Now lets take a small look at the ChangeLog:

r8169: clean up my printk uglyness
x86/gart: Disable GART explicitly before initialization
KVM: x86: Fix TSS size check for 16-bit tasks
KVM: Increase NR_IOBUS_DEVS limit to 200
KVM: fix the handling of dirty bitmaps to avoid overflows
KVM: MMU: fix kvm_mmu_zap_page() and its calling path
KVM: VMX: Save/restore rflags.vm correctly in real mode
KVM: allow bit 10 to be cleared in MSR_IA32_MC4_CTL
KVM: Don’t spam kernel log when injecting exceptions due to bad cr writes
KVM: SVM: Fix memory leaks that happen when svm_create_vcpu() fails
KVM: VMX: Update instruction length on intercepted BP
sched: Use proper type in sched_getaffinity()
ext4: fix async i/o writes beyond 4GB to a sparse file
powerpc: Fix SMP build with disabled CPU hotplugging.
md: deal with merge_bvec_fn in component devices better.
module: fix __module_ref_addr()
lockdep: fix incorrect percpu usage
modules: fix incorrect percpu usage
ACPI: EC: Limit burst to 64 bits
ACPI: EC: Allow multibyte access to EC
xfs: check for more work before sleeping in xfssyncd
xfs: fix locking for inode cache radix tree tag updates
xfs: Non-blocking inode locking in IO completion
perf_events, x86: Implement Intel Westmere/Nehalem-EX support
e1000e: stop cleaning when we reach tx_ring->next_to_use
iwlwifi: fix scan race
iwlwifi: clear all tx queues when firmware ready
USB: cdc-acm: Fix stupid NULL pointer in resume()
USB: cdc-acm: Update to new autopm API
ecryptfs: fix error code for missing xattrs in lower fs
eCryptfs: Decrypt symlink target for stat size
ecryptfs: fix use with tmpfs by removing d_drop from ecryptfs_destroy_inode
ALSA: hda – Add position_fix quirk for Biostar mobo
b43: fall back gracefully to PIO mode after fatal DMA errors
b43: Allow PIO mode to be selected at module load
i2c-i801: Add Intel Cougar Point device IDs
ahci: AHCI and RAID mode SATA patch for Intel Cougar Point DeviceIDs
ata_piix: IDE Mode SATA patch for Intel Cougar Point DeviceIDs
ALSA: hda – enable snoop for Intel Cougar Point
ALSA: hda_intel: ALSA HD Audio patch for Intel Cougar Point DeviceIDs
x86/PCI: irq and pci_ids patch for Intel Cougar Point DeviceIDs
IPoIB: Fix TX queue lockup with mixed UD/CM traffic
PCI: kill off pci_register_set_vga_state() symbol export.
pci: Update pci_set_vga_state() to call arch functions
9p: Skip check for mandatory locks when unlocking
ocfs2: Change bg_chain check for ocfs2_validate_gd_parent.
ocfs2: set i_mode on disk during acl operations
quota: Fix possible dq_flags corruption
fix NFS4 handling of mountpoint stat
x86-64, rwsem: Avoid store forwarding hazard in __downgrade_write
x86: Fix breakage of UML from the changes in the rwsem system
x86-64: support native xadd rwsem implementation
x86-64, rwsem: 64-bit xadd rwsem implementation
x86: clean up rwsem type system
x86-32: clean up rwsem inline asm statements
dm ioctl: introduce flag indicating uevent was generated
x86, cacheinfo: Enable L3 CID only on AMD
x86, cacheinfo: Remove NUMA dependency, fix for AMD Fam10h rev D1
x86, cacheinfo: Calculate L3 indices
x86, cacheinfo: Add cache index disable sysfs attrs only to L3 caches
intel-agp: Switch to wbinvd_on_all_cpus
x86, cacheinfo: Fix disabling of L3 cache indices
x86, lib: Add wbinvd smp helpers
Revert “x86: disable IOMMUs on kernel crash”
x86/amd-iommu: enable iommu before attaching devices
x86/amd-iommu: Use helper function to destroy domain
x86/amd-iommu: Pt mode fix for domain_destroy
drm/radeon/kms: add FireMV 2400 PCI ID.
drm/radeon/kms: fix rs600 tlb flush
drm/radeon/kms: fix tv dac conflict resolver
drm/radeon/kms: disable the tv encoder when tv/cv is not in use
drm/radeon/kms: more atom parser fixes (v2)
drm/i915: Add no_lvds entry for the Clientron U800
hwmon: (sht15) Properly handle the case CONFIG_REGULATOR=n
hwmon: (sht15) Fix sht15_calc_temp interpolation function
ALSA: usb – Fix Oops after usb-midi disconnection
ALSA: hda – add a quirk for Clevo M570U laptop
Input: sparse-keymap – free the right keymap on error
Input: wacom – switch mode upon system resume
NFSv4: fix delegated locking
NFSv4: Fall back to ordinary lookup if nfs4_atomic_open() returns EISDIR
sched: Fix sched_getaffinity()
sched: sched_getaffinity(): Allow less than NR_CPUS length
x86: Fix double enable_IR_x2apic() call on SMP kernel on !SMP boards
x86, hpet: Erratum workaround for read after write of HPET comparator
x86: Handle overlapping mptables
x86-32, resume: do a global tlb flush in S4 resume
drm/radeon/kms/combios: verify dac_adj values are valid
drm/radeon/kms: fix washed out image on legacy tv dac
drm/radeon: R300 AD only has one quad pipe.
drm/edid/quirks: Envision EN2028
ARM: 6031/1: fix Thumb-2 decompressor
mac80211: Handle mesh action frames in ieee80211_rx_h_action
iwlwifi: need check for valid qos packet before free
ath9k: fix double calls to ath_radio_enable
CIFS: initialize nbytes at the beginning of CIFSSMBWrite()
cifs: Fix a kernel BUG with remote OS/2 server (try #3)
s390: disable change bit override
libata: disable NCQ on Crucial C300 SSD
pata_via: Add VIA VX900 support
backlight: mbp_nvidia_bl – add five more MacBook variants
ALSA: hda – Add MSI blacklist for Aopen MZ915-M
ALSA: hda – Add ASRock mobo to MSI blacklist
ALSA: hda: Fix 0 dB offset for Lenovo Thinkpad models using AD1981
ALSA: mixart: range checking proc file
include/linux/kfifo.h: fix INIT_KFIFO()
readahead: fix NULL filp dereference
raw: fsync method is now required
HID: fix oops in gyration_event()
tty: release_one_tty() forgets to put pids
genirq: Force MSI irq handlers to run with interrupts disabled
WATCHDOG: iTCO_wdt: TCO Watchdog patch for additional Intel Cougar Point DeviceIDs
WATCHDOG: hpwdt – fix lower timeout limit
sunxvr500: Ignore secondary output PCI devices.
sparc: Fix regset register window handling.
mac80211: tear down all agg queues when restart/reconfig hw
mac80211: move netdev queue enabling to correct spot
mac80211: fix PREQ processing and one small bug
setup correct int pipe type in ar9170_usb_exec_cmd
iwlwifi: range checking issue
iwlwifi: counting number of tfds can be free for 4965
iwlwifi: fix regulatory
Freezer: Fix buggy resume test for tasks frozen with cgroup freezer
x86,kgdb: Always initialize the hw breakpoint attribute
libiscsi: Fix recovery slowdown regression
reiserfs: Fix locking BUG during mount failure
sh: Enable the mmu in start_secondary()
sh: Fix FDPIC binary loader
drm: Return ENODEV if the inode mapping changes
drm/radeon/kms: fix pal tv-out support on legacy IGP chips
drm/radeon/kms: don’t print error on -ERESTARTSYS.
drm/radeon/kms: Fix NULL pointer dereference if memory allocation failed in a simple way
drm/radeon/kms: never treat rs4xx as AGP
oom: fix the unsafe usage of badness() in proc_oom_score()
fat: fix buffer overflow in vfat_create_shortname()
drm: remove the EDID blob stored in the EDID property when it is disconnected
drm/radeon: add new RS880 pci id

