Re: Xen dom0 Kernel Patches

[Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@redhat.com>]

   Hi,

> My question is this, given that the openSUSE patches seem to work
> quite well would it really be so much work to at least update the
> Xensource kernel to 2.6.29 or .30? I believe openSUSE use a semi
> automated process for forward porting but however they do it the
> results are quite good,

Jan Beulich does it.  I doubt it is automated process.  There are tools 
like quilt though which help maintaining and rebasing patch queues.  Now 
with the x86 merge being mostly done rebasing the patches to a newer 
kernel is probably easier again.

> It seems to me that a huge amount of effort is being duplicated in the
> forward porting when a combined effort is bound to produce better
> results, if multiple distro's can find the resources to do it surely
> working together with Xensource would be less effort for everybody.

There is no duplicated effort.  Everybody with xen patches against 
recent kernels just uses the opensuse patches.

> I understand that the kernel is a moving target and 2.6.29 will soon
> be out of date, but I don't think that justifies simply not providing
> a newer one because pv_ops will be in mainline "any time soon", it
> really feel that it is going to take a long time before that happens,
> if at all.

Even with the bits not being merged into mainline you can still pull 
jeremies git tree to get a pv_ops based kernel with dom0 support.

cheers,
   Gerd