Re: starting with 2.7

From: Steven Rostedt
Date: Mon Jan 03 2005 - 07:14:17 EST


On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 00:49 +0000, Adam Mercer wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 01:38:58 +0100, Adrian Bunk <bunk@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > 2.4.27 -> 2.4.28 is a kernel upgrade that is very unlikely to cause
> > problems.
> >
> > Compared to this, 2.6.9 -> 2.6.10 is much more likely to break an
> > existing setup that worked in 2.6.9 .

Yes, it broke my NVIDIA module. I had to hack it to get it to work. Yes,
yes, I know NVIDIA bad and all that, but it is an example, and those
that have NVIDIA cards and want 3D graphics, need to bow to the evil
power that is.

>
> IIRC 2.4.9 -> 2.4.10 broke a few setups as well.
>

IIRC, there was a big argument to what was going on in the 2.4.9->2.4.10
kernel. Mainly the new VM. Alan Cox didn't want to include it because a
change like that was too big for a stable release. Actually, I thought
that 2.4.0 -> 2.4.14 was still unstable, and didn't migrate much on my
"stable" machines, until 2.4.14.

I think both approaches have their pros and cons. Maybe the problem is
that 2.x -> 2.x+1 is too slow. If it was faster, then it wouldn't be a
problem. The way I develop applications/libraries is that if I change an
interface, it changes the second number, and if I make major changes the
first is changed. Maybe keep 2.6.x just for bug fixes (like usual) and
start 2.7 for updates and jump quicker to 2.8. When a major design is
done, that should be 3.0. I believe that the kernel has settled with
the 2.6 series to not be jumping to something different as 2.4->2.6 did
any time soon. So maybe make 3.0 the next big change, and let the 2.x
rise quicker.

As to use the distribution kernels? People do that? The first thing I do
when installing a distribution, is to download and run the latests
kernel ;-)

-- Steve


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/