Merging five months of Linux kernel history

Merging five months of Linux kernel history

[Jan-Benedict Glaw]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 914 bytes --]

Hi!

Due to a move to a new flat and other reasons, I wasn't able to
do daily merges from Linus's tree into our vax-linux tree.
My time situation has improved and I want to merge all the new
and shiny stuff, but it seems a straight "git pull" isn't the
best way to do that.

What I'd actually love to do is to go through all commits since the
last merge and pull/accept/cherry-pick then one by one.  That way I'll
learn about new stuff. I'll specifically see generic changes that
imply arch-specific stuff, things I'll need to implement later on.

Is there any sane way to cluse such a large gap?  I don't mind looking
through tenthousands of commits, as long as I get a chance to spot
"important" ones.

Thanks, JBG

-- 
      Jan-Benedict Glaw      jbglaw@lug-owl.de              +49-172-7608481
Signature of:            http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
the second  :

[-- Attachment #2: Digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Merging five months of Linux kernel history

[Junio C Hamano]

Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de> writes:

> Hi!
>
> Due to a move to a new flat and other reasons, I wasn't able to
> do daily merges from Linus's tree into our vax-linux tree.
> My time situation has improved and I want to merge all the new
> and shiny stuff, but it seems a straight "git pull" isn't the
> best way to do that.
>
> What I'd actually love to do is to go through all commits since the
> last merge and pull/accept/cherry-pick then one by one.  That way I'll
> learn about new stuff. I'll specifically see generic changes that
> imply arch-specific stuff, things I'll need to implement later on.
>
> Is there any sane way to cluse such a large gap?  I don't mind looking
> through tenthousands of commits, as long as I get a chance to spot
> "important" ones.

I think the best way is:

	git pull
        git log ORIG_HEAD..

The latter would give your ten thousands of commits to inspect.

If the pull results in a conflict, then

	git pull
	git log --merge

	... fix conflicts ...
	git commit
        git log ORIG_HEAD..

Since ORIG_HEAD is transient, and you probably would want to
revisit the list of these ten thousands of commits later, it
might make sense to do

	git tag WHERE_WE_WERE

before "git pull" in either case.

Re: Merging five months of Linux kernel history

[Jan-Benedict Glaw]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1818 bytes --]

On Sun, 2006-10-29 12:34:53 -0800, Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> wrote:
> Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de> writes:
> > Due to a move to a new flat and other reasons, I wasn't able to
> > do daily merges from Linus's tree into our vax-linux tree.
> > My time situation has improved and I want to merge all the new
> > and shiny stuff, but it seems a straight "git pull" isn't the
> > best way to do that.
> >
> > What I'd actually love to do is to go through all commits since the
> > last merge and pull/accept/cherry-pick then one by one.  That way I'll
> > learn about new stuff. I'll specifically see generic changes that
> > imply arch-specific stuff, things I'll need to implement later on.
> >
> > Is there any sane way to cluse such a large gap?  I don't mind looking
> > through tenthousands of commits, as long as I get a chance to spot
> > "important" ones.
> 
> I think the best way is:
> 
> 	git pull
>         git log ORIG_HEAD..
> 
> The latter would give your ten thousands of commits to inspect.
> 
> If the pull results in a conflict, then
> 
> 	git pull
> 	git log --merge
> 
> 	... fix conflicts ...
> 	git commit
>         git log ORIG_HEAD..

That's the point--I don't really expect any conflicts, or only a very
little number of them. Basically, only the Makefiles and the Kconfig
files do have a chance to conflict.  It's no more than a new arch/
directory and some drivers.

The hard part will be to figure out all the needed changes in arch
code, like the IRQ handling rework etc :)

MfG, JBG

-- 
      Jan-Benedict Glaw      jbglaw@lug-owl.de              +49-172-7608481
Signature of:           Ich hatte in letzter Zeit ein bißchen viel Realitycheck.
the second  :               Langsam möchte ich mal wieder weiterträumen können.

[-- Attachment #2: Digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Merging five months of Linux kernel history

[Junio C Hamano]

Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de> writes:

>>         git log ORIG_HEAD..
>
> That's the point--I don't really expect any conflicts, or only a very
> little number of them. Basically, only the Makefiles and the Kconfig
> files do have a chance to conflict.  It's no more than a new arch/
> directory and some drivers.
>
> The hard part will be to figure out all the needed changes in arch
> code, like the IRQ handling rework etc :)

Since you are maintaining your own arch/ and the other in-tree
architectures progressed as common core code did, you would want
to make matching changes to your arch to adjust to the core
changes.

[a big warning in red capital letters: I do not hack kernel]

I suspect you would want to see what _other_ architecture did to
adjust to the changes in the common core code that happened in
the meantime.  How about...

$ git log ORIG_HEAD.. -- arch/$somearch include/asm-$somearch

where $somearch is something that has difference from the
mainstream that is similar to vax, to figure out what other
architectures needed to adjust, perhaps?