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The much-anticipated 2.4.0 Version of the Linux kernel has been released by Linus Torvalds, the creator of the open source operating system.

"In short, 2.4.0 is out there," Torvalds wrote in an e-mail to the Kernel Mailing List linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org dated late Thursday afternoon, Pacific Time. The open source code is available for download on Torvalds's site.

Torvalds, who also holds down a day job as an engineer at Transmeta, had hoped to release the kernel by early December, he had told the Linux World Conference and Expo last October in Berlin.

The 2.4 kernel was keenly awaited by Linux users and Linux companies such as Red Hat, Caldera, and SuSE Linux for the past year because it offers increased symmetrical multiprocessing scalability. This makes it easier for users to run corporate applications on Linux-based servers.

"Anxiously awaited for the last too many months, 2.4.0 brings to the table many improvements, none of which come to mind to the exhausted release manager right now," Torvalds wrote in the e-mail.

Still Testing Scalability

Linux kernel version 2.4.0 brings a scalability level to the operating system, allowing it to compete with UNIX in high-end systems and applications, according to Linux vendors.

"This release will make us much more able to compete on the larger, higher-end systems because of the scaling," says Colin Tenwick, vice president and a general manager for Red Hat. "Currently, we are comfortable going up to [running Linux on] four or six processors without degradation, but 2.4 will go up to 16 or 32 easily," he adds.

Theoretical borders haven't been tested yet, but scalability brings major benefits, notes Wolfgang Herrmann, a representative of SuSE Linux.

"Scalability is much better, so you can host big databases or big online transactions, which is of course important to any e-business shops," he says.

The first multiprocessor tests have worked well, Herrmann says. "We know it runs quite well with eight CPUs, but we didn't yet test it with 16."

Red Hat, SuSE Ready Updates

Now the real challenge begins, as companies begin rolling out products that take advantage of the new kernel features.

"Now that it's been released, large corporations can start to make products using the features," Tenwick says. "It now has to go through the standard rigorous [quality assurance tests], such as testing with multiple processors."

New releases from both SuSE and Red Hat are scheduled to ship at the beginning of February. Both companies say they have offered beta versions of the kernel to customers on a regular basis as well.

(Rick Perera of the IDG News Service also contributed to this report.)

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