Even as the kernel makes its appearance in an ambiguous legal climate, systems integrators and partners shouldn't expect to see enterprise products based on Linux 2.6 under the tree this year.
Last month, for instance, Red Hat released its Enterprise Linux 3, which is based on the Linux 2.421 kernel. Red Hat doesn't expect an update that incorporates the forthcoming Linux 2.6 kernel until sometime next year, executives said. "Linux 2.6 won't be consumed by enterprises until a year from now," said Brian Stevens, vice president of operating systems development at Red Hat.
The second-leading provider of Linux distributions, SUSE Linux, plans to ship SUSE Enterprise Server 9 with the new Linux 2.6 kernel next spring, a SUSE spokesman said recently. Novell, however, won't comment on whether it will change the Linux company's product release timetable once its planned $210 million acquisition of SUSE is completed. That is expected in January.
The 2.6 kernel features major scalability improvements, faster performance, enhanced support for embedded systems and, to a lesser extent, supplies desktop systems with better USB and FireWire support, Morton said.
Linux kernel 2.6, for example, will allow companies to run the Linux distribution on multiprocessing systems with up to 64 CPUs. The new kernel will run considerably better on 64-bit Intel and Advanced Micro Devices systems due to its support for 64 Gbytes of memory.
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