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Torvalds & Linux Dev Process
sebFlyte writes "Builder UK is reporting that Linus Torvalds is concerned that the Linux production kernel maintainence process might be overly taxing Andrew Morton, saying: "One issue is that I actually worry that Andrew will at some point be where I was a couple of years ago -- overworked and stressed out by just tons and tons of patches. If Andrew burns out, we'll all suffer hugely." Morton himself wants to make -mm releases more often. He sees bugs as more of a problem, rather than patches themselves. His solution is simple: "I'd like to release -mm's more often and I'd like -mm to have less of a wild-and-crappy reputation. Both of these would happen if originators were to test their stuff more carefully.""
Linux Kernel Gets Fully Automated Test
n t
2.6 stabilization project (helped a lot during 2.5.x develpment AFAIK)
http://www.osdl.org/docs/stabilization_plan.curre
ACPI has to be disabled, otherwise it will either freeze or spontaneously reboot. 2.6 will crash while loading modules related to USB, network (loading the 8139too module consistently crashes), agp and hotplug system detection. The install cds of Ubuntu and Suse are stable enough to install, but once installed to the hard drive, the system consistently hangs due either to one of the errors I've already mentioned; or for reasons I haven't tracked down yet.
[rant]
I'm not a kernel programmer; I just want a working desktop. KDE works on NetBSD (which automatically detects my sound card) so until the kernel people get their shit together; I'm done with Linux.
[/rant]
These wouldn't solve ALL problems, or even the majority of them, but they would solve some and they would make life easier on developers in the long-run. Are these being used? Well, a glance at the Freshmeat graphs for Web100 shows that it is getting downloaded. This doesn't mean it is getting used, though. The same is true of virtually all of the other code I've mentioned. People have copies, but if the code being submitted is flakey and taking a long time to fix, then maybe the code is not being used as much as it could/should be.
The tools exist, the tools exist on people's hard drives, but unless the tools are being used in practice, that's not going to do any good.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I believe the reason that LT discontinued the odd-even numbering was that the "development" kernels were under-tested and provided insufficient grounds for migrating the tree from development to stable.
Are you aware that the LKM team puts out a stable subversion of each release? I.E. 2.6.11 is released, then 2.6.11.1, 2.6.11.2, 2.6.11.3, etc?
I'm confused. Any clarification on this from the list that the article doesn't give?
Well, I'm not sure I understand the situation correctly, but is seems to me like a branch to 2.7 might be coming. Since there's been no separate development branch, there's been a lot more patching than usual for a stable kernel. I think the comments indicate that 2.6 might be close to "done" and should enter maintenance mode. Starting major breakage in the 2.6 branch would overwork Morton, hence the need for a "changed development process".
I still haven't even bothered to move to 2.6.x as I have no reason to.
Don't confuse user numbers with development. In fact, they are usually inversely related (the less development, the more stability and the more users.... to a point). And I'm quite sure the causality is that less development in 2.6.x leads to more adoption, not the other way around.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings