This message announces the availability of version 1.2.13 of Linux/68k. It can be ftped from directory /pub/linux/680x0/v1.2 at tsx-11.mit.edu. A diff file can be found in linux-1.2.13.diffs.gz, and the full source in linux-1.2.13.tar.gz. I compiled a "superset" kernel which can be found in file vmlinux-1.2.13.gz in the v1.2 directory. As you can probably guess, this version of Linux/68k is "compatible" with version 1.2.13 of the PC version of Linux. BEFORE RUNNING THIS KERNEL, CAREFULLY READ EVERY PART OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, AND PLAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE *EXT2FS* SECTION. ALSO ENSURE THAT YOU READ THE ANNOUNCE-* FILES FOR 1.2.10pl1, 1.2.10, 0.9.8 and 0.9.9. Notes: 1) This kernel *cannot* be used with existing 0.9 ext2fs filesystems without "fixing" them. See *EXT2FS* below. 2) Includes patches from Andreas Schwab, fixing various bugs and giving compatibility in most ways with version 0.9.8 and 0.9.9. 3) Now uses "software EOI" mode on the Atari. 4) Fixes to serial drivers so that CD-loss detection and RTS/CTS work properly (they were broken in 1.2 until now). I've only used this kernel with the amiboot-1.11.gz "bootstrap" program available at tsx-11, and amiga-lilo version 0.4. I believe that in order to use small granularity (256K) memory chunks you must use amiboot-1.12. Note also that amiga-lilo seems to have problems booting kernels of 700k in size (at least it does for me). I've created a new ramdisk image to be used with this kernel. It is in filesys-1.2.gz in the v1.2 directory. The most interesting programs in this filesystem from a v1.2 point of view are the /sbin/fsck.ext2, /sbin/mkfs.ext2 and /sbin/update programs. /sbin/fsck.ext2 and /sbin/mkfs.ext2 are versions of the e2fsprogs-0.5b which *must* be used with v1.2 of Linux/68k. See *EXT2FS* below. /sbin/update is the "bdflush" daemon some of you may have heard about. It gives better disk buffer writing performance than the existing /sbin/update program. Note that /sbin/update will only do the "bdflush" business on a 1.2 system, but can be used as a replacement for /sbin/update on older (v0.9) systems also. *EXTFS*: When I first created Linux/68k (and the ported the ext2fs filesystem) I made a bad decision about the implementation of the linux kernel bit operations for the m68k. I made them little-endian when they should really have been big-endian. I have rectified this mistake in v1.2. The bit-operations are big-endian, and the ext2fs filesystem uses these bit operations. This means that the inode and block bitmaps of existing ext2fs filesystems *cannot* be used by the v1.2 kernel. If you want to use existing filesystems, you must boot the 1.2 ramdisk filesystem, and run the /sbin/fsck.ext2 program on every ext2fs filesystem you intend to use with the v1.2 kernel. Note that after running the new fsck.ext2 on these filesystems, they cannot be used by v0.9 kernels unless you run the v0.9 fsck.ext2 on them. If you wish to create a *new* ext2fs partition to use with v1.2, use the mkfs.ext2 on the 1.2 ramdisk filesystem. The patches required to e2fsprogs-0.5b to support Linux/68k v1.2 are found in e2fsprogs-0.5b.diffs.gz in the v1.2 directory.