Since a few people tried to tell me that I should not be complaining but
testing stuff, I am inclined to answer this one publicly.
The point is that I did not ask that Linus try out all combinations
before posting a new release. He once told some newspaper that
compiling a kernel on his monster machine takes him unter 10 minutes.
It should be no problem to compile one fully modularizes kernel and one
huge everything-compiled-in kernel. If both builds complete, he should
post the kernel. But there is not much more discouraging that
downloading a new kernel (even the diffs are quite large), compiling it
and then getting a syntax error.
> It is the responsibility of the rest of us to submit useful bug
> reports, and better yet, patches for problems.
Oh, really.
Duh.
> It works both ways, you see. You get to use the collective work of
> the kernel developers, essentially for free, but when something fails
> it is *your* responsibility to do your part to at least submit a bug
> report. And submitting a bug report requires no particular skill, so
> anyone can do it.
This is not true.
See the tons of "I compiled it, you know, and then I copied the kernel,
you know, and then I ran lilo, you know, and then I booted, you know,
and then it didn't work." 'bug reports'.
> Granted, on an officially stable kernel, compile errors should not
> occur, but if they do it is simply because either no one (that means
> us) bothered to try out the pre series of kernels leading up to it and
> report the problem.
I don't think it is too much to ask that before you release a kernel,
you try to compile it. If it is a stable kernel, then compile it twice,
once with everything as a module, once with everything linked it. That
should be the bare minimum that just has to be done before you release a
kernel. Should Linus really be unwilling to do that, then he should
just post an URL to a /private/ directory here so someone can grab it
and do both compiles.
> > 4. FAT. 2.3.7 does not compile with FAT file system. Excuse me?
> > This is the single most frequently used file system besides ext2,
> > and 2.3.7 does not compile with it? Because of a syntax error?!
> Details? Details are the difference between a rant and something
> helpful, useful, and constructive.
It does not compile.
Details won't help you, since even if I gave you details you would still
need to verify them and try to compile it yourself and then you would
notice that FAT does not compile. Please note that I said "does not
compile" and not "does not work" or "panics at mount time". This is
some objective bug report that anyone can verify immediately.
> Also, does it really surprise you that a development kernel in
> general, and one in which *major* changes have been made and well
> publicized, in particular, might have some problems in the areas
> directly involved in the changes.
Sorry, but if the second most frequently used file system does not
compile, then don't release it. I am not counting the pseudo file
systems proc and pts here, obviously.
> > Management summary: stuff like this sucks. I am but a programmer with a
> > SMP box that likes to run the latest kernel. And yes, I expect all the
> > kernels to compile out of the box. I don't think that this is too much
> > to ask.
> It is not too much to expect other people to give you something that you
> want, without your incurring even minimal responsibilities?
Huh?
Please think your answer over.
It is people like me who do the quality assurance for Linux.
People like me who complain. And if there is just _one_ goof like the
FAT problem, there are literally thousands of people who will run into
this problem and be discouraged to upgrade their kernel in the future.
Felix
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