To download this kernel please use one of our mirrors:

Mirror US/CA: http://dl.robertalks.com/kernel/2.6.33.3-soultrain/
Mirror EU/CZ: http://mirror.visualserver.org/kernel/2.6.33.3-soultrain/

The basic installation is simple and you will need root access or sudo access, plus dpkg. Here is how (use –force-all to make sure it will install it, it can happen that on older system will run into an error, for example on Ubuntu 8.04, but with –force-all it will be installed and it will work):

sudo dpkg -i –force-all linux-image-2.6.33.3-soultrain_2.6.33.3-1_i386.deb

For those of you who want or need to rebuild the kernel, you can download the source code with the config file from the links above, as I wrote before there wont be anymore included kernel source archive, but you will have a package call linux-source-2.6.33.3-soultrain_2.6.33.3-1_i386.deb which contains the kernel source code.

May the force be with you, Luke

There are no major stuff added in this kernel from my side, besides the removal of PAE support which seems it created some problems for some people. This means that this new release will only support 4GB of memory and of course no PAE. I hope it’s not a problem, but I can’t go two ways, or PAE or no PAE and there is also the other option to build two kernels, but I don’t really think it would be a good idea. Not now anyways.

From the kernel development team there are some bug fixes and improvement, and here they are, but if you want more details check the ChangeLog:

Anyway, I will keep this short and tell you the main things. For example there is unionfs support, squashfs support, ureadahead support, BFS default scheduler (Brain Fuck Scheduler) and of course a ton of fixes from kernel devel team. Here is a sample of the ChangeLog.

x86, mm: Allow highmem user page tables to be disabled at boot time
sched: Don’t use possibly stale sched_class
sched: Fix SMT scheduler regression in find_busiest_queue()
sched: Fix sched_mv_power_savings for !SMT
KVM: x86 emulator: Check CPL level during privilege instruction emulation
KVM: x86 emulator: Add group9 instruction decoding
KVM: x86 emulator: Forbid modifying CS segment register by mov instruction
KVM: x86 emulator: Add group8 instruction decoding
KVM: VMX: Trap and invalid MWAIT/MONITOR instruction
dm ioctl: only issue uevent on resume if state changed
dm: free dm_io before bio_endio not after
NFS: Fix an allocation-under-spinlock bug
rtc-coh901331: fix braces in resume code
scripts/get_maintainer.pl: fix possible infinite loop
s3cmci: initialize default platform data no_wprotect and no_detect with 1
s3cmci: s3cmci_card_present: Use no_detect to decide whether there is a card detect pin
SUNRPC: Handle EINVAL error returns from the TCP connect operation
sunrpc: remove unnecessary svc_xprt_put
drm/radeon/kms/atom: fix shr/shl ops
drm/ttm: handle OOM in ttm_tt_swapout
drm/i915: Use a dmi quirk to skip a broken SDVO TV output.
USB: unusual_devs: Add support for multiple Option 3G sticks
USB: cp210x: Add 81E8 (Zephyr Bioharness)
USB: serial: ftdi: add CONTEC vendor and product id
USB: add new ftdi_sio device ids
USB: f_mass_storage: fix crash on bind() error
USB: Move hcd free_dev call into usb_disconnect to fix oops
USB: remove debugging message for uevent constructions
USB: fix crash in uhci_scan_schedule
USB: fix the idProduct value for USB-3.0 root hubs
USB: xhci: Fix finding extended capabilities registers
x86: Fix SCI on IOAPIC != 0
x86: Avoid race condition in pci_enable_msix()
x86, xen: Disable highmem PTE allocation even when CONFIG_HIGHPTE=y
x86: Add iMac9,1 to pci_reboot_dmi_table
x86, ia32_aout: do not kill argument mapping
ocfs2: Only bug out in direct io write for reflinked extent.
thinkpad-acpi: lock down video output state access
thinkpad-acpi: fix bluetooth/wwan resume
thinkpad-acpi: make driver events work in NVRAM poll mode
thinkpad-acpi: document HKEY event 3006
thinkpad-acpi: R52 brightness_mode has been confirmed
thinkpad-acpi: fix poll thread auto-start
eeepc-laptop: disable wireless hotplug for 1005PE
