The developerWorks "Development stream" describes Linux on System z contributions and functionality against recent upstream kernel and other upstream Linux components which can be used to build Linux on System z distributions.
Currently, the "Development stream" consists of and has been tested with:
kernel 2.6.25
tool-chain:
binutils 2.17.50.0.12
gcc 4.1.3
(Note that tests with gcc 4.2 were also successful.)
The 2008-05-07 developerWorks update introduces the "Development stream", which is based on recent upstream Linux packages - as opposed to the former streams that were based on backlevel components.
The "Development stream" has all features of the "October 2005 stream" with the following exception:
SAN Discovery Tool (based on HBA API) is not supported on the "Development stream" (The Linux on System z team is working on providing equivalent functionality)
The Linux on System z functionality in the "Development stream" has changed in some cases compared to the "October 2005 stream", most noticably for the:
FCP adapter statistics (available on IBM System z9 and z10) formerly in debugfs, now in sysfs
zfcp statistics formerly in debugfs, can now be retrieved from BLKTRACE. The relevant code was checked-in (http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/axboe/blktrace.git;a=summary) on top of blktrace-0.99.3 (http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/).
The deprecation statements for "October 2005 stream" regarding CLAW, CTC, and IUCV network devices are not documented for the "Development stream"; however IBM does not recommend these deprecated functions for Linux on System z distributions based on the "Development stream".
Support for new hardware accelerated crypto algorithms (SHA-224, SHA256, SHA-384, SHA-512 and AES-192, AES-256) via libica 1.3.9 (part of openCryptoki - http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=128009)
