Messages in this thread |  | | From | Markus Gutschke <> | Subject | Re: Changes Summaries | Date | 21 Oct 1996 22:41:41 +0200 |
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Nir Soffer <scorpios@cs.huji.ac.il> writes: > I'm perfectly willing to write change summaries for each and every kernel > - I have plenty of time free (for now at least). If people could notify > of what the new patches in the kernel do (As I am not a really good code > hacker, to say the least :) ), I'll happily compile a document of changes > for every patch level - for everyone's enjoyment.
Michael Elizabeth Chastain <mec@treflan.shout.net> already does an excellent job at writing "Kernel Change Summaries" which he regularly posts to comp.os.linux.development.system and de.alt.sources.linux.patches.
If you want to provide a similar service, I suggest that you base your work on Michael's. Michael posts one change summary per kernel release and lists all of the files that have been affected; he also tries to give a brief explanation of the change. I would like to see a list that takes a look on more than one release. How about something along these lines:
Memory layout: Release 2.1.0 changed the memory layout to be uniform for all architectures. Kernel memory space has been moved to the very end of the addressable memory space. This affects several system calls including module support. You need to upgrade libc. (references: "user space access", linux/Documentation/IO-mapping.txt).
User space access: Releases 2.1.3 thru 2.1.5 changed user space access to an exception based verification model. This required changes throughout all drivers. (references: "memory layout").
Denial of service attack by sending huge ping packets: This bug existed in all prior kernel releases and has been fixed in release ...
. . .
Basically, you would have to look thru Michael's postings and combine that information with whatever valuable information you get from reading this mailing list.
Also, a list that shows all source files and the kernel releases that changed these files, would be very valuable. This list could probably be generated automatically from the information that Michael posts or by running a script file on all of the patch files that have been released in the past.
Markus
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