Testing the Current Upstream Kernel

Testing the Current Upstream Kernel

[Jan Blunck]

Andrew Morton has spoken at different occasions about testing of the
Linux kernel and asked users to test the current development version and
report their findings.  For our openSUSE releases we have in general a
frozen version and add only fixes for bugs that are encountered during
testing - but stay with the same version for the lifetime of a release.

With our openSUSE Build Service we build a daily kernel, where we take
nightly snapshots of the current upstream development kernel (Linus' kernel
tree linux-2.6.git) without any patches (besides those we need for building a
RPM).  We do call this the vanilla kernel. It can be downloaded from:

 http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/Vanilla/SUSE_Factory/

To install and use the vanilla kernel you might need to update some of your
user-space tools as well (like udev etc.). If you are running the latest
openSUSE Developer Version (aka Factory) you should already have the correct
version of tools installed.

If you test the vanilla kernel, report any problems to the Linux kernel
mailing list (for details check the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/) and not
to the openSUSE bugzilla. If you want to report problems with the RPMs itself
or have general questions about the Kernel:Vanilla project use the
opensuse-kernel@opensuse.org mailing list.

Andreas Jaeger <aj@suse.de> and Jan Blunck <jblunck@suse.de>

Re: Testing the Current Upstream Kernel

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 01:08:51PM +0200, Jan Blunck wrote:
> (besides those we need for building a RPM).

Are these openSUSE specific or something we ought to apply to mainline?

If I sometimes are a bit reluctant aplying rpm specific patches it
is simply because I do not use the functionality myself and has
been bitten by the rpm/rpmfind thingy and other isssues
due to badly tested patches before.

	Sam

Re: Testing the Current Upstream Kernel

[Jan Blunck]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:14:04 +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 01:08:51PM +0200, Jan Blunck wrote:
>> (besides those we need for building a RPM).
> 
> Are these openSUSE specific or something we ought to apply to mainline?
> 

If there are patches (at the moment there are none) than they are 
openSUSE Build Service specific. Otherwise we usually send patches 
upstream.

Regards,
	Jan

-- 
Jan Blunck <jblunck@suse.de>

Re: Testing the Current Upstream Kernel

[Susanne Oberhauser]

Jan Blunck <jblunck@suse.de> writes:

> With our openSUSE Build Service we build a daily kernel, where we take
> nightly snapshots of the current upstream development kernel (Linus' kernel
> tree linux-2.6.git) without any patches (besides those we need for building a
> RPM).  We do call this the vanilla kernel. It can be downloaded from:
> 
>  http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/Vanilla/SUSE_Factory/

Would it make sense to build it for the other distros as well?  like
debian, fedora and mandrake?  I mena in _theory_ we could build it for
those distros in the build server, couldn't we?


S.

-- 
Susanne Oberhauser    +49-911-74053-574   SUSE -- a Novell Business
Partner Engineering                       Maxfeldstraße 5
developer.novell.com                      90409 Nürnberg
SUSE LINUX GmbH, GF: Volker Smid, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg)

Re: Testing the Current Upstream Kernel

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

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On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:28:34 +0200, Susanne Oberhauser said:
> Jan Blunck <jblunck@suse.de> writes:
> 
> > With our openSUSE Build Service we build a daily kernel, where we take
> > nightly snapshots of the current upstream development kernel (Linus' kernel
> > tree linux-2.6.git) without any patches (besides those we need for building a
> > RPM).  We do call this the vanilla kernel. It can be downloaded from:
> > 
> >  http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/Vanilla/SUSE_Factory/
> 
> Would it make sense to build it for the other distros as well?  like
> debian, fedora and mandrake?  I mena in _theory_ we could build it for
> those distros in the build server, couldn't we?

Most of the distros prefer a chance to add their own "Special Sauce" to it
before building, and building inside their build environment (for instance,
Fedora RPM's get PGP-signed - *that* would be a trust issue right there).

The current Fedora Rawhide kernel is 'kernel-2.6.23-0.105.rc3.fc8', and a few
RPMs ago it was based against -rc2-git5, so they track *very* close.  I think
that crew is managing well enough without help from the kernel.org build
server.


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Re: Testing the Current Upstream Kernel

[Dave Jones]

On Thu, Aug 16, 2007 at 10:04:21AM -0400, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
 > On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:28:34 +0200, Susanne Oberhauser said:
 > > Jan Blunck <jblunck@suse.de> writes:
 > > 
 > > > With our openSUSE Build Service we build a daily kernel, where we take
 > > > nightly snapshots of the current upstream development kernel (Linus' kernel
 > > > tree linux-2.6.git) without any patches (besides those we need for building a
 > > > RPM).  We do call this the vanilla kernel. It can be downloaded from:
 > > > 
 > > >  http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/Vanilla/SUSE_Factory/
 > > 
 > > Would it make sense to build it for the other distros as well?  like
 > > debian, fedora and mandrake?  I mena in _theory_ we could build it for
 > > those distros in the build server, couldn't we?
 > 
 > Most of the distros prefer a chance to add their own "Special Sauce" to it
 > before building, and building inside their build environment (for instance,
 > Fedora RPM's get PGP-signed - *that* would be a trust issue right there).
 > 
 > The current Fedora Rawhide kernel is 'kernel-2.6.23-0.105.rc3.fc8', and a few
 > RPMs ago it was based against -rc2-git5, so they track *very* close.  I think
 > that crew is managing well enough without help from the kernel.org build
 > server.

FWIW, you've been able to build the Fedora SRPMs with --with-vanilla
for a while now, which generates an RPM with no patches at all other
than the -rc/-git on which its based.
We're trying to work out logistics of which repository etc we're
going to host this in, but soon we'll be able to just offer
'yum install kernel-vanilla' to users.

	Dave

-- 
http://www.codemonkey.org.uk

Re: Testing the Current Upstream Kernel

[Dave Jones]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 10:31:19AM -0400, Dave Jones wrote:
 
 > FWIW, you've been able to build the Fedora SRPMs with --with-vanilla
 > for a while now, which generates an RPM with no patches at all other
 > than the -rc/-git on which its based.
 > We're trying to work out logistics of which repository etc we're
 > going to host this in, but soon we'll be able to just offer
 > 'yum install kernel-vanilla' to users.
 
btw. please don't Cc subscriber-only lists to linux-kernel posts.
(opensuse lists snipped from cc).

	Dave

-- 
http://www.codemonkey.org.uk