O'Reilly: Vanishing Features of the 2.6 Kernel

"Many developers are eagerly awaiting the 2.6 Linux kernel. The feature freeze has passed, with a code freeze planned for January and final release slated for the second quarter of 2003. There is considerable excitement about anticipated enhancements, especially regarding scalability and performance.

"However, some developers may first notice what doesn't work anymore. Some techniques and APIs have been removed, and existing device drivers and modular plugins may no longer work. At the same time, it will take some time to take advantage of new features and to find replacements for old ones.

"Some deprecated techniques, such as task queues, have finally been eliminated. Other facilities, including in-kernel Web acceleration, have been supplanted by newer advances. Other changes, notably banishing the system call table from the list of exported symbols available to modules, have flowed more from philosophical and licensing issues than from technical considerations..."

Complete Story

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• KernelTrap: Andrew Morton on 2.5's Performance Improvements(Nov 18, 2002)
• Bligh: Bugzilla Bug Tracking Database for 2.5 Now Available(Nov 15, 2002)
• Dave Jones: What to Expect in Linux 2.5(Nov 01, 2002)
• KernelTrap: 2.6 vs. 3.0; What's In A Name?(Sep 30, 2002)
• KernelTrap: Linux: 2.5 to Use 2.4's IDE Core(Aug 19, 2002)