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A kernel for Dapper and