It's interesting on how distrowatch correlates slackware current to the readiness of 2.6.x:

http://www.distrowatch.com/weekly.ph...40322#upcoming

Can't see a reference to Slack following the link?


Cheers,
Tink

here it is:

Kernel 2.6 ready for prime time?

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Linux kernel 2.6 is not yet ready for mass consumption. This is especially true for many desktop systems, where a large variety of hardware combination often means that a certain piece of hardware that worked fine under 2.4 is no longer operational under 2.6. Most major distributions deploy various kernel patches to address some of the issues; however the patches have potential to introduce new bugs into the kernel.

So when will the new kernel be ready? One interesting indication of its acceptance for general deployment is Slackware's "current" branch. Once the new kernel is in Slackware "current", we know that there is enough confidence by the Slackware developers (who have more than 10 years of development experience), to impose the new kernel on any system. The reason for this is simple - Slackware Linux is the only major distribution that uses the original kernel without any patches. If Slackware "current" still does not have the 2.6 kernel (despite the fact that the distribution's 9.1 release was declared "kernel 2.6 ready"), then we know that it still has plenty of unresolved issues.

This is not to say that the kernel 2.6 is unusable - there are undoubtedly many people who use it without any trouble. But if you happen to have some unlucky hardware, you'll be better off with kernel 2.4 for the time being.

I am currently using the 2.6.4 kernel without any problems.
But I had to re-compile a few times to get everything right.

Unfortunately, I can't see any real difference in performance,
so I am not sure what was the point of installing the new kernel.

I had perfect success with kernel 2.6 and slackware. I think they haven't included it as it still needs a little testing and refinement for all users. Some have more problems with it then others.

And if you see no difference then something is wrong. I notice a good 20% increase of performance between standarc 2.4 and kernel 2.6.4-ck1

I have 2.6.4 and have zero problems thus far. Definately agree with the estimated 20% speed increase.

Yea, moving to 2.6.x gave me a speed increase also.
It was worth the upgrade.