Am Dienstag 27 September 2011, 13:07:02 schrieb Michael Mol: > On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 12:54 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann > > <volkerar...@googlemail.com> wrote: > > Am Dienstag 27 September 2011, 04:05:31 schrieb Grant Edwards: > >> That sounds good, but in practice it doesn't work. > >> > >> 1) The kernel developers don't support any existing customers. Bugs > >> are only fixed for customers who are willing to run the next > >> kernel verison. I've got customers that are still running 2.4 > >> kernels. 2.6.18 is still widely used. Will the kernel developers > >> add new features, support for new hardware, or fix bugs for those > >> customers. Not a chance. > > > > so what? There are long term stable kernels with no api changes. Hmm... > > Except they have drivers which are buggy and require backported fixes.
and that is the reason stable series exist. They are stable and they backport fixes. Exclusively. > > >> 2) The kernel developers only make sure that drivers compile. They > >> don't have the hardware or knowlege required to actually test > >> them. One of our drivers _is_ in the kernel. Sure, it builds, > >> but AFAIK, it hasn't actually worked for at least 10 years. > > > > and nobody complains on lkml about it - seems that nobody uses your > > hardware. > Except his customers. Who are going directly to him for support. > > > If something stops working (called a 'regression' btw) it has to be > > fixed. Linus is very clear about that. > > That's all well and good, but it doesn't fix things that weren't > working correctly in the first place. Upstream kernel doesn't backport > fixes, that's what distros and people like Grant, for their customers. wrong, long time stable series do backport fixes. That is the reason they exist in the first place. > > And Linus's statement as quoted in that article (and my snippet) > doesn't include one important caveat: Sometimes, they drop support for > things that either have no maintainer, or are obsolete and difficult > to keep. and when they do that they warn everybody for years (just look up binary sysctl support as a prime example). > > >> Trying to maintain two drivers (one in-kernel and one out-of-kernel) > >> just creates twice as much work for no gain. > > > > then don't be outside the kernel. > > If we take your position, in this context, to its logical outcome, it > sounds like you're saying that distributions like Gentoo, Red Hat and > Debian shouldn't maintain older kernels with backported fixes. no, but if you decide on one kernel you should use one of the long term supported one. Not 2.6.something-because-I-like-the-number. > > There exist systems which cannot be upgraded with financial sanity; > the existing install works well enough that it would cost more to > upgrade. so don't touch the kernel. Wow, that was hard. I think I need something to eat now. Hmmm... noodles.... > The reasons might be that they're using an old software > package which was abandoned, and taking ownership of the code isn't > always sane. I was actually approached by someone in my area a couple > weeks ago who was in just this kind of scenario. and if the system just works - why touch it at all? -- #163933
