Linux Kernel 2.6.22.7 and 2.4.35.3 Released

The 2.6.22.7 version from the 2.6 stable Linux kernel branch was released a couple of days ago and the 2.4.35.3 version of the 2.4 stable kernel branch was announced last night. Both versions of the Linux kernel contain an important security bugfix for the AMD64/EM64T architecture, which can lead to a local privilege escalation. Therefore, all x86_64 users are encouraged to upgrade their kernels to the new versions.

Changes from kernel 2.6.22.6 to 2.6.22.7:

￭ x86_64: Zero extend all registers after ptrace in 32bit entry path.

Changes from kernel 2.4.35.2 to 2.4.35.3:

￭ x86_64: Make sure to validate all 64bits of ptrace information
￭ Bridge STP timer fixes
￭ ATM: avoid kernel panic upon access to /proc/net/atm/arp

The 2.6.22 Linux kernel includes features

and drivers such as:

￭ New Slab allocator: SLUB
￭ New Wireless stack
￭ New Firewire stack
￭ Signal/timer events notifications through file descriptors
￭ Blackfin architecture
￭ UBI
￭ Secure RxRPC sockets
￭ Process footprint measurement facility
￭ utimensat()

Graphic drivers:

￭ pm3fb: Preliminary 2.4 to 2.6 port
￭ New framebuffer driver (vt8623fb) for VIA VT8623
￭ Hecuba framebuffer driver
￭ arkfb: new framebuffer driver for ARK Logic cards
￭ atmel_lcdfb: AT91/AT32 LCD Controller framebuffer driver
￭ Add Sun XVR-500 framebuffer driver. (commit) and Sun XVR-2500 framebuffer driver

Network drivers:

￭ Mellanox ConnectX InfiniBand adapters driver
￭ Marvell Libertas 8388 802.11b/g USB driver
￭ zr364xx V4L2 driver for USB webcams based on the zr364xx chipsets

The Linux Kernel is the essential part of all Linux Distributions, responsible for resource allocation, low-level hardware interfaces, security, simple communications and basic file system management.

Linux is a clone of the Unix operating system, initially written from scratch by Linus Torvalds, assisted by a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims to achieve POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

You can download Linux kernel 2.6.22.7 now from Softpedia.

You can download Linux kernel 2.4.35.3 now from Softpedia.