Linux Kernel 2.6.37 Is Available for Download

Eariler today, January 5th, none other than Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, proudly announced the release of Linux kernel 2.6.37.

Among the new features includes in Linux kernel 2.6.37 we can mention support for PPP over the IPv4 protocol, lots of enhancements to various important file systems, such as EXT4, XFS and Btrfs, support for I/O throttling, Perf probe improvements, and a Ceph-based network block device.

"All in all, not a lot happened the last week. The diffstat is dominated by some VFS locking documentation and a few updates to fix up some ASoC codex register cache changes. The rest is really pretty small and boring. Full shortlog (from -rc8, naturally - the shortlog for the whole 2.6.37 release is much too big) appended."

"We did have another revert to fix hopefullythe last "blank screen" regression on intel graphics. As to the big picture, on the whole I think 2.6.37 has been fairly calm. That will likely change with the merge window, as I'm looking forward to getting the new RCU-based pathname lookup and similar exciting features. So enjoy the calm sanity while it lasts." - said Linus Torvalds in the announcement.

Highlights of Linux Kernel 2.6.37:

· EXT4 improvements: better SMP scalability and faster mkfs;
· XFS scalability enhancements;
· No BKL (Big Kernel Lock);
· Ceph-based network block device;
· Support for I/O throttling;
· Btrfs enhancements;
· Perf probe enhancements;
· Support for PPP over IPv4;
· Fanotify API enabled;
· "Jump label": disabled tracepoints don't impact performance.

These are just a few of the new features available in the Linux kernel 2.6.37. For a complete list of all the newly supported devices, newly added drivers, etc., please visit the official release notes page.

You can download Linux kernel 2.6.37 sources right now from Softpedia.