Stabilization is for Distibutors [LWN.net]

Stabilization is for Distibutors

Posted Oct 10, 2004 22:27 UTC (Sun) by miallen (guest, #10195)
In reply to: Stabilization is for Distibutors by giraffedata
Parent article: Quotes of the week

AFAICS, they still use the same kernel maintenance methods they did when kernel.org had someone (e.g. Marcelo) maintaining a stabilizing yet not antiquated version. I.e. they frequently replace their "current" kernel with the highest numbered even-major release from kernel.org..

Well, I'm still using RH 7.3 on my laptop so things may have changed but last I checked what you say is/was not really true for RH. If you looked at the kernel spec file and the tarball that was in the src.rpm it was actually some particular starting kernel version that was heavily patched. Newer releases were the same kernel with an extra few patches. They were NOT stock kernel.org kernels.

Also, the OSS shotgun testing is fundamentally different from a controlled testing environment like RH uses to test the whole system under load. IIRC there have been consecutive kernel.org releases that were plauged with problems (e.g. VM thrashing). I think RH dealt with that better. At least they did not just "replace their 'current' kernel with the highest numbered even-major release from kernel.org".

(Log in to post comments)

Stabilization is for Distibutors

Posted Oct 10, 2004 23:20 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I agree that it's an oversimplification to say that Red Hat "replaces" its kernel with something from kernel.org. Red Hat never ships kernel.org kernels.

I also agree that Red Hat ignores some kernel.org releases.

But based on the naming of Red Hat kernels, it appears to me that they track kernel.org pretty closely. Within a few months of 2.4.X appearing on kernel.org, Red Hat has a kernel called 2.4.X-Y and doesn't support anything earlier. I guess Red Hat might be carefully scrutinizing all the changes from kernel.org and omitting destabilizing ones, but I think only a modicum of that could be practical and consistent with the naming.

By contrast,that practice isn't going to cut it with 2.6. Red Hat needs to change its kernel much more slowly than Linus changes his to have a viable commercial product.

Stabilization is for Distibutors

Posted Oct 14, 2004 6:44 UTC (Thu) by wmshub (guest, #3995) [Link]

If you are using the Red Hat enterprise, then they clearly do *NOT* put things out without a lot of testing. RHEL3's latest kernel is based on 2.4.21 - with, of course, a very large number of patches. RHEL isn't planning on releasing a 2.6-based version until around next Spring - a year or more after 2.6 was out!

So I think that, for enterprise products, Red Hat does test very well, and very differently from kernel.org. I haven't used SUSE et al, but I would guess that they would do the same.

Now if you're on Fedora, you are getting something with a lot less testing...but then, if you really want high stability (for example, if your business depended on the system's stability), then you wouldn't be on Fedora.