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Re: 2.4 kernel how good is it?



On Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 03:03:32PM +1000, John Griffiths wrote:
> 1) Is it any better on low end machines?
> I've got a swarm of 486's, p133's up to a p266 running 2.2.19 right now. 
> Is 2.4 going to give me any recognisable performance boost on this kind 
> of hardware? (i've heard virtual memory use is improved in 2.4 would 
> that help these beasts with low ram but lots of swap?)

I have it running on a P120.  Performance is acceptable.  I didn't spend
enough time in 2.2 to get a feel for how it performed on that hardware,
and I've not done any actual performance testing or anything.

> 2) Will i need to re-do my modules? Particularly with the machine thats 
> got the IDE cd writer i had to do some module voodoo, that i was 
> uncomfortable with, to make it work. or will the upgrade handle that 
> kind of thing? (I'm a cargo-cultist when it comes to modules)

Of course you need to redo your modules.  They're part of the kernel
(well, they become part of the kernel when they're inserted).  Much
changed between 2.2 and 2.4, including the module interface.  Not only
will your current modules not work, but the source for them would not
even work.  They're not at all compatible.

Of course, it's entirely possible that 2.4 has better support for your
particular hardware and you won't need to do any funky module voodoo.

> 3) Apart from the machine with the cd writer my needs are pretty 
> mundane, address the HD's, talk to the network over currently 
> supported NIC's and in one case run an IDE cd-burner would there be 
> a preference between 2.4.2 and 2.4.3?

There are several web pages documenting what you can expect to have
changed between 2.2 and 2.4.  Check out
http://linuxtoday.com/stories/10698.html for one.

2.4.3 is the latest stable version.  Most likely it is the one you
should be running, as it's likely to contain some bug fixes from
previous versions.

noah

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