Re: [RFC] Unify KVM kernel-space and user-space code into a single project

Avi Kivity
2010-03-18T14:27:24Z

On 03/18/2010 03:57 PM, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>
>> [...] RHEL 5 is still on 2.6.18, for example. Users
>> don't like their kernels updated unless absolutely necessary, with
>> good reason.
>>
> Nope - RHEL 5 is on a 2.6.18 base for entirely different reasons.
>

All the reasons have 'stability' in them.

>> Kernel updates = reboots.
>>
> If you check the update frequency of RHEL 5 kernels you'll see that it's
> comparable to that of Fedora.
>

I'm sorry to say that's pretty bad. Users don't want to update their
kernels.

>>> - Qemu on the other hand is not upgraded with (nearly) that level of urgency.
>>> Completely new versions will generally have to wait for the next distro
>>> release.
>>>
>> F12 recently updated to 2.6.32. This is probably due to 2.6.31.stable
>> dropping away, and no capacity at Fedora to maintain it on their own. So
>> they are caught in a bind - stay on 2.6.31 and expose users to security
>> vulnerabilities or move to 2.6.32 and cause regressions. Not a happy
>> choice.
>>
> Happy choice or not, this is what i said is the distro practice these days. (i
> dont know all the distros that well so i'm sure there's differences)
>

So in addition to all the normal kernel regressions, you want to force
tools/kvm/ regressions on users.

>> I don't mind at all if rawhide users run on the latest and greatest, but
>> release users deserve a little more stability.
>>
> What are you suggesting, that released versions of KVM are not reliable? Of
> course any tools/ bits are release engineered just as much as the rest of KVM
> ...
>

No, I am suggesting qemu-kvm.git is not as stable as released versions
(and won't get fixed backported). Keep in mind that unlike many
userspace applications, qemu exposes an ABI to guests which we must keep
compatible.

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