So how much faster is 2.6 compared to 2.4
 

How is the speed for bootup?

For me speed is not and has never been an issue in deciding whether to upgrade a kernel.

I think you need to look at the 'features' of the 2.6* kernel and decide whether there is a compelling reason why you need to upgrade.

A factor you will want to bear in mind though is that by using a kernel not released with a distribution, strange errors are bound to crop up now & again. If you feel comfortable solving kernel related problems now & then - go for it. You will get lots of support here.

But if you simply want to use your system with no hassle, id stick with what works!!

But you just have to remember about security issues as these about 2.4.22 and 2.4.23.... features aren't everything.... security maybe is not either, but.... is really close to 100% ;)

I think speed is determined more by how well you compile it. If you are capable of building a kernel with what you need and only that, then it will be smaller and use fewer resources when it's extracted. I don't think building a 2.6 kernel with all the same features and modules that you currently have in 2.4 is going to make any difference in its speed.

speed of boot up has more to do with what services you are loading than what kernel you have.

I agree, I have next to no services activated at boot time.. just very essential ones, and my system is up and running in the blink if an eye...

? Speed
 

Running SuSE 9.0

Bootup speed improvment ?
I´d say a bit .... maybe a second or so ..nothin special ...

The noticable improvments are scaleability as they so often .... I fink ....

Performance doesn´t slow down for no good reason if I have 400 threads running ... it can handle resources better .... it seems to handle big amounts of swap better ....

Its noticably faster at loading stuff from disk .... feels more agile through I guess this preemptive stuff ...

But it gives me a really weird partitiion table ... strange & useless numbers .... so dont trust it completly .... .

But its worth it I´d say ... keep ur old kernel as an emergency option or 4 comparision in the boot options .


:newbie:

I would say that the mouse on my laptop is running much better and that speed has increased sice upgrading but that is just an observation...no bech marks to prove it.

Who cares about boot time anyway? Only gotta reboot after installing new hardware or recompiling the kernel, which for me isn't more than every few months or so :)

Thanks a ton. I don't have any security issues, cause I up2dated and got the newer kernel. up2date is easy to use, but they don't offer 2.6 it seems. oh well.

up2date should offer a kernel upgrade at some point although I doubt the 2.6 kernel. On my server I use the 2.4 kernel and I have no problems. you may find though that for your desktop you prefer the 2.6 kernel. There are rpm's out there but I do not have the link handy...try google. trying to install a newer kernel on RH can be difficult at best, although I think there may be a how-to in the red hat forum

Going from 2.4 to 2.6 you will see a very nice improvement.

:confused:
rpmseek.org should give U the kernel & any otha thing youre prop lookin 4 :)
:eek:

:newbie:

Da Wini G.

With the low latency improvements and the new scheduler, 2.6 will run desktop linux applications and day to day tasks much better. You will notice a big diff. But you need to know what you are doing if you want to play with 2.6. The good news is that 2.6.0 stable is out now.

I know 2.6.0 is "stable" but how much longer would you say until they get all the kinks worked out. I'm not sure I want to spend a long time fiddling with it to get it to work right.

Up2date made it really easy to update the kernel, but I saw a "newbie's guide to updating the kernel" and it was pretty complicated. If I get the rpms it should be really easy right?

Thanks a lot. If I think I can do the update and won't run into to many problems, then a bit more speed is definately worth it.

To me, 2.6 is *considerably* faster than 2.4. My only problem is hdparm shows
my WD 120GB HD transferring 33MB/sec in 2.6 vs 42-47MB/sec in 2.4 (notice the difference in variance!), but it doesn't *feel* slower, that's for sure. As the other poster stated, disk access "feels" much faster and more nimble (perfect word, BTW ;) .

As to stability, do some googling. I'm not - by a LONG shot - the only one who thinks 2.6.1 is *already* more stable than any 2.4 release ever released, and that probably includes Linus. May be a little early for production servers, but if you have a desktop, the time to go to 2.6 is either (a) NOW, or (b) whenever your distro will run on it. IMO*.

FWIW I'm running Arch 0.6 (actually "0.591 pre-Widget") on a 2.4GHz Celeron, 512MB.


*IMO, "Humble Opinion" is an oxymoron...