[bananas] bad Linux kernel

[Eric Greisen]

We have recently experimented with the new Linux kernel 2.6.9-55.  It
is not usable for AIPS (and other programs too, e.g. pine).  There
seems to be some sort of "race" condition in which it will
occasionally tell AIPS that a file does not exist when in fact it
does.  This causes AIPS interactive tasks, procedures, etc to get into
trouble and, in smaller machines, apparently causes tasks to fail a
great deal.  I have modified TASKWT used by AIPS to defend a little
against this, but there are many other ways in which this error can
cause failures.

Bottom line - do not use the latest Linux kernel.  There are no
compelling reasons to switch to it and there are clear reasons to
avoid it.

Eric Greisen