AMD released their first X86 based 64 bit processor over 3 years ago. While the original processors, Opterons, were for servers, the desktop variants, Athlon 64, soon followed. Due to the open nature of the Linux kernel, distributions of Linux supporting the 64 bit architecture were readily (and freely) available before Windows. In the past year, the Athlon 64 has made its way into laptops and more users are finding 64 bit versions of their favorite Linux distributions satisfactory for their needs.

Within every release of the official kernel source from kernel.org there is a provided /Documentation directory. This directory contains various notes, guides, tips, documentation, explanations and otherwise useful information. Majority of this content is provided in pure text format. I thought it would be convenient if I could navigate through this infomation on the internet. So I decided to host it myself. Information on my Kernel Documentation pages Linux Kernel Documentation

For the average user, a new kernel release usually makes no difference. If everything is already working fine, there there typically only 2 major reasons anyone should update their kernel. The first is for necessary or critical security problems (most people aren’t affected by every vulnerability). The second is the need for new features or hardware support, which is probably my primary reason to test a new kernel. The release of 2.

Since the 2.6.13 kernel was released some time ago, I’ve heard plenty of negative commentary about changes within it. From referring to the Fedora-list mailing list, it appears as though there were plenty of rough edges. Anyways, using my FC4 Kernel Notes, I followed through my procedure and installed version 2.6.13.2 from source. The first observation I noticed was that it didn’t seem much different from my last 2.6.12 kernel or my last 2.