Linux 2.4 核心的第二次修補版本已正式由 Linus Torvalds 發表。這個版本的修補檔相當大（超過 6MB），最主要的內容在於 S/390 的更新，以及加入一種新的 Cris 架構。
Linux 2.4.2 對一般使用者影響最大的部份在於修正了兩個可能造成硬盤內容損毀的臭蟲，其中一個 IDE 驅動程序的臭蟲，只曾在 ARM 架構的機器上發生過，另一個臭蟲也沒有人回報實際遇到問題，然而理論上這兩個臭蟲在一般個人電腦上有可能造成相當嚴重的破壞。
據消息指出，Linus Torvalds 將逐漸退出穩定版本 Linux 核心的維護工作，轉而專心從事開發測試版的核心程序。不過在 Linux 2.5 核心系列正式開跑之前，我們還是看到由他本人親自發表新穩定核心版本。
Linux 2.4.2 變革紀錄∶
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
下載位址∶
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/
摘自：http://linuxfab.cx