What happened to the report (see this Slashdot story from Nov. 2) that Alan Cox
would be replaced by Marcelo Tosatti as the
stable release coordinator?
Re:call it what it is
by
mabinogi
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Actually, A Service pack is a collection of patches and updates to a wide variety of services and applications that make up the complete system, and have been tested (in theory) to work together, and can be installed in one go.
A new kernel version would be just one small part of a service pack.
So no, it's not a service pack, and even if it were.....would that be a bad thing?
Personally, I'd rather be seeing lots of updates, which indicates that development is still being done, than to see nothing, and live under the uncertaintly of not knowing whether this meant that the system I had was perfect, or if the maintainters just didnt care.
Though you're definitely right about "if it's not broke, don't fix it" part.
-- Advanced users are users too!
Re:why is this news?
by
jfmiller
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Normally I just lurk but I feel the need to disagree with Mr. Grimes.
I like many who read Slashdot am a linux enthusiast. I appriciate having a place where my OS of choice is reported on with the zeal and timeliness that Microsoft gets in the main stream press. Slashdot is one of the few sights I read on a daily basis, and I for one appriciate hearing about the new kernels. along with the rest of the pertinante Tech news.
My local paper still lists The High School football team's results on the front page every Saturday during the fall, even though most of it's readers dont have kids on the HS football team. It builds a sence of community pride wich is greater than the information that is contained or it's relevance to peoples lives.
Kernel anouncements on slashdot are appriciated by me and I hope a great many other readers. And even if there are only a few of us Linux is one of the things that form Slashdot's Community, and therefore in the interest of Community pride I encourage CT to continue to post all the kernel updates.
JFMILLER
-- Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Re:Changes/Improvements
by
brer_rabbit
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The ChangeLog definitely needs some verbosity. The word to the wise is "only update if you need to", yet viewing the changelog leaves one wondering if they need the newer software.
What exactly do entries like "shrink dcache/icache more aggressively" or "random bugfix" mean? The former I'd guess has to do with data and instruction caches, but what aggressively shrinking does to them I have no clue without a more context. And the latter, "random bugfix", I hit my coworkers over the head when I see that in our CVS logs.
So is my current kernel effected? Am I missing out by not having my dcache/icache shrunk more aggressively? Or maybe those random bufixes effect me? A little more verbosity in the ChangeLog would go a long way. Having to follow the hacker's mailing list is not an option, this should be included in the release notes.
Re:call it what it is
by
Arandir
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Linus really, really, REALLY needs to start the 2.5.x branch.
Stable branches need to be stable. Do all of the new feature experimentation in unstable. It's gotten to the point now that "stable" has become a meaningless word in linuxland.
Next time around, let's fork off 2.7.0 at the same time 2.6.2 is released. Or maybe Linux needs to split into three branches: "flimsy" for experimentation and VM wars, "unstable" for up-to-date hardware support but no new features, and "stable" which only gets bug and security fixes.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
New ./ feature idea
by
Atilla
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Ok, how about this -
maybe major kernel release posts should go in their own category, so whiners could set their user prefs to not display them.
-- ---
sig moved for great justice.
Re:New ./ feature idea
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Maybe major kernel release posts should be posted to the front page, and MINOR RELEASES like 2.4.14 shouldn't be posted at all.
Re:why is this news?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
It's news because the editors and owners of Slashdot have decided it's newsworthy. You're certainly entitled to disagree with its newsworthiness, but how hard is it to understand that the editors wanted to post it because they thought it was important?
Re:call it what it is
by
psamuels
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Linus really, really, REALLY needs to start the 2.5.x branch.
Everyone is saying this, but there are issues involved. They were saying the same thing before 2.2 was even released - "give us a 2.3 so we can play". Linus doesn't work that way, because he believes (unlike, say, the Debian folks) that the resulting "brain drain" due to people hacking on the next unstable release unacceptibly hinders the bug-fixing effort in the current stable.
Sure, it's at least 80% psychological, but it does work, for all that. If you read his posts, you'll see that Linus has never been one to shy away from using psychology!
The unfortunate fact is, until recently, 2.4 did not have a usable VM. We can argue all day about whether Linus was too hasty in integrating Andrea's VM (I think he was, which is why I've switched to -ac kernels for now) but it is hard to argue that 2.5 should have forked before the 2.4 VM shaped up... at least given Linus's brain drain philosophy.
So, while the 2.4-only series has almost certainly gone on too long, there are valid reasons for it. Perhaps if you had contributed all your VM fixes six months ago, we could have had a 2.5 by now. (:
-- "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
Re:From the changelog
by
WNight
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It's not a problem with his English skills, it's a problem with his typing.
Even if it wasn't, not everyone speaks or writes English fluently. Even those who grew up with it. And you know, nobody really cares, other than you, and nobody (I mean that, not even your mother) cares what you think. If they did, you'd have better things to do than flame Linus over a typo.
Re:Useless point...
by
shanek
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
And how do you know the "14-and-counting Dept." didn't start counting at 0 as well?:^)
Slashdot Mirror
What happened to the report (see this Slashdot story from Nov. 2) that Alan Cox would be replaced by Marcelo Tosatti as the stable release coordinator?
Actually, A Service pack is a collection of patches and updates to a wide variety of services and applications that make up the complete system, and have been tested (in theory) to work together, and can be installed in one go.
A new kernel version would be just one small part of a service pack.
So no, it's not a service pack, and even if it were.....would that be a bad thing?
Personally, I'd rather be seeing lots of updates, which indicates that development is still being done, than to see nothing, and live under the uncertaintly of not knowing whether this meant that the system I had was perfect, or if the maintainters just didnt care.
Though you're definitely right about "if it's not broke, don't fix it" part.
Advanced users are users too!
Normally I just lurk but I feel the need to disagree with Mr. Grimes.
I like many who read Slashdot am a linux enthusiast. I appriciate having a place where my OS of choice is reported on with the zeal and timeliness that Microsoft gets in the main stream press. Slashdot is one of the few sights I read on a daily basis, and I for one appriciate hearing about the new kernels. along with the rest of the pertinante Tech news.
My local paper still lists The High School football team's results on the front page every Saturday during the fall, even though most of it's readers dont have kids on the HS football team. It builds a sence of community pride wich is greater than the information that is contained or it's relevance to peoples lives.
Kernel anouncements on slashdot are appriciated by me and I hope a great many other readers. And even if there are only a few of us Linux is one of the things that form Slashdot's Community, and therefore in the interest of Community pride I encourage CT to continue to post all the kernel updates.
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
The ChangeLog definitely needs some verbosity. The word to the wise is "only update if you need to", yet viewing the changelog leaves one wondering if they need the newer software.
What exactly do entries like "shrink dcache/icache more aggressively" or "random bugfix" mean? The former I'd guess has to do with data and instruction caches, but what aggressively shrinking does to them I have no clue without a more context. And the latter, "random bugfix", I hit my coworkers over the head when I see that in our CVS logs.
So is my current kernel effected? Am I missing out by not having my dcache/icache shrunk more aggressively? Or maybe those random bufixes effect me? A little more verbosity in the ChangeLog would go a long way. Having to follow the hacker's mailing list is not an option, this should be included in the release notes.
Linus really, really, REALLY needs to start the 2.5.x branch.
Stable branches need to be stable. Do all of the new feature experimentation in unstable. It's gotten to the point now that "stable" has become a meaningless word in linuxland.
Next time around, let's fork off 2.7.0 at the same time 2.6.2 is released. Or maybe Linux needs to split into three branches: "flimsy" for experimentation and VM wars, "unstable" for up-to-date hardware support but no new features, and "stable" which only gets bug and security fixes.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Ok, how about this -
maybe major kernel release posts should go in their own category, so whiners could set their user prefs to not display them.
--- sig moved for great justice.
It's news because the editors and owners of Slashdot have decided it's newsworthy. You're certainly entitled to disagree with its newsworthiness, but how hard is it to understand that the editors wanted to post it because they thought it was important?
Everyone is saying this, but there are issues involved. They were saying the same thing before 2.2 was even released - "give us a 2.3 so we can play". Linus doesn't work that way, because he believes (unlike, say, the Debian folks) that the resulting "brain drain" due to people hacking on the next unstable release unacceptibly hinders the bug-fixing effort in the current stable.
Sure, it's at least 80% psychological, but it does work, for all that. If you read his posts, you'll see that Linus has never been one to shy away from using psychology!
The unfortunate fact is, until recently, 2.4 did not have a usable VM. We can argue all day about whether Linus was too hasty in integrating Andrea's VM (I think he was, which is why I've switched to -ac kernels for now) but it is hard to argue that 2.5 should have forked before the 2.4 VM shaped up ... at least given Linus's brain drain philosophy.
So, while the 2.4-only series has almost certainly gone on too long, there are valid reasons for it. Perhaps if you had contributed all your VM fixes six months ago, we could have had a 2.5 by now. (:
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
It's not a problem with his English skills, it's a problem with his typing.
Even if it wasn't, not everyone speaks or writes English fluently. Even those who grew up with it. And you know, nobody really cares, other than you, and nobody (I mean that, not even your mother) cares what you think. If they did, you'd have better things to do than flame Linus over a typo.
And how do you know the "14-and-counting Dept." didn't start counting at 0 as well? :^)