Re: linux-2.1.44 on i586: Immediate crash on boot

Linus Torvalds (torvalds@transmeta.com)
9 Jul 1997 04:31:17 GMT


In article <199707080258.WAA02273@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl>,
Horst von Brand <vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl> wrote:
>Linus was right today: This _is_ a "featureful" kernel. Sure is a pretty
>sight when all the colors flash by ;-)
>
>The kernel crashes after mounting all disks, briefly flashes a console full
>of weirdly colored characters and reboots. No messages make it to
>/var/log/messages, nothing can be seen when it goes down either..

Ok, how many people want to test out a pre-patch?

I put out a pre-patch-2.1.45 on ftp.kernel.org (in the kernel/testing
subdirectory as usual), and this patch actually contains a _complete_
rewrite of fs/inode.c.

I strived for simplicity and efficiency, and it actually looks like it
is working. Which is pretty impressive considering the fact that
inode.c is a very basic part of the kernel and rewriting it from scratch
can be considered crazy. But the file had gotten so much cruft over the
years that I decided I'd spend my time best by just getting rid of the
old versions and re-implementing the basic interface from scratch.

It has gotten all of five minutes of testing, but the fact that it
worked pretty much on the first try makes me happy - it means that I
succeeded in keeping the basic code simple..

Does this first pre-45 look better than plain 44?

Linus