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Linux Kernel Release Numbering Revisited
An anonymous reader writes "KernelTrap has a summary of a lengthy discussion on the Linux kernel mailing list, in which Linus Torvalds has suggested using an alternative numbering scheme for kernel development. The current 2.6 kernel has been different than older development trees, as active development has been happening at a rapid rate in the officially "stable" kernel, instead of forking the expected 2.7 "development branch" for this effort. In Linus' latest proposal, he suggests using the same odd and even arrangement where an odd number signifies a development release, and an even number signifies a stable release. The difference being that this will all happen under 2.6 and thus at a much more rapid rate. For example, the upcoming 2.6.12 release would focus on fixing bugs and thus be more stable, while the following 2.6.13 release would include new functionality and thus could be less stable."
This would be a good idea. I compiled 2.6.11 this morning on my laptop, and the alsa nm256 driver locks up the machine on boot :(. This has been happening on and off for some time. I found patches in the module developer's cvs that helped me fix it in 2.6.10, but apparently these didn't make it into 2.6.11 (or it got broken in some other way).
2.6 is great and there are lots of great new features and development in the kernel. But it would be good if some dot releases were only bugfix releases because right now I think 2.6 is much less reliable than late 2.4 kernels were. On my laptop this only serves to annoy me, but I run servers at work (and a webserver @ home), and right now I don't feel confident at all running newer 2.6 kernels on a production server.