Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 02:11:40 +0200 (EET)
From: caszonyi@rdslink.ro
Reply-To: Calin Szonyi <caszonyi@rdslink.ro>
To: jerome lacoste <jerome.lacoste@gmail.com>
cc: Edgar Hucek <hostmaster@ed-soft.at>,
       Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: New Linux Development Model
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On Sun, 6 Nov 2005, jerome lacoste wrote:

> On 11/6/05, Edgar Hucek <hostmaster@ed-soft.at> wrote:
>> jerome lacoste wrote:
> [...]
>>> I will ask you just one question: as a user, why did you want to
>>> upgrade your kernel?
>>>
>>>
>> Depends on the user and what he wants to do. There are several
>> reasons why a user wanna upgrade to new kernel. Maybe new supported
>> hardware and so on. It's frustrating for the user, have on the one side the
>> new hardware supported but on the other side, mybe broken support for
>> the existing hardware.
>
> New kernel feature and new supported hardware would be the only reason
> for me to upgrade. Personally that doesn't come that often. My
> hardware configurations don't change that much. I make sure it's well
> supported, not just recently. When one buys a non supported hardware,
> one should know the path chosen won't be the easiest.
>

There are other reasons for using a new kernel. One of them is 
interactivity. In the days of 2.4 one could achieve decent interactivity 
for the desktop using preempt and low latency patches. For 2.6 
interactivity was a real issue (possibly because of the new development 
model).

>> And why should dirstribution makers always backport new security fixes ?
>
> Because they want to ensure maximum stability. That's what users are
> (sometimes) paying for.
>

Maximum stability of what ? If the distribution kernels are based on 
vanila kernel (i.e. are based on unstable kernel) how stable will they be 
?
  On lkml someone said that "stable means it won't crash very often".
This sounds like Windows(TM)

> And second 90% of the security issues will not affect the majority of
> the home users (because they are restricted to a particular area of
> the kernel not affecting the user, or because they already require
> access on the machine to be exploitable). You will have much more
> risks using a box with an unpatched php or apache than with an
> unpached kernel, or without a proper firewall configuration.
>

Some holes are remote ;-)

>>> On a desktop, there are probably a bunch of out of kernel modules that will need
>>> upgrading with each new kernel modules. Just on the laptop I am using
>>> right now, I will have to upgrade the vmware bridge, nvidia driver,
>>> madwifi wireless driver, etc. And that's normal. The new development
>>> model didn't change that.
>>>
>>>
>>  From my point of view, it makes a difference if i have to recompile
>> a module or realy upgrade it.
>
> That only happens for out ot tree modules, which shouldn't be really
> out of tree in the first place. That's the issue. If they are out of
> tree, it's for a reason. Either they cannot be in tree, or they are
> not stable enough.
>
> There you see the issue.
>
>> [...]
>> cu
>>
>> ED.
>
> Jerome

Calin

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