Improve Your GNU/Linux Experience With -mm Patches

An anonymous reader writes "Anyone interested in squeezing maximum performance out of their GNU/Linux operating system and willing to compile a new kernel will be interested in this KernelTrap article about Andrew Morton's -mm patchset. The patchset currently offers better stability and performance than the mainline 2.6.0-test kernel, as well as containing numerous functionality enhancements. Much of the additional functionality is described, as well as providing simple step by step installation instructions. Reading this article, one can certainly understand why Linux creator Linus Torvalds has chosen Andrew to soon become the 2.6 maintainer."

synaptics touchpad support

[pbody]

The mm patch is the only reason I use 2.6 on my laptop since it provides the synaptics touchpad support. Yes, I was able to use an external mouse without the patch, but the idea of not being able to use the built in touchpad was really annoying.

Does anyone know why touchpad support is not included in the default 2.6 tree?

Re:synaptics touchpad support

[Dave2 Wickham]

Erm... Because it is?

[dave@tc4 ~/linux-2.5.74]$ grep Synaptics drivers/input/mouse/Kconfig
compatible. Support for Synaptics TouchPads is also included.
For Synaptics TouchPad support in XFree86 you'll need this XFree86

(standard 2.6.0-test5)

Re:synaptics touchpad support

[Dave2 Wickham]

Oh yeah, and it's bad to reply to myself, but the touchpad essentially acts as a PS/2 mouse to anything which doesn't have special drivers.

Re:synaptics touchpad support

[cpeterso]

I was able to use my Dell laptop's touchpad with Linux 2.6.0-test4 without using the -mm tree or applying the new Synaptics driver from XFree86 people. Just add the following kernel boot parameter: psmouse_noext=1

Re:synaptics touchpad support

[BubbleNOP]

I used a Synactics Touchpad on a Dell laptop even back with 2.4 kernels without any problems.

Re:synaptics touchpad support

[jrumney]

My Synaptics touchpad works fine with 2.4 kernels. It is a PS/2 device for the basic functionality after all, and a gpm driver to take advantage of the advanced features has been available for years.

Re:synaptics touchpad support

[datalife]

What's the deal?

There is a customizable touchpad-driver for X11 at
http://www.tuxmobil.org/touchpad_driver.html

All the goodies like horz/vert scrolling and third mousebutton (corner/double tab) are working great.

Re:What we need

[burns210]

actually, except for the address, i think it would be a very good thing to have such easy updates available. Redhat does this, but only on a trial basis, if you want the full thing, you have to pay.

Anyone interested in starting this project up?

Re:What we need

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, let's call it "deb and ian" or something like that.

Re:What we need

[Anonymous Coward]

> actually, except for the address, i think it would be a very good thing to have such easy updates available. Redhat does this, but only on a trial basis, if you want the full thing, you have to pay.

The "trial basis" is in name only; you "pay" for a renewal of a demo subscription (yeah, I know, dumb name) by filling out an innocuous survey every few months - they email you when you need to do one to keep the sub active. It's questions like "what Red Hat documentation do you consider strongly recommende

Been done

[SiMac]

It's called yum [duke.edu].

I use it on all of my machines. It works very nicely.

Oh yes!

[Kaladis Nefarian]

I've been using the -mm patchset since 2.5.4x and have been very happy with it. Since it includes the Interactivity patches from Con Kolivas [kolivas.org] it kicks ass on your desktop, too. Even moreso than the 2.4.x-ck series of patches, which are intended for desktop use. Do note however that it is sometimes more experimental in nature than the mainline kernel, since new functionality is often tested out there first.

If you know how to patch your kernel already, you don't need to read the article, get the patch for your kernel here: http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm /patches/2.6/ [kernel.org]

Re:Oh yes!

[Kaladis Nefarian]

Sorry, the Con Kolivas link should be kernel.kolivas.org [kolivas.org], but you can find the patches on the other one ;-)

Re:Oh yes!

[enodev]

The interactivity tweaks have just gone mainline: http://linus.bkbits.net:8080/linux-2.5/cset@1.1320 .14.15?nav=index.html|ChangeSet@-1d

Re:Oh yes!

[Kaladis Nefarian]

Excellent! This has been a long time coming. (btw the link doesn't work - bitkeeper doesn't keep any links the same for very long)

Re:Oh yes!

[enodev]

I know (you have to remove the new line), but do you know a consistent way to link bitkeeper changesets? They seem to change all the time.

Re:Oh yes!

[Kaladis Nefarian]

There is no way currently, but Larry McVoy is working on it, apparently. He's the bitkeeper owner.

The big distros

[00_NOP]

I suspect that when the big boys start shipping their 2.6 distros we'll have more to play with - do we wnat a pre-emptive kernel and so on.

I run 2.6 a bit and I am looking forward to that day...as the 2.6 maintainer I suppose we can expect Mr Morton to be plugging most of his bits into the mainline.

Re:The big distros

[Kaladis Nefarian]

Yes, most of his stuff will make it into mainline, and in fact most of the things which have been tested out in -mm have already made it into mainline (hence why the -mm patchset doesn't increase in size constantly). The more experimental things stay behind until they are acceptable, and then he pushes them to Linus. Works well :-)

Re:Hmm

[ion_]

I thought Linux was open source and anyone could damn well do what they please with it.

