A while ago i posted here about the new 2.6 kernel i had just installed on my Debian system; and i was frustrated because the new kernel isn''t as fast as i was expecting (everybody made such a big deal of its performance...)... actually, it wasn''t any faster in my opinion. But now, i''m all frustration. I just installed the 2.6.0 on another computer, a pentium 2, it''s a laptop. And it''s not a bit faster - even though it''s an old hardware (people was saying it would run faster on older hardware, etc). Actually, i''m pretty sure my system now is slower. Boy, my computer is crawling like never, talk about S L O W. But this is the greatest news: now my 2.4 kernel is not recognizing my eth0! Briliant! I''m stuck inside this crappy kernel. God, somebody help me. The 2.6 sucks, that''s it. I''m thinking about compiling 2.6.2 with Con Kolivas'' performance patches... but now i''m so frustrated, i only wish my 2.4 would work like before! Victor.

quote:Original post by -vic-
A while ago i posted here about the new 2.6 kernel i had just installed on my Debian system; and i was frustrated because the new kernel isn''t as fast as i was expecting (everybody made such a big deal of its performance...)... actually, it wasn''t any faster in my opinion.

But now, i''m all frustration. I just installed the 2.6.0 on another computer, a pentium 2, it''s a laptop. And it''s not a bit faster - even though it''s an old hardware (people was saying it would run faster on older hardware, etc).

Actually, i''m pretty sure my system now is slower . Boy, my computer is crawling like never, talk about S L O W.

But this is the greatest news: now my 2.4 kernel is not recognizing my eth0! Briliant! I''m stuck inside this crappy kernel. God, somebody help me. The 2.6 sucks, that''s it.

I''m thinking about compiling 2.6.2 with Con Kolivas'' performance patches... but now i''m so frustrated, i only wish my 2.4 would work like before!

Victor.

See if dma is enabled for your disks (run hdparm in console to see if it''s on). After I upgraded to 2.6 things were slower because dma wasn''t enabled (turned out I had to enable support for my chipset in Device Drivers -> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support)

quote:Original post by Null and Void
What is slow? Are you running X? Is anything being niced or reniced?

Browsing pages; Java applets, etc... i really had the impression X is slower. But i wish i had some real numbers. I''ve reniced XFree to 0 (Debian defaults to -10, as you know), but didn''t feel much (if any) difference.

quote:
See if dma is enabled for your disks (run hdparm in console to see if it''s on). After I upgraded to 2.6 things were slower because dma wasn''t enabled (turned out I had to enable support for my chipset in Device Drivers -> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support)

I''m on 2.4 now... and here it is enabled; but i''ll check that when i boot 2.6.

quote:
I just forwarded your email to Linus, and he said he''s going to pack it in. Since some guy on a message board who can''t even get his laptop to recognize a network card thinks it "sucks" I guess that means they might as well just scrap the whole "linux" thing. Good thing you told us, or millions of people would have kept using it. Give me a minute while I format my workstation and all my servers and put win xp on them.

If it makes you happy, here''s an ouput of my uname -r: 2.4.20-xfs.

So, yeah, i''ve got my network back, and i''m back to the 2.4 kernel.

Hum, have you tested 2.6 already? On how many machines? Did those machines have new or old hardware? I''ve seen many people saying the new kernel feels like you''ve got new hardware, blablabla; well i feel no difference. Hum, actually, there is a difference: the mouse cursor moves faster. Not that i needed it to move faster, but anyway...

By the way, justed compiled 2.6.2 with Con Kolivas'' desktop tuning patches. Err... no difference. Supermount is great and all; but the CFQ scheduler didn''t make much of a difference here.

I wish i had some real numbers. Do you know how can i benchmark and get some real numbers? That would be great.

Victor.

I had similar problems with my laptop when I installed 2.6.0 (I''m using gentoo). I found that to get it to recognize my ethernet card I needed to re-install the latest version of pmccia tools and hotplugging tools, and I had to be sure the eisa-pci bridge was enabled in the kernel which I don''t think I did in 2.4.22. Also, be sure to use the kernel level drivers, and not the cs-pmccia drivers in 2.6. I''ve found that the 2.6.2 isn''t quicker per say, but it is much more responsive when doing more than one thing at once. Stick with it and you''ll get it working.

Cheers,

Bob

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quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
I am going to compile 2.6 kernel. I found three variants in dselect, which one to use?

2.6.0-2
2.6.0-test11
2.6.0-test9

2.6.0-2

The ones labelled "test" are just that: tests. Also commonly known as "release candidates". The stage between "release" and "beta".