Re: RFC: 2.6.release.patchlevel: Patch against 2.6.release[.0] ?

Randy.Dunlap
2005-03-29T23:01:46Z

L. A. Walsh wrote:
> Given the frequency with which stabilization patches may be released, it
> may not be practical to expect users to catch each release announcement
> and download each patch.
>
> Especially if small patches are released for stability, as one might
> (hopefully) expect. Assuming that stability and "fix-it" patches will
> generally be small (I'd hope). Seeing that the latest "fix-it" patch
> is already at ".6", I'd have to load multiple patches to catch up from
> 2.6.11. I blinked my eyes and missed a few or 5 previous stability
> patches, so I just downloaded the entire bzip...not a biggie, but
> might create less load on servers if I didn't need to go through 6
> patch applications to get current.
>
> What do people think? Would it be desirable to have the stability
> patchsets based against the base release (2.6.11 in this case)? I'll
> already have downloaded 2.6.11 or the previous base release, but
> with the frequency of patch releases, it might be more reasonable to
> have patch revisions all patch against a base release rather than
> having to download and apply what may grow to be a large number (but
> small diff) against a base release?
>
> Do people think patch-releases will get too big, or might it not
> be easier to apply them to a constant downloaded copy of the base?
>
> It's a bit amusing since I was one of those that complained about the
> kernel stability, but 2.6.11 has been fairly solid for me, so, of course,
> I'm 6 patches behind -- I don't think the patch release notifications
> are getting as wide-spread press (or at least not reaching "/." :-)) as
> the main releases get.

After some initial discussions, the patches now are generated against
2.6.x.0, so to get to 2.6.11.6, you only need to download and apply
one patchset...

--
~Randy