Linux Kernel 2.6 Features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3

Mumbai: Red Hat recently announced the launch of its latest version Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, which includes many features backported from the 2.6 kernel to the 2.4 kernel.

The Linux 3 family of products has been developed for customers deploying Linux solutions in commercial and enterprise environments. Choosing the most appropriate kernel technology for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, required a complex trade-off between providing the latest features while maintaining stability and quality. The Linux kernel evolves rapidly, with new features appearing continuously, which customers and ISVs wanted incorporated from the 2.6 kernel along with the stability and maturity of the 2.4 kernel.

To provide the best mix of technology and stability, Red Hat created the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 products using a hybrid kernel approach. Features from the 2.6 kernel that would be of most value to commercial / enterprise customers and ISVs were backported for use with the latest and most stable 2.4 kernel. Red Hat engineers developed many of the new 2.6 kernel features.

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Red Hat provides a complete product solution that meets the requirements of users through a combination of leading open source engineering and test capabilities, close partnerships with major ISVs and OEMS, and comprehensive services delivered by Red Hat and its partners.

Red Hat also announced the first beta release of Fedora Core Fedora Core 2, test2 which features full support for SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) endorsed by the NSA. Fedora Core 2 is also the first Linux distribution based on the 2.6 Linux kernel and already includes the next generation NFS protocol (NFSv4), GNOME 2.6 rc1 and KDE 3.2.1.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 will be based on kernel 2.6 and will be available in the first part of 2005. It will also include SELinux and other Fedora technologies