Re: Latest kernel to use?

[Austin S Hemmelgarn <ahferroin7@gmail.com>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2057 bytes --]

On 2015-09-24 17:07, Sjoerd wrote:
> Maybe a silly question for most of you, but the wiki states to always try to
> use the latest kernel with btrfs. Which one would be best:
> - 4.2.1 (currently latest stable and matches the btrfs-progs versioning) or
> - the 4.3.x (mainline)?
>
> Stable sounds more stable to me(hence the name ;) ), but the mainline kernel
> seems to be in more active development?
>
Like Hugo said, 4.2.1 is what you want right now.  In general, go with 
the highest version number that isn't a -rc version (4.3 isn't actually 
released yet, IIRC they're up to 4.3-rc2 right now, and almost at -rc3) 
(we should probably be specific like this on the wiki).

As far as mainline being under more 'active development', that is 
correct, but to understand why, you have to understand the workflow in 
Linux development.  In general, it goes like this:
1. People send in patches either fixing bugs or adding new features.
2. These get picked up (hopefully) by the individual subsystem 
maintainers, who collect them in their local git repository.
3. When Linus opens the merge window (IOW, right after they release a 
version with a new minor version number), the subsystem maintainers send 
pull requests for him to merge into mainline the patches they've picked up.
4. After the merge window closes, the first -rc (release candidate) for 
the next version gets released, and people start testing.
5. After about a week of testing, people send in bug-fixes (and only bug 
fixes) that then get pulled into the next -rc version.
6. After about 6 to 8 -rc releases, the official release comes out (and 
the merge window for the next version opens).
While all that is happening, bug-fixes that end up in mainline (usually) 
get back-ported to older kernel versions.  Each time one of these 
versions gets a batch of back-ported bug-fixes, the third number in the 
version gets incremented.  So, to sum it up, mainline is where things 
get developed, but the bug-fixes end up in the stable releases anyway.



[-- Attachment #2: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature --]
[-- Type: application/pkcs7-signature, Size: 3019 bytes --]