Development of 2.6.39 under way, series 33 revived
Among the additions for kernel version .39 are the Xen network backend, support for ipset, and the rudimentary Poulsbo graphics driver; the kernel hackers have now also completely eradicated the BKL. Greg Kroah-Hartman has taken up maintaining the series 33 kernel again because it is the basis of the real-time branch.
Less than 24 hours after releasing Linux 2.6.38 on Tuesday last week, Linus Torvalds started merging the changes for Linux 2.6.39. Among the commits that have already been added is the Xen network backend for Dom0 kernels – however, the storage backend also required for operating a meaningful Dom0 has not yet made it into the kernel.
As expected, the last remaining components that use the Big Kernel Lock (BKL) have now been removed, allowing the kernel hackers to completely eradicate the lock via a commit entitled "BKL:That's all, folks". Among the new additions is the support for the sixth generation of the ipset program for optimising certain netfilter policies. In the staging area, the developers also added a rudimentary graphics driver for the GMA500 graphics chip found in Intel's US15W chip-set, also known as Poulsbo.
