We're making ready for big processes, and vm86 mode!
 - Move the kernel to virtual address 0xc0000000 instead of zero.
 - Allocate per-process page tables

We can now have 3GB processes, and more than 64 of them!

[Original announcement below]

As promised, 0.97.pl2 is out today (well, over here it's already
tomorrow, so I guess I'm 35 minutes late.  Naughty, naughty).  Right
now, the patch (and full source for those that don't like to patch up
the system) is available at "nic.funet.fi: pub/OS/Linux/testing/Linus",
but I'll try to put it on some other sites as well if I'm able and
energetic enough.  Probably tomorrow - together with a binary for those
that aren't willing to comple the kernel on their own.

0.97.2 has mostly my mm/fs patches, along with some relatively minor
diffs by others (including file locking by Doug Evans).  User-level
changes are minor: but the mm has changed a lot, and the vfs routines
have been changed to keep track of the error-messages a bit better.
Also, the vfs-interface to "follow_link()" changed slightly: people who
are making filesystems should look at the changes (but they are
relatively minor, and shouldn't result in any problems - both the
extended fs and minix fs needed just a simple change in their respective
symlink.c files).

The mm changes /might/ lower performance slightly, as the paging TLB's
are now flushed at every task-switch due to the new system, but I doubt
it's noticeable.  The other performance changes (dynamic buffers etc) in
0.97(.pl1) should overshadow that particular problem.

I hope this release means that these kinds of low-level rewrites aren't
needed for a while: the last couple of releases have changed some very
fundamental things.  Nothing seems to have suffered too badly, but I'd
be happier if it all got tested more thoroughly.  Anyway, discounting
the ps/free etc suite of programs, everything I have tried has worked
flawlessly despite the big kernel changes.

I'm still worried about the reports about messed-up buffers, but have
been unable to reproduce the problem, and nobody has so far
disillusioned me about my guess that it's a problem with the SCSI code
(which at least gives me an excuse for not doing anything about it :-).
Other problems include at least one report of spontaneous re-booting,
which is totally inexplicable, so I'm blaming hardware once more until I
can get better data on the thing.

As to patches sent by others: 0.97.2 contains very little of that kind
of code.  I've been too busy either working, or implementing my own
changes that I have simply ignored them for the most part.  Remind me
(or resend them relative to the new kernel) if you have a patch that is
still needed.

There is one new system call: 'vm86(struct vm86_struct * info)'.  It's
not ready for general use yet - it works, but will probably need some
tweaking before being practical.  But supporting a virtual 86 mode was
so easy after the mm rewrite that I felt it was worth implementing: the
vm86 code is less than 50 lines of C right now.

                Linus

PS.  The bright spot of the week goes to "The Oxford Beer Trolls" - all
UK inhabitants should probably be locked into some (big) mental
institution and TOBT should probably have a wing of their own, but
thanks to them linux can now call itself "beerware" :-)