Last month saw the opening and subsequent closing of the 2.6.35 kernel’s merge window, the period of time during which all of the exciting new features that have been waiting in the wings (and in linux-next nightly kernels provided by Stephen Rothwell) are considered for merging into the official ‘mainline’ kernel source tree by Linus Torvalds…

Last month saw the release of the final 2.6.33 Linux kernel, following several months of development (and some last-minute patches – including the network namespace bug this author discovered and wrote about the previous month).

Another month, another kernel release. Last month saw what is hopefully the final RC (release candidate) 2.6.33 kernel, and so it should have been released by the time you read this…

Last month saw the opening (and then closing) of the 2.6.33 merge window (the time during which Linus takes potentially ‘intrusive’ patches to the kernel, followed by a period of stabilisation) and with it a flood of patches intended for the 2.6.33 kernel release…

Last month many developers were scurrying to prepare for the 2.6.33 merge window. When they weren’t doing that, here are a few of the items that were under discussion, starting with the Big Kernel Lock…

Jon Masters is a Linux kernel hacker who has been working on Linux for almost 14 years, since he first attended university at the age of 13. Jon lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and works for a large enterprise Linux vendor…