Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Linux 2.6.7-rc1 | Date | Sun, 23 May 2004 18:58:25 -0400 | From | Horst von Brand <> |
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Ville Herva <vherva@viasys.com> said: > On Sun, May 23, 2004 at 12:19:11PM -0400, you [Horst von Brand] wrote: > > Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> said: > > > Hmm.. This is stuff all over the map, but most interesting (or at least > > > most "core") is probably the merging of the NUMA scheduler and the anonvma > > > rmap code. The latter gets rid of the expensive pte chains, and instead > > > allows reverse page mapping by keeping track of which vma (and offset) > > > each page is associated with. Special kudos to Andrea Arcangeli and Hugh > > > Dickins. > > > > > > Linus > > > > Not wanting to start a flamewar, but this sort of massive changes in a > > _stable_ series has got me quite confused... either 2.6.0 was premature, or > > the "just stabilize 2.6, new stuff only into 2.7 (when it opens)" got lost > > somewhere.
> In my view the 2.6 series have been as stable as they should have from the > user point of view. AFAICT no serious bugs have been introduced during 2.6 > and the application visible API hasn't changed notably.
My experience too, but I'm just an average end-user (sort of), not an extra-paranoid admin of a critical machine. New features _do_ bring risks. Are they being controlled enough by staging stuff through -mm? Or is it now the distribution's job to to final stability triage?
It looks like Andrew Morton is playing the role Alan Cox had during part of 2.5: Checking/filtering/testing "not quite ready" stuff, when he was supposed to be like Marcelo Tossati: Keeper of the stable series, don't let anything too risky get even near it.
Perhaps the philosophy changed while I was away from LKML, that's why I'm asking.
> Does it to any harm if there are largish changes under the hood? Especially > if they are big improvements?
I welcome them, and surely hacking new stuff is fun. But 2.6 is not a hacking series, it is supposed to (become) rock stable (soon?).
> As an user, I definetely welcome the new features and improvements if they > can be introduced without breakage, as seems to be the case. > > To me, this just goes on to testify to the the expertise of the kernel > hackers and the viability of the current development model.
Expertise of the kernel hackers, hat off to them. Incredible bunch. But there _were_ a number of "brown paper bag" releases too... -- Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 654431 Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 654239 Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 797513 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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