Linux 2.4 核心的第二次修补版本已正式由 Linus Torvalds 发表。这个版本的修补档相当大（超过 6MB），最主要的内容在於 S/390 的更新，以及加入一种新的 Cris 架构。
Linux 2.4.2 对一般使用者影响最大的部份在於修正了两个可能造成硬盘内容损毁的臭虫，其中一个 IDE 驱动程序的臭虫，只曾在 ARM 架构的机器上发生过，另一个臭虫也没有人回报实际遇到问题，然而理论上这两个臭虫在一般个人电脑上有可能造成相当严重的破坏。
据消息指出，Linus Torvalds 将逐渐退出稳定版本 Linux 核心的维护工作，转而专心从事开发测试版的核心程序。不过在 Linux 2.5 核心系列正式开跑之前，我们还是看到由他本人亲自发表新稳定核心版本。
Linux 2.4.2 变革纪录∶
final:
- sync up more with Alan
- Urban Widmark: smbfs and HIGHMEM fix
- Chris Mason: reiserfs tail unpacking fix ("null bytes in reiserfs
files") - Adan Richter: new cpia usb ID
- Hugh Dickins: misc small sysv ipc fixes
- Andries Brouwer: remove overly restrictive sector size check for
SCSI cd-roms
-pre4:
- big S/390x 64-bit merge
- typos and license name fixes. doc updates.
- more include file cleanups (phase out "malloc.h")
- even more elevator corner cases.. When not merging, find the best
insertion point. - pmac ide update
- network fixes (netif_wake_queue on tx timeout)
- USB printer select() fix
- NFS client missed initialization, deamon fixed client address
check
-pre3:
- Jens: better ordering of requests when unable to merge
- Neil Brown: make md work as a module again (we cannot autodetect
in modules, not enough background information)
- Neil Brown: raid5 SMP locking cleanups
- Neil Brown: nfsd: handle Irix NFS clients named pipe behavior and
dentry leak fix
- maestro3 shutdown fix
- fix dcache hash calculation that could cause bad hashes under
certain circumstances (Dean Gaudet)
- David Miller: networking and sparc updates
- Jeff Garzik: include file cleanups
- Andy Grover: ACPI update
- Coda-fs error return fixes
- rth: alpha Jensen update
-pre2:
- driver sync up with Alan
- Andrew Morton: wakeup cleanup and race fix
- Paul Mackerras: macintosh driver updates.
- don't trust "page_count()" on reserved pages!
- Russell King: fix serious IDE multimode write bug!
- me, Jens, others: fix elevator problem
- ARM, MIPS and cris architecture updates
- alpha updates: better page clear/copy, avoid kernel lock in execve
- USB and firewire updates
- ISDN updates
- Irda updates
-pre1:
- XMM: don't allow illegal mxcsr values
- ACPI: handle non-existent battery strings gracefully
- Compaq Smart Array driver update
- Kanoj Sarcar: serial console hardware flow control support
- ide-cs: revert toc-valid cache checking in 2.4.1
- Vojtech Pavlik: update via82cxxx driver to handle the vt82c686
- raid5 graceful failure handling fix
- ne2k-pci: enable device before asking the irq number
- sis900 driver update
- riva FB driver update
- fix silly inode hashing pessimization
- add SO_ACCEPTCONN for SuS
- remove modinfo hack workaround, all newer modutils do it correctly
- datagram socket shutdown fix
- mark process as running when it takes a page-fault
下载位址∶
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/
摘自：http://linuxfab.cx