Re: Linux 2.6.29

Mike Galbraith
2009-03-28T07:51:00Z

On Fri, 2009-03-27 at 09:02 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> On Fri, 27 Mar 2009, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> > >
> > > If you're using the kernel-of-they-day, you're probably using git, and
> > > CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO=y should be mandatory.
> >
> > I sure hope it never becomes mandatory, I despise that thing. I don't
> > even do -rc tags. .nn is .nn until baked and nn.1 appears.
>
> If you're a git user that changes kernels frequently, then enabling
> CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO is _really_ convenient when you learn to use it.
>
> This is quite common for me:
>
> gitk v$(uname -r)..
>
> and it works exactly due to CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO (and because git is
> rather good at figuring out version numbers). It's a great way to say
> "ok, what is in my git tree that I'm not actually running right now".
>
> Another case where CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO is very useful is when you're
> noticing some new broken behavior, but it took you a while to notice.
> You've rebooted several times since, but you know it worked last Tuesday.
> What do you do?
>
> The thing to do is
>
> grep "Linux version" /var/log/messages*
>
> and figure out what the good version was, and then do
>
> git bisect start
> git bisect good ..that-version..
> git bisect bad v$(uname -r)
>
> and off you go. This is _very_ convenient if you are working with some
> "random git kernel of the day" like I am (and like hopefully others are
> too, in order to get test coverage).

That's why it irritates me. I build/test a lot, and do the occasional
bisection, which makes a mess in /boot and /lib/modules. I use a quilt
stack of git pull diffs as reference/rummage points. Awkward maybe, but
effective (so no need for autoversion), and no mess.

-Mike