Hi All,

I've just released a new Gentoo Linux kernel -- 2.4.17-r3.  This new
release includes ACPI and no longer has the not-yet-ready readahead
patch that was in 2.4.17-r2 and really hurt disk performance.

to emerge:

emerge rsync
emerge =sys-kernel/linux-sources-2.4.17-r3
cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig
etc. :)

Here's a summary of all patches included in this kernel:

NEW in 2.4.17-r3:

	acpi-20011205 (ACPI support, new-style power management)

REMOVED from 2.4.17-r3:

	readahead patch from akpm (really slowed things down; was 	mistakenly
recommended to me before it was ready)

EXISTING patches that were in the previous Gentoo Linux kernel:

	XFS (26 Jan 2002 CVS)

	read-latency-2 from akpm (improves multiple disk read/write IO
	performance)

	fastpte (enables an option to do fast scanning of the page 	tables)
	
	irqrate-a1 (optimizes irq handling, no more ksoftirqd and 	eliminates
irq storms on servers)

	ide (from http://www.linuxdiskcert.org, patch
	ide.2.4.17.01192002.patch) ide updates, performance improvements
	NOTE: IDE users enable "Taskfile" options in kernel config for
	maximum performance.

	preempt-2.4.17-r1 (preemptible kernel)
	NOTE: *disable* for servers, *enable* for desktops

	loopback device deadlock fixes from akpm

Enjoy!

-- 
Daniel Robbins                                  <drobbins@g.o>
Chief Architect/President                       http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.