Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261156AbVAGCDK (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Jan 2005 21:03:10 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261158AbVAGB77 (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Jan 2005 20:59:59 -0500 Received: from [209.195.52.120] ([209.195.52.120]:24306 "HELO warden2.diginsite.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261203AbVAGB6G (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Jan 2005 20:58:06 -0500 Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 17:51:43 -0800 (PST) From: David Lang X-X-Sender: dlang@dlang.diginsite.com To: Adrian Bunk cc: Arjan van de Ven , Rik van Riel , Andries Brouwer , William Lee Irwin III , Maciej Soltysiak , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: starting with 2.7 In-Reply-To: <20050106193510.GL3096@stusta.de> Message-ID: 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> <20050104174712.GI3097@stusta.de> <20050106193510.GL3096@stusta.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 3110 Lines: 62 On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Adrian Bunk wrote: >> anyone who assumes that just becouse the kernel is in the stable series >> they can blindly upgrade their production systems is just dreaming. > > I was not thinking about a "blindly upgrade". > > But the question is if you compile and test a kernel, is it every > unlikely or relatively common to observe new problems? > in my experiance the answer is very unlikely, and about as likely as I got used to during the 2.0, 2.2, and 2.4 series (the 2.4 series had some time when it was significantly worse). while I used 1.2 and 0. series kernels I didn't follow them well enough to comment on that timeframe. in every series there have been versions that didn't work, sometimes spectacularly, but in every series the later versions tend to fix far more then it breaks. I have been burned severely by development series kernels and had the same problems as everyone else with the first few 2.0, 2.2, and 2.4 series kernels, but I didn't run into the as many problems with 2.6.0 for those who are concerned about the quality of the 2.6 kernels I'd suggest that you don't judge exclusivly by the comments to the list, try them yourself. as far as removing features goes, personally I have a lot of boxes useing ipchains instead of iptables, even on 2.6 kernels and will be very unhappy if that compatability is removed, but at the same time I'm willing to hold off my screaming until Linus actually removes features. the netfilter folks can plan all they want to remove the compatability, but they can't force Linus to accept the patch that does the removal. remember that according to some people 2.6.0 wasn't supposed to support anything compiled in, everythign was going to be a module, with much of the hardware detection removed from the kernel and put into code running on initrd or similar. that didn't happenand I'm willing to lay good odds that removing a feature just becouse it's 'old' isn't very likly either. if there are problems with a feature and nobody cares about it enough to fix it then the feature may be removed, but if it affects a lot of people then it's likly that someone will step up to do the maintinance. if you want another example, look at reiserfs, Hans wants no new development done on version 3 becouse version 4 is available and is better in all ways. I believe that Hans would like to have version 3 removed and replaced with version 4 (with a utility to do the conversion between the two), but there are a lot of people who want to keep useing version 3 and as a result version 3 is maintained and updated. David Lang -- There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. -- C.A.R. Hoare - 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/