Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261753AbVADRrd (ORCPT ); Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:47:33 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261752AbVADRrd (ORCPT ); Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:47:33 -0500 Received: from emailhub.stusta.mhn.de ([141.84.69.5]:41488 "HELO mailout.stusta.mhn.de") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261798AbVADRrP (ORCPT ); Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:47:15 -0500 Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 18:47:13 +0100 From: Adrian Bunk To: Arjan van de Ven Cc: Rik van Riel , Andries Brouwer , William Lee Irwin III , Maciej Soltysiak , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: starting with 2.7 Message-ID: <20050104174712.GI3097@stusta.de> References: <1697129508.20050102210332@dns.toxicfilms.tv> <20050102203615.GL29332@holomorphy.com> <20050102212427.GG2818@pclin040.win.tue.nl> <20050103153438.GF2980@stusta.de> <1104767943.4192.17.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1104767943.4192.17.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040907i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2483 Lines: 60 On Mon, Jan 03, 2005 at 04:59:02PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 16:34 +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 03, 2005 at 10:18:47AM -0500, Rik van Riel wrote: > > > On Sun, 2 Jan 2005, Andries Brouwer wrote: > > > > > > >You change some stuff. The bad mistakes are discovered very soon. > > > >Some subtler things or some things that occur only in special > > > >configurations or under special conditions or just with > > > >very low probability may not be noticed until much later. > > > > > > Some of these subtle bugs are only discovered a year > > > after the distribution with some particular kernel has > > > been deployed - at which point the kernel has moved on > > > so far that the fix the distro does might no longer > > > apply (even in concept) to the upstream kernel... > > > > > > This is especially true when you are talking about really > > > big database servers and bugs that take weeks or months > > > to trigger. > > > > If at this time 2.8 was already released, the 2.8 kernel available at > > this time will be roughly what 2.6 would have been under the current > > development model, and 2.6 will be a rock stable kernel. > > as long as more things get fixed than new bugs introduced (and that > still seems to be the case) things only improve in 2.6. >... My main point is not the number of bugs, but the number of regressions. If you do install a new machine or do a major upgrade (e.g. 2.4 -> 2.6) you do some testing whether everything works as expected and if something doesn't work, you try to get it working or work around the problem. Inside a stable kernel series (e.g. 2.6.x -> 2.6.y) you hope that an upgrade doesn't contain regressions and goes smoothly. Even the introduction of CONFIG_BLK_DEV_UB in 2.6.9 [1] has bitten several people I know. cu Adrian [1] this is not technically a bug, but e.g. similar common problems for users in the input code were already fixed during 2.5 long before 2.6.0 -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/