The new kernel should fix most of the problems introduced in 1.3.33 due
to the driver initialization changes, and also makes Linux/alpha work
again (ie the kernel_thread() function added to the alpha tree). It's a
more "normal" kernel (unlike 1.3.33 which really was an interim kernel
just to get the changes out to developers).
If some driver still doesn't work, please do get in touch with me..
The sound driver in particular got updated: the sound driver in 1.3.34
is the alpha-release of Hannus driver which works much better as a
module and generally has some other nifty updates. I haven't been able
to actually _test_ it, but it should be ok.
The SCSI drivers now compile and link (and work at least on my Alpha),
but I still hope that they'll be cleaned up a bit when it comes to
integrating the module code into the normal code. Also, the fdomain
driver got updated.
On the alpha, the "make config" stage auto-detects if you're cross-
compiling, and assumes you're compiling from under OSF/1 if so (with the
appropriate changes to Makefiles).
Support for CONFIG_FTAPE has been dropped, as the ftape driver now
instead should use __get_dma_pages(GFP_KERNEL, 5) to allocate a 128kB
area (== 4 32kB buffers).
The floppy driver has been updated a bit.
The "kswap" patches are in by default.. (better page and buffer aging
algorithms for those of you who haven't been using these patches)
The "Weird - unlocked, clean and not uptodate buffer on list xx" message
is gone.
/proc/<pid>/fd/<x> works again. PLAN9 semantics are gone, as those no
longer work.
Also, in case you wondered, 1.3.33 did the following, apart from the
change in device initialization which was the "big one":
- ppp got updated, and you need a new pppd (2.2.0a) for ppp.
Unfortunate, but unavoidable.
- core dump (trad-core format) added to the alpha side by David M-T.
Sadly,Linux-1.3.33 didn't work at all on the alpha due to:
- kernel_thread() interface for creating a (surprise, surprise) kernel
thread. Currently this is only used to create the initial "init"
thread and the idle threads for Linux/SMP, but we'll probably do
"bdflush" this way some day instead of having the dummy deamon program
from user space. There are other things that could do well with a
kernel deamon approach.
This broke Linux/alpha, as I never got around to write the 15-line
assembly wrapper to do this. Fixed in 1.3.34.
- sticky modifier keys on the console for those that want this: you can
define right-shift to be a "sticky" shift and then you don't need to
press multiple modifier keys at the same time.
- various minor networking fixes
Linus