You're right. That's exactly why e.g. Andrew Morton has been able to make his patchset for Linux.

What's stopping me from becoming the Linux 2.6 kernel maintainer?

Well, duh, "Linus Torvalds has chosen Andrew to soon become the 2.6 maintainer." :-)

Re:Hmm

[joshsnow]

What's stopping me from becoming the Linux 2.6 kernel maintainer?

The fact that you keep trolling on Slashdot, perhaps?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

> Hmm.. I thought Linux was open source and anyone could damn well do what they please with it. What's stopping me from becoming the Linux 2.6 kernel maintainer?

Nothing at all is stopping you from becoming a 2.6 kernel maintainer, in the same way that Alan Cox, Dave Jones et al maintain well-respected 'unofficial', but important, variations on the 2.4 tree. You set up a 2.6 tree, incorporate patches that strike you as being particularly useful, and who knows? - others may feel the same, and your tree (a

Warning to XFS users

[Kaladis Nefarian]

2.6.0-test5-mm3 apparently has a bad snapshot of the XFS code in it. Here's the post from linux-kernel:

From: Steve Lord <lord at sgi dot com>
To: Walt H <waltabbyh at comcast dot net>
Cc: Linux Kernel <linux-kernel at vger dot kernel dot org>,
Linux XFS Mailing List <linux-xfs at oss dot sgi dot com>

On Sun, 2003-09-21 at 13:08, Walt H wrote:
>> Just a follow-up to my earlier post:
>>
>> I've put in the xfs code from mm2 into the mm3 tree and all files get
>> copied and I can manually copy the fstab.backup file afterward. I
>> realized that the "rebuilding directory inode 256" was the lost+found
>> directory, which contained 4 old zero length files. That was the key.
>> XFS under -mm2 doesn't care about old lost+found directories, while -mm3
>> does. If I removed the source lost+found/ and retried rsync's with -mm3,
>> it finishes fine and I can copy fstab files. Adding a bogus lost+found
>> dir with any file in it at the source, and retrying the rsync will lead
>> to a state where I can't overwrite the existing /etc/fstab file at the
>> end. So it doesn't look like there's actually any filesystem corruption,
>> just a strange bug. Hope that helps,
>>
>> -Walt
>>

If I am correct, test5-mm3 contains a bad version of the xfs code, there
was a bug where the i_flags field was setup from an uninitialized stack
variable. mm3 came out during the two days this was in Linus's tree.
I had some very odd behavior with this code base, rm -r -f would try and
cd into files and other bizzare things, files could appear to be
immutable or append only or things they were not. This sounds like
similar behavior you that you saw. It is fixed in the latest code Linus
has.

Steve

So XFS users should probably go with -mm2 for now.

Re:Warning to XFS users

[rf0]

mm4 has a fix as I've just noticed from the Changelog

Rus

Re:Tiresome

[Anonymous Coward]

Development. Series.

If you want stability you run 2.4, which is the stable kernel.

Re:Tiresome

[yanestra]

Development. Series.

If you want stability you run 2.4, which is the stable kernel.

It seems, most users nowadays have long years Windows experience and expect their machine crash every couple of hours. If it doesn't, they patch it till it does.

It's a satisfying feeling to see your machine crash with the highest performance possible.

Better than 2.6??

[smelroy]

patchset currently offers better stability and performance than the mainline 2.6.0-test kernel So if these stability and performance patches are so great as the article says, why aren't they in the main kernel already? Does Linus just not like them??

Re:Better than 2.6??

[gears5665]

My guess is you've never worked on a distributed coding project with over 500 active developers who you've never met face to face. :-P

Its very hard to keep track of all of the things people want you to add to the kernel and make certain that the things you're adding aren't breaking anything, etc. So the linux kernel development process has a number of branches where things get tested first(in addition to the stable branches of the 2.0,2.2,2.4 kernels that need to be maintained). Its been going like this

My experience with kernel patches

[Anonymous Coward]

Also posted on OSNews:

I've tested the 2.6.0-test5 kernel with Con Kolivas' interactivity patch. I've also tested Con's 2.4.21 and 2.4.22 patches and so far nothing can match the gentoo-sources-2.4.20-r5-aavm patch for speed. (I'm using Mandrake 9.1 and GCC 3.3.1, BTW.) Just watching the init scripts running at bootup and how long XFree86 and Mozilla Firebird take to launch, there's no comparison. Considering that this patch uses Con's performance enhancements, I'm not too confident that it can do any better. But maybe I'll test it out and see what it can do.

If anyone is interested in a mini-howto on using the gentoo-sources patch, speak up and I'll try to whip something up.

Re:My experience with kernel patches

[Kaladis Nefarian]

Got a link to these patches?

Re:My experience with kernel patches

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest gentoo-sources patch for 2.4.20 can be downloaded here [ibiblio.org]. Warning - really huge directory listing if you browse all the files.)
Addon patches that update this one can be downloaded here [gentoo.org].

1. Decide if you want the aavm or rmap VM. If you want aa, delete the files ending in .rmap (and vice versa)
2. I followed what the ebuild script does and deleteted the patches starting with 1, 6 and 8.
3. Apply the addon patches in the order that they're listed in the ebuild script.
4. Run your normal make menuconfig/