Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

Lee Revell
2005-03-03T16:20:31Z

On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 11:29 +0100, Prakash Punnoor wrote:
> A gentoo view: There are lots of patchsets floating around in the gentoo forum
> based on either vanilla or mm-kernel, but over the months something has
> changed: Previously most patchsets were based on mm, but now are based on
> vanilla. Why? Very simple: mm became too unstable. I used to go with a mm
> based kernel just for fun, but it changed as one kernel had some serious
> issues with reiserfs - and it is really not fun to lose data. (At least I read
> about it, before testing that kernel.) Since then i never touched a mm-kernel
> again, in fact now I even feel scared to put on a vanilla-rc kernel. I do it,
> but I feel like when I use a "stable" mm-kernel from earlier times...
>
> So if you wantpeople to test kernels, they shouldn't be too unstable...

Thanks, it's about time someone said this.

We had a preview of what it would be like if "more users tested -mm"
when Ingo's realtime preempt patches were based on it, so the audio
oriented distros briefly shipped -mm kernels.

It was a nightmare. Most people (icluding myself) experienced daily
lockups. When Ingo rebased the RT patch against mainline there was
muich rejoicing on LAU.

-mm is just too unstable for anyone but kernel hackers to run. Anyone
who tells you otherwise is smoking something.

Lee