mac80211: do not transmit frames on unconfigured 4-addr vlan interfaces
sunxvr500: Additional PCI id for sunxvr500 driver
netfilter: xt_recent: fix false match
netfilter: xt_recent: fix buffer overflow
b43/b43legacy: Wake queues in wireless_core_start
ath5k: use correct packet type when transmitting
ath9k: disable RIFS search for AR91xx based chips
ath9k: fix rate control fallback rate selection
ath9k: fix beacon timer restart after a card reset
ath9k: re-enable ps by default for new single chip families
netdevice.h: check for CONFIG_WLAN instead of CONFIG_WLAN_80211
skbuff: align sk_buff::cb to 64 bit and close some potential holes
scm: Only support SCM_RIGHTS on unix domain sockets.
pata_hpt3x2n: always stretch UltraDMA timing
hwmon: Fix off-by-one kind values
hwmon: (tmp421) Restore missing inputs
hwmon: (tmp421) Fix temperature conversions
gpio: cs5535-gpio: fix input direction
gpiolib: Actually set output state in wm831x_gpio_direction_output()
p54pci: handle dma mapping errors
p54usb: Add the USB ID for Belkin (Accton) FD7050E ver 1010ec
USB: fix I2C API usage in ohci-pnx4008.
USB: serial: sierra driver indat_callback fix
serial: imx: fix NULL dereference Oops when pdata == NULL
tty: Fix the ldisc hangup race
sysfs: Cache the last sysfs_dirent to improve readdir scalability v2
Driver-Core: devtmpfs – reset inode permissions before unlinking
driver-core: fix race condition in get_device_parent()
ASoC: fix ak4104 register array access
ALSA: hda-intel: Add position_fix quirk for ASUS M2V-MX SE.
ALSA: hda: Use LPIB for a Biostar Microtech board
ALSA: hda: Use LPIB for Dell Latitude 131L
thinkpad-acpi: fix ALSA callback return status
ALSA: USB MIDI support for Access Music VirusTI
ALSA: usb-audio: reduce MIDI packet size to work around broken firmware
ALSA: pcm core – fix fifo_size channels interval check
ALSA: via82xx: add quirk for D1289 motherboard
ALSA: hda: Use 3stack quirk for Toshiba Satellite L40-10Q
tracing: Fix ftrace_event_call alignment for use with gcc 4.5
perf: Reimplement frequency driven sampling
oprofile/x86: fix msr access to reserved counters
oprofile/x86: use kzalloc() instead of kmalloc()
oprofile/x86: remove node check in AMD IBS initialization
oprofile: remove tracing build dependency
perf_event: Fix preempt warning in perf_clock()
perf symbols: Check the right return variable
oprofile/x86: fix perfctr nmi reservation for mulitplexing
macintosh/hwmon/ams: Fix device removal sequence
macintosh/therm_adt746x: Fix sysfs attributes lifetime
PM / Hibernate: Fix preallocating of memory
V4L/DVB: v4l: soc_camera: fix bound checking of mbus_fmt[] index
dvb-core: Fix DoS bug in ULE decapsulation code that can be triggered by an invalid Payload Pointer
Staging: mimio: remove the mimio driver
Staging: wlan-ng: Add select WEXT_PRIV to Kconfig to prevent build failure
Staging: Fixed pohmelfs regression because of per-bdi writeback.
Staging: hv: match on DMI values to know if we should run.
Staging: hv: add a pci device table
SCSI: qla1280: Drop host_lock while requesting firmware
clocksource: Fix up a registration/IRQ race in the sh drivers.
x86/PCI: Prevent mmconfig memory corruption
rtc-core: fix memory leak
ath9k: fix keycache leak in split tkip case
drm/i915: give up on 8xx lid status
x86, uv: uv_global_gru_mmr_address() macro fix
vfs: take f_lock on modifying f_mode after open time
V4L/DVB (13991): gspca_mr973010a: Fix cif type 1 cameras not streaming on UHCI controllers
slab: initialize unused alien cache entry as NULL at alloc_alien_cache().
readahead: introduce FMODE_RANDOM for POSIX_FADV_RANDOM
mpt2sas: Delete volume before HBA detach.
mac80211: Reset dynamic ps timer in Rx path.
mac80211: quit addba_resp_timer if Tx BA session is torn down
HID: usbhid: introduce timeout for stuck ctrl/out URBs
HID: remove TENX iBuddy from blacklist
airo: fix setting zero length WEP key
security: fix error return path in ima_inode_alloc
PCI hotplug: check ioremap() return value in ibmphp_ebda.c
PCI hotplug: ibmphp: read the length of ebda and map entire ebda region
netlabel: fix export of SELinux categories > 127

