Re: ACPI & 2.4 (Re: [BK PATCH] PCI Express patches for 2.4.27-pre3)

[Marcelo Tosatti <marcelo.tosatti@cyclades.com>]

On Wed, May 26, 2004 at 03:35:34AM -0400, Len Brown wrote:
> Yes, the ACPI part to enable MMconfig was pretty small.
> We parse a table in the standard way and set a global variable --
> that's about it.
> 
> I submitted it to 2.4 for the sole purpose
> to enable Greg to enable native PCIExpress.
> 
> I expect demand for this in 2.4 as the major distros'
> enterprise releases are still 2.4 based and the hardware has
> arrived...  Your call, Marcelo, if this is something to
> solve in upstream 2.4 or something the distros need
> to solve for themselves.  I recommend leaving the
> small ACPI piece of the puzzle intact in either case.
> 
> On Tue, 2004-05-25 at 08:54, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
> > I've humbly asked Len to stop doing big updates
> > whenever possible on the 
> > v2.4 ACPI code, and do bugfixes only instead. Is that a pain in the
> > ass for you, Len?    
> > 
> > I asked that because it is common to see new bugs introduced by an
> > ACPI update, and you know that more than I do.
> 
> At one point I released to 2.4 first because that is where
> the useful testing feedback was; and then released to 2.5
> to make sure it didn't fall behind.
> 
> Then I released to 2.4 and 2.6 simultaneously b/c
> I got quick feeback from both camps.
> 
> Now we're into the era where the release-early
> release-often matra applies to 26 only (or maybe more 2.6-mm)
> and 2.4 is in maintenance mode.
> 
> I would still like to send some significant ACPI patches to 24.
> Yes, they're 100% bugfixes -- sometimes bugfixes touch
> lots of files too...  But I'll do so only after the same
> fix has been proven in 2.6 for a spell.
> 
> With some parts of ACPI, such as the ACPICA core interpreter
> this is actually pretty low risk, because that part of
> the kernel is identical between 2.4 and 2.6.  So if 2.6 works,
> so will 2.4.
> 
> Of course this also depends on if 2.4 will be accepting anything.
> I recall talk back about 2.4.25 about the end of the 2.4 line.

Yes, wish it was. Unfortunately there still a lot of activitity from 
people sending me patches, which are usually fixing bugs. Not major core
bugs, more "outside of the core" things (drivers and filesystems).

> I generally only have time to read LKML messages directed to me
> or if the word "ACPI" appears in the message, so I may have missed
> the word 2.4.  What is the word?

I dont get you? What you mean? (sorry)