Probably an Stupid question...
 

If Slackware has kernel 2.6 available, why does it install 2.4 by default?

Thanx.

backwards compatibility


and there's no such thing as a stupid question.

Mainly because Patrick is more concerned with Slackware being stable than current. 2.4.29 is perfectly ok for the majority of systems, bugs have been worked out and it's unlikely to crash your system.

Not to forget 2.4.30 as well.

the 2.6 series seems very stable nowadays. But that's just me with 1 laptop.. I think now its just a matter of Pat testing it on different types of machines, and finding the best default settings to put before releasing it with 11, or 11.1 maby.

Nevertheless, it's not that difficult to compile your own 2.6, and the knowledge and advantage you get afterwards is worth it. I think the more you use Slack, the more you get accustomed to true Linux, and take certain matters with your own hands.

so...

would it be a good idea to install 2.6 in spite of 2.4?

what advantages will I get?

is it really less stable?


Thanks a lot.

In my experience, it's not any less stable, no. I find that the improved USB support, as well as improved support for other hardware that I've got in my system (wireless LAN, burner, etc.) far outweighs any disadvantage. Not that there are any, really. The newer kernel is bulkier, and a whole lot slower on ancient hardware, is all.

I like 2.6, mainly for the fact that when I recompile, my sound still works, under 2.4 I would always lose the functionality of sound, even when I have made sure to include support for my chipset and enabled sound support, and so I gave up with recompiling 2.4, although I haven't completely migrated to 2.6, I still keep 2.4 and switch between them frequently. I am waiting and hoping the next major release of Slackware (11) will have moved on to the 2.6 series

Only problem I've had with 2.6 kernel is on a laptop with older style (16) pcmcia cards. If the card is in at boot, it gets set up correctly but can't be removed and reinserted. /etc/rc.d/rc.pcmcia restart does not fix the problem either. Seems pccardd and cardmanager do not play nice. Easier to leave the laptop at 2.4 while pcmcia-cs is migrated to the 2.6 kernel.

I've had that problem with mine, PDock, but I usually fix it by using cardctl commands. cardctl eject, then cardctl insert. If the card doesn't detect properly after doing that, then I run /etc/rc.d/rc.hotplug restart which almost always fixes it.

If all of your hardware works with no problem using the 2.4 kernel there is no advantage to using a 2.6 kernel. As the newer kernel is larger, you will actually just use up some memory for nothing.

If you have hardware that would benefit from the newer kernel then it's worth it. I run both. Most of the time I use the 2.4.29 and save memory, and when I want to use my usb cdburner or other newer usb devices, I switch to the newer 2.6.11 kernel.

I use a lot of newer hardware myself that the 2.6 kernel has better support for. I use it both on a laptop and a workstation and have never had a problem with stabiility.
If there's any crashing going on it's almost always my fault.
The kernel is much more stable then the user (me).

Sometimes it's hard to get the sound working again...