Cliff’s List Filter – May 26 – June 1

Welcome again to another release of the latest news from the Linux Kernel, GNOME, KDE and Mozilla developer’s lists. This week, there were more discussions on the various issues related to Linux 2.6 performance compared to Linux 2.4, more changes to the Linux swapping system in an attempt to improve system responsiveness, a number of Linux patches for you to try, numerous software releases for GNOME and KDE, and a few more tips for Mozilla users.

Linux Kernel

• If you have been following Dell Linux development, you may have heard about the Dynamic Kernel Module System. DKMS is a method engineered by Dell’s Linux Engineering team to distribute kernel modules that do not exist in the current Linux source tree. The latest changes to the DKMS now adds architecture awareness, which is useful for admins who may have to cross compile various Linux kernels for deployment on their infrastructure. This feature appears in the latest testing versions of DKMS (v1.9x series), users running the stable version of DKMS (v1.10) be able to take advantage of this new feature when they upgrade to the upcoming 2.0 release.
• There have been more reports of slowdowns while comparing Linux 2.4 and 2.6 lately. The most recent report deals with SCSI drive performance. If you’ve been noticing a similar loss of performance on your setups, feel free to share some of your numbers here, or post benchmarks to LKML so that any problems can be properly diagnosed. If you do decide to report your benchmarks to LKML, please be sure to be as detailed as possible.
• Problems were reported this week with an nForce2-based machine with an RTL8169 network card. The problems turned out to exist in the RTL8169 driver, a patch to fix the problem was issued, and the results look to be favorable. If you have been experiencing similar problems with an RTL8169 card under Linux 2.4.2x, please consider applying. The patch was created against 2.4.27-rc3.
• Linux 2.6.6+ users who use xfsdump/xfsrestore might be interested in this reported problem where xfsdump caused the kernel to hang. Fast work by Christoph Hellwig resulted in an XFS fix which looks to correct the problem.
• Alan Cox released a draft version of a new driver for the VIA “Velocity” Gigabit Ethernet card. Users eager to take this device out for a spin under Linux 2.6 should be ready to take it for a test drive after applying this minor fix.
• Stephen Hemminger announces the v1.0 release of his bridge-utilities package on May 26.
• There was a storm of activity on suspend-and-resume issues this week. First off, Todd Poyner releases a patch which leaves user suspended devices off at system resume. This patch caused problems with devices that set their own power state so Todd provided another patch to fix that problem. However, minor errors in the original patches cause Todd to release yet another patch. Sometimes it’s hard to get these things right the first time. Thanks for the hard work, Todd!
• Takao Indoh releases an early version of his diskdump feature for the Linux kernel. This is yet another way of dumping system information to disk in the event of a crash or an oops so that developers can track what went wrong and hopefully fix the problem. If you’ve ever run into a situation where your machine has crashed yet you couldn’t get the necessary information to properly diagnose the problem, then this addition may be worth a try.
• Con Kolivas submitted a patch that updates scheduler policy for 2.6 based kernels. This update implements a kind of “stairstep” approach to assigning priority. It is implied that desktop users will see some performance increases with these changes and that apps that currently hog processors with the old scheduler policy will behave a bit better with this new one. If you are having problems with the responsiveness of some of your desktop applications, applying these changes may be worth a try.
• Laptop users who have problems with conflicts between a connected USB mouse and the built-in touchpad may want to check out this change which prevents the disabling of the touchpad if a USB mouse is detected.
• Linux 2.6.6 kernels that had tuned their swappiness parameter to 0 didn’t perform well when they attempted to suspend to disk. This fix turns off the swappiness so that the suspend functions properly and restores the old swappiness value upon resume. If you’ve been having problems with suspend on your machines, it may be in your best interest to test this. While on the topic of swap, Con Kilvias posted his latest swap changes for Linux 2.6.7-rc2.
• Admins running NFS on Linux 2.6.7-rc1 might to apply this NFS update to prevent a potential kernel oops during operation.
• Linus gives Linux 2.6.7-rc2 to the world, on May 30. If you use floppies, however apply this fix to floppy.c.
• Users who dual boot, and are having problems continuing to do so with 2.6 kernels may find this discussion on boot loaders and hard drive geometries of some use.
• Marcelo Tosatti christens the 4th testing version of Linux 2.4.27 on May 30. If you’re going to compile it, you’ll need to apply this minor correction to tcp_input.c

GNOME

• In Balsa, long lines of text in a message would make for a difficult-to-scroll window size when you went and viewed the message source. This correction to the windowing code should fix the problem.
• Balsa users who seem to be experiencing a problem with GnuPG always rebuilding its trust database may actually only have a stale GnuPG lock file in their home directory. Remove the lock file and the problems should go away.
• Sebastien Bacher offers some options for solving gnome-daemon-settings crashes for those of you who have been experiencing them.
• If you’ve been experiencing Nautilus crashes as it is shutting down, then this Nautilus patch may solve that particular problem.
• Here are some of the new GNOME software releases for this week:
• GHex 2.6.1 was also released on May 26.
• gnopernicus 0.9.4, a screen reader for the visually impaired, was released on May 27.
• The GNOME Hardware Monitor applet v1.0.1 was released on May 27 as well, sporting new translations, fixed anti-aliasing bugs and more new features.
• Monster Masher, a mash’em action game for GNOME, reached version 1.6.1 on May 28.
• gwget2 0.11, a GNOME front end to wget was released on May 30.

KDE

• Atlantik v0.7.0, a KDE client for games based on the monopd, was released on May 29.
• Currently, kpresenter does not allow you to use sound effects unless visual effects are turned on. this patch removes the dependence on visual effects so presentations can just use sound effects.

Mozilla

• Are the fonts in Firefox or Mozilla are too big or too small for your tastes? Try this UserChrome.css tip from Gert Paul, and see if you can adjust them to your liking.
• Mozilla Flashblock users interested in uninstalling it should take a look at this relevant thread.