Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Linux 4.9.256 | From | Avi Kivity <> | Date | Mon, 8 Feb 2021 17:50:21 +0200 |
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On 05/02/2021 16.26, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > I'm announcing the release of the 4.9.256 kernel. > > This, and the 4.4.256 release are a little bit "different" than normal. > > This contains only 1 patch, just the version bump from .255 to .256 which ends > up causing the userspace-visable LINUX_VERSION_CODE to behave a bit differently > than normal due to the "overflow". > > With this release, KERNEL_VERSION(4, 9, 256) is the same as KERNEL_VERSION(4, 10, 0).
I think this is a bad idea. Many kernel features can only be discovered by checking the kernel version. If a feature was introduced in 4.10, then an application can be tricked into thinking a 4.9 kernel has it.
IMO, better to stop LINUX_VERSION_CODE at 255 and introduce a LINUX_VERSION_CODE_IMPROVED that has more bits for patchlevel.
> Nothing in the kernel build itself breaks with this change, but given that this > is a userspace visible change, and some crazy tools (like glibc and gcc) have > logic that checks the kernel version for different reasons, I wanted to do this > release as an "empty" release to ensure that everything still works properly.
Even if glibc and gcc work, other programs may not.
I have two such cases. They don't depend on 4.9, but they're examples of features that are not discoverable by other means.
> So, this is a YOU MUST UPGRADE requirement of a release. If you rely on the > 4.9.y kernel, please throw this release into your test builds and rebuild the > world and let us know if anything breaks, or if all is well. > > Go forth and do full system rebuilds! Yocto and Gentoo are great for this, as > will systems that use buildroot. > > I'll try to hold off on doing a "real" 4.9.y release for a 9eek to give > everyone a chance to test this out and get back to me. The pending patches in > the 4.9.y queue are pretty serious, so I am loath to wait longer than that, > consider yourself warned... > > The updated 4.9.y git tree can be found at: > git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-4.9.y > and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: > https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git;a=summary > > thanks, > > greg k-h > > ------------ > > Makefile | 2 +- > 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) > > Greg Kroah-Hartman (1): > Linux 4.9.256 > >
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