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The forces behind Linux, the freely distributed operating system that has gained support from Netscape, Oracle and other vendors this year, are preparing an upgrade to the OS kernel that could debut this month.

As a replacement to the current 2.0.35 kernel, Linux 2.2 was informally announced via an online mailing list from OS creator Linus Torvalds in late October. Some beta versions are available for download now, and most improvements seem intended to help developers. These include enhanced symmetric multi-processing (SMP), along with support for Ethernet, ISDN and both cable and v.90 modems.

"There are a lot of features in there that frankly we're salivating over and we're really excited to see it," says Erik Troan, chief developer at Red Hat Software Corp. in Research Triangle Park, N.C. "And if it's ready for the next release, by all means we're going to include it."

Red Hat's support is important to the future of Linux. Red Hat sells and supports one of the most popular commercial distributions of the Linux OS, and is the creator of the annual Linux Expo trade show and convention.

Of all the changes that come with 2.2, Troan says SMP will be among the most significant. Right now, he explains, the OS can make good use of a Linux-based machine running on two processors. Moving that same machine up to four processors, however, did not mean Linux 2.0 was ready to take advantage of the extra two chips.

While 2.2 adds hardware support for new technologies and peripherals that have shipped within the last year, the new Linux does not yet support universal serial bus (USB) or DVD capabilities. Troan, however, says Red Hat is just one of several companies writing code to make that happen and he expects such functionality to come "within the 2.2 generation." Other 2.2 add-ons, like an overhaul of the sound and graphic subsystems, have preceded the kernel's release.

"Developers are making sure they don't get too much pressure to get the kernel out before they're really ready," he says. "They're being careful to make sure a lot of the changes they're doing are being ported back to the 2.0 kernel so that people can get them as they stabilize."

A few months ago, the Linux community was rocked by the formation of a Linux Standards Association (LSA), which is trying to create a trademarked version of Linux that can be properly benchmarked. Ian Nandhra, president of NC-Labs and LSA co-founder, says the arrival of 2.2 will have no effect on the group's mission.

"The majority of the work that's going on in the kernel appears to be fine- tuning stuff that needs to be fine-tuned, and for SMP. They really are doing some astoundingly, astonishingly good work. As a kernel, this has stopped being a science; it is now becoming an art form," he says. "Like most of the releases, everybody sort of holds their breath, crosses their fingers and prays to whatever deity they believe in that things aren't going to break. The market, such as it is, seems to be waiting for kernel 2.2 to come out before they make an upgrade decision."

The caution is to be expected. Despite high-profile support from Netscape's vice-president Mark Andreessen, Linux has had trouble cracking the mainstream corporate market, as it lacks the sort of single-vendor commitment that Windows, for example, enjoys from Microsoft.

"We're not seeing an amazing amount of demand for (Linux 2.2) from our customers," Troan admits. "They're interested in it, but they want to make sure it's ready before they touch it."

The Linux 2.2 kernel's file system is expected to read NTFS and FAT32 drives, as well as the partition table formats for FreeBSD, SunOS and Solaris. The current version, Linux 2.0.35, is almost two years old.

With files from Newsbytes