A sampling of a few of the more memorable updates to the kernel in 2.6.18 which were highlighted in the pirated text of the email obtained by NewsForge further reveals the blaggard’s soul:

Adrian Bunk:
      Ahoy! Make fs/jffs2/nodelist.c:jffs2_obsolete_node_frag() static
      fs/jffs2/xattr.c: maroon dead code

Al "Bilge rat" Viro:
      [IPV4] fib_trie: missin' ntohl() when callin' fib_semantic_match()

Alexey Dobriyan:
      headers_check: improve #include regexp
      headers_check: clarify error message

Alexey Korolev:
      [MTD] Fixes of performance and stability issues in CFI driver. Arrr!

Cap'n Andrew Morton:
      Blimey! hvc_console suspend fix

Andy Walker:
      [SPARC]: Fix mutimous regression in sys_getdomainname()

Arnaud Patard:
      IPMI: Fix oops on ipmi_msghandler removal for non ipmi systems. Gar!

Artem B. Bityutskiy:
      [MTD] NAND: keelhaul marooned URL in Kconfig

Auke Kok:
      e1000: fix bilge-sucking TX timout hang regression for 82542rev3

Ben Dooks:
      [ARM] 3784/1: S3C2413: keelhaul config for MACH_S3C2413/MACH_SMDK2413
      [ARM] 3785/1: S3C2412: Fix idle code as default uses wrong clocks
      [ARM] 3793/1: S3C2412: fix barnacles in wrong serial info struct
      [ARM] 3794/1: S3C24XX: do not defined set_irq_wake when no CONFIG_PM

Chas Williams:
      [ATM]: [he] when transmit fails, unmap t'dma regions right smartly
      [ATM]: [he] don't hold t'device lock when upcalling

Davy Jones:
      Didn't do anything, the scurvy lad. Ahoy!

Geert Uytterhoeven:
      Well blow me down, if he didn't fix 'make headers_check' on ia64

Havasi Ferenc:
      [JFFS2][SUMMARY] Fix a bilge-suckin' summary collectin' bug. Arrr!

Imre Deak:
      genirq: Fix the typo in IRQ resend smartly, cabin boy!

Linus "Cap'n" Torvalds:
      x86: save/restore eflags in context switch
      Avast! Belay those mmiocfg heuristics and blacklist changes
      Linux v2.6.18. Arrr!