So this part is out of the picture, now it comes the download and install part. You can download this kernel from my two mirrors, one is in Canada and the other one is in Czech Republic.

Mirror US/CA: http://dl.robertalks.com/kernel/2.6.33.1-beetlejuice/

Mirror EU/CZ: http://mirror.visualserver.org/kernel/2.6.33.1-beetlejuice/

The basic installation is simple and you will need root access or sudo access, plus dpkg. Here is how (use –force-all to make sure it will install it, it can happen that on older system will run into an error, for example on Ubuntu 8.04, but with –force-all it will be installed and it will work):

sudo dpkg -i –force-all linux-image-2.6.33.1-beetlejuice_2.6.33.1-1_i386.deb

For those of you who want or need to rebuild the kernel, you can download the source code with the config file from the links above, as I wrote before there wont be anymore included kernel source archive, but you will have a package call linux-source-2.6.33.1-beetlejuice_2.6.33.1-1_i386.deb which contains the kernel source code.

Good bye and good luck!

Because I’ve tried it already for the past couple of days and I’ve found this scheduler to be really good, I also decided to make a new kernel release which includes this scheduler, so the kernel wont use the classic scheduler, but the new BFS one.

I’ve tested kernel 2.6.33 with this scheduler on my Lenovo T61 laptop and it does make things a bit faster, especially when it comes to desktop virtualization, like VirtualBox, video applications and even Firefox.

Because I don’t want to get into too many details and also I’m not much of a developer to understand what and how this scheduler is modified, I would recommend any of you to go to the project web site and check it out: http://ck.kolivas.org/patches/bfs/bfs-faq.txt.

Now the download part is the same like for any other release and here are the links:

Mirror US/CA: http://dl.robertalks.com/kernel/2.6.33-final-bfs/

Mirror EU/CZ: http://mirror.visualserver.org/kernel/2.6.33-final-bfs/

Download at least the linux-image package, install it and test it. I do hope it will help for most of you in speeding up a bit the computer and processing times.

Good luck and please let me know if you have any issues with it.