Recruiting Help in Smashing Kernel Bugs?

Orm asks: "As we all know, Linux version 3.0 (or 2.6) is about to get a feature freeze, meaning that it is bug hunting time. And as we saw on the kernel-summit, some people are afraid that not enough people are willing to try this new kernel, to help get those bugs smashed. My idea to get more people into this hunting, is to write a good paper on how to do it. Not a standard 'how to locate and fix bugs' but a document targeted towards people using 2.4.x today, who will want to help out. So what things should one need to know when testing a new kernel?"

"First: What is new? When I am running menuconfig/xconfig, is there something new I should look into? Will the old /dev directory be replaced with the new devfs-magic?

Second: What needs testing? I guess this is hand in hand with what is new, but you never know. The non-kernel-dev people may not know everything that has happened since 2.4.x., and there may be particular features that should be focused on more than others.

Finally: How do we do it? How should we test? What are the best ways to localize the bugs? How should we write a bug report? Whom should we send it to?

You do want our help, don't you?

I do hope to see this document at the same time as the feature-freeze. I also hope it will be a well-written piece, so many will feel the 'urge' to test the new kernel and give good feedback."

Comments

Re:2.5.44 doesn't compile for me...

[pruneau]

Me too !

The problem is that it's not a easy-to-track down feature into a remote far-not-likely-to-be-used-anyway-freaking-mysterio us-device-driver. No, it's something into the basic kernel code (/usr/src/linux/kernel/ or /usr/src/linux/include/linux).
I know enough of C/compilation to locate the problem and even attempt to quick-patch it, but I do not have the knowledge (nor the time, I'm afraid) to correct that and submit a patch by myself.

The point is, short of posting that on the kernel mailing list (which maybe I should do), is there a better way to get around that ? I'm quite willing to help, drat I tested about 7 to 10 .config file before giving up, but what in hell can I do !?!

I mean I know, the open-source model is suppose to work in a way where I should try hard to figure things out, but hey, if they want a broad testing audience, they cannot force everybody to learn the kernel.

There should be a middle ground here, should'nt it ???

Testing 2.5.

[heikkih]

How about checking out Dave Jones' introduction to 2.5? :) It will probably be updated as things move along, most notably is LVM2 already included.

Tried Kernel Traffic/Kernel Cousins?

[Chris Pimlott]

Kernel Traffic is an excellent site that puts out 'issues' summarizing the major topics on linux-kernel. It's quite handy. There are also a few 'Kernel Cousins' covering other projects, including Wine.