Re: [PATCH 1/1] perf: Fix Python 3.6 build breakage in jevents.py and util/setup.py

[Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2026 at 02:29:12PM -0700, Ian Rogers wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2026 at 2:14 PM Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo
> <acme@kernel.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 25, 2026 at 01:57:06PM -0700, Ian Rogers wrote:
> > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2026 at 1:47 PM Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo
> > > <acme@kernel.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > perf's build still accepts Python 3.6: Makefile.config only rejects
> > > > interpreters older than 3.6 and jevents.py keeps its own removesuffix()
> > > > shim for it, but two recently added constructs are evaluated when the
> > > > module or the function is defined and only work on newer interpreters.
> > >
> > > Could we remove the shim and bump the minimum Python version to 3.9 to
> > > be in line with the rest of the kernel build?
> > > https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/process/changes.rst
> >
> > Since RHEL8 based systems will still be in use for a long time and new
> > perf versions can be useful in solving problems in such systems, maybe
> > we should keep the support on 3.6 as is now :-\
> >
> > This patch is not that big and fixes the only cases where python 3.6 was
> > breaking, so maybe this is not unreasonable to do.
> 
> Could we update the review prompts for this then? Currently the
> prompts load from changes.rst:
> https://github.com/masoncl/review-prompts/blob/main/kernel/subsystem/build.md
> and so Python 3.9. We can then comment that we're doing this for RHEL8 support.

I didn't know about python 3.9 being the minimal version for kernel
python usage.
 
> RHEL8 appears to be in maintenance mode:
> https://endoflife.date/rhel
> which means "New functionality and new hardware enablement are not
> planned for availability in the Maintenance Support Phase."
> https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata#Maintenance_Support_Phase
> So is RHEL8 support only necessary for people building the code
> themselves? In that case, they could also update their Python?

Fair enough, I'm reworking the patch to instead make 3.9 be the minimal
for perf as well.

- Arnaldo