Re: Stop the Linux kernel madness

[Andreas Dilger]

On Jun 18, 2004  10:53 -0700, 4Front Technologies wrote:
> The issue is also SuSE's 2.6.4 kernel added the REGPARM patch which was 
> only introduced in Linux 2.6.5 for example. Wouldn't it be better if SuSE
> had shipped their kernel as Linux 2.6.5?. The point is what constitutes a
> "baseline" Linux kernel?. You can add all your patches but if now the
> kernel is more in tune with Linux 2.6.7, just call it Linux 2.6.7 - calling
> it 2.6.5 will break a lot of software that isn't included with your kernel.

We gave up trying to use kernel versions to determine what features/interface
to use for a given kernel long ago.  Instead we have configure check for a
particular interface and use "#ifdef HAVE_foo", not "#if LINUX_KERNEL_VERSION".

I can understand why SuSE does this - there is no way they can ship the
"latest" kernel and still have tested it thoroughly, yet if they find a
specific defect they need to fix it (preferrably in the same way that a
later kernel fixes it).

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2resize/
http://members.shaw.ca/adilger/                 http://members.shaw.ca/golinux/

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