Linux Kernel Gets Fully Automated Test

An anonymous reader writes "The Linux Kernel is now getting automatically tested within 15 minutes of a new version being released, across a variety of hardware and the results are being published for all to see. Martin Bligh announced this yesterday, running on top of IBM's internal test automation system. Maybe this will enable the kernel developers to keep up with the 2.6 kernel's rapid pace of change. Looks like it caught one new problem with last night's build already ..."

Comments

This is awesome

[jnelson4765]

But it can't catch everything - the 1394 bus was screwed in 2.6.11. There are a lot of regressions that show up - and even that healthy cluster of systems will not show every problem.

Sound issues? Older network and SCSI cards? There are a lot of drivers that break, and no one notices it because there is nobody with the hardware testing the -rc or -mm kernels.

Wouldn't it make more sense to package these tools for someone to install on their collection of oddball equipment, and assist in the debugging/testing?

Where's the ARM, MIPS, and SH?

Re:This is awesome

[Meshach]

But it can't catch everything...

But that is not the point of automated testing. As a member of a qa team who is developing automated tests I get comments like that every day

Automated tests are not intended to catch everything or test strange permutations of pre-conditions. There purpose is to provide a mechanism for verifying that a build satisfies the basic requirements of the project.

More exotic configs need to be tested manually as usual but automated tests can provide a "failsafe" just in case a basic part of the build is broken.