[Devel] patch against 2.6.8.1 (stable)

[Enrico Weigelt]

* Kir Kolyshkin <kir at openvz.org> wrote:
> Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> > * Kirill Korotaev <dev at sw.ru> wrote:
> >   
> >> we have also patches for 2.6.16 on the site and 
> >>     
> >
> > Is this already stable ? I've just seen the testing patch.
> >   
> 1. Stability is not binary thing -- I mean it can be more or less stable.

Yeah, of course. But can it be trusted as stable as the branch 
called "stable" ? Is it suited for use in production environments ?

> 2. Our stable branch can be thought of as "super stable", and our devel
> branch can be thought of as "it works".

hmm, so "stable" should better be called "mature" ?

> 3. Devel branch will not be declared stable for at least a few more
> months -- just because the kernel it is based on is quite new. New stuff
> contains bugs. Old stuff can have those bugs fixed. What we do in our
> 'stable' series is we backport all the security fixes from the newer
> kernels, we also backport essential/relevant bug fixes and some driver
> updates as well.

So, can I assume, the "stable" patch against an quite old kernel 
brings the fixes of newer (vanilla) kernels by itself ?

I like to keep my kernels as new as possible, therefore I did some
experiments on porting the "stable" patch to newer versions.

> 4. In fact, both stable and devel branches are based on the roughly 
> same code (the only difference is new functionality in devel, like veth
> device and checkpointing). 

Yeah, these new features may have bugs, and this is the reason for
differentiating between "stable" and "devel" branches :)

I would be happier if I could choose between an these two branches 
but both against an new kernel.

> So, there are several bug sources/reasons:
>  - mainstream kernel bugs;

hmm, aren't they a job for kernel folks ? or maybe some separate
kernel QM project ? (many distros are maintaining their own fixes
for the kernel and also dozens of other packages - perhaps try
to concentrate these works in one QM project ?)

<snip>

> 5. Can you tell us what is your final intention, i.e. what do you need?
> We can probably help...

As said above: I like to have most recent kernels, as on all my
other machines, since I feel its the greatest chance for the best
kernel. Maybe I've been wrong all these years.


cu
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt    ==   metux IT service - http://www.metux.de/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Please visit the OpenSource QM Taskforce:
 	http://wiki.metux.de/public/OpenSource_QM_Taskforce
 Patches / Fixes for a lot dozens of packages in dozens of versions:
	http://patches.metux.de/
---------------------------------------------------------------------