Re: v2.6 vs v3.0

Linus Torvalds
2002-09-29T01:25:18Z

On Sat, 28 Sep 2002, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>
> i consider the VM and IO improvements one of the most important things
> that happened in the past 5 years - and it's definitely something that
> users will notice. Finally we have a top-notch VM and IO subsystem (in
> addition to the already world-class networking subsystem) giving
> significant improvements both on the desktop and the server - the jump
> from 2.4 to 2.5 is much larger than from eg. 2.0 to 2.4.

Hey, _if_ people actually are universally happy with the VM in the current
2.5.x tree, I'll happily call the dang thing 5.0 or whatever (just
kidding, but yeah, that would be a good enough reason to bump the major
number).

However, I'll believe that when I see it. Usually people don't complain
during a development kernel, because they think they shouldn't, and then
when it becomes stable (ie when the version number changes) they are
surprised that the behabviour didn't magically improve, and _then_ we get
tons of complaints about how bad the VM is under their load.

Am I hapyy with current 2.5.x? Sure. Are others? Apparently. But does
that mean that we have a top-notch VM and we should bump the major number?
I wish.

The block IO cleanups are important, and that was the major thing _I_
personally wanted from the 2.5.x tree when it was opened. I agree with you
there. But I don't think they are major-number-material.

Anyway, people who are having VM trouble with the current 2.5.x series,
please _complain_, and tell what your workload is. Don't sit silent and
make us think we're good to go.. And if Ingo is right, I'll do the 3.0.x
thing.

Linus