"New year, new kernel: Linux 2.4.36 is finally ready and has been checked long enough to be released. Quite a bunch of bugs, build errors and security issues have been fixed since 2.4.35, but all of those fixes were merged into 2.4.35-stable," 2.4 maintainer Willy Tarreau stated, announcing the latest 2.4 stable Linux kernel. He noted, "I should say that I'm quite satisfied of this dual-branch release model which proves to be very successful at separating quick fixes from changes which require more thorough testing." Willy went on to add:

"Concerning future versions, I have nothing pending in the queue anymore. I will then go on with 2.4.36.X when bug fixes come in, and only open 2.4.37 when I get something which I do not consider suitable for 2.4.36.X."

The previous 2.4.35 stable kernel was released in July of 2007. Source level changes can be viewed through the linux-2.4 gitweb interface.

"I have ported [the] adutux driver for [the] ADU series device list from 2.6 to 2.4," Vitaliy Ivanov announced on the Linux USB development mailing list. 2.4 maintainer Willy Tarreau explained that while the backport looked good, as a rule it was best to not merge new drivers into the stable 2.4 branch of the Linux kernel, "2.4 is currently used by people who already are in 2.4 and cannot/do not want to switch, and by people who are looking for close to zero maintenance. Drivers are often a reason to switch away from 2.4, but not to stay in 2.4."

One of the arguments for merging the driver into the mainline 2.4 tree was so it would then be added to the various distribution kernels. Pete Zaitcev explained that this wasn't the way it worked with enterprise kernels, "at least in case of RHEL, such backports never were automatic. In any case, RHEL 2.1 and 3 do not receive new drivers anymore. We only do bugfixes if something comes up. Realistically speaking, 2.4 kernels are just too old for anyone to use." Willy did agree to consider merging the driver if Vitaliy wanted to step up as the official maintainer for the 2.4 backport.

2.4 kernel maintainer Willy Tarreau [story] announced the release of the 2.4.34 stable Linux kernel, "2.4.34 brings the usual bunch of security fixes, bugfixes, and adds support for gcc 4 to x86, x86-64 and sparc64, thanks to Mikael Pettersson's work." Willy also released the 2.4.33.7 kernel with a security fix added in 2.4.34-rc3. He went on to note some caveats:

"One user reported regular panics with aacraid since 2.4.32, so there's no regression here. I will seek for some help to get this fixed in 2.4.35. I also get reports of people getting trapped by NIC vendors who suddenly change their ethernet chips with no big warning notice. The i82546GB chip which replaced the i82546EB in e1000 cards come to mind. It is not supported by the driver in 2.4.34 but I will try to solve this in 2.4.35 (right now, you have to download the vendor's drivers when you replace a NIC). Another driver should get some lifting : skge. I have got a few reports of problems with the vendor's sk98lin driver and I noticed the same problems at work (UDP becoming silent on NFS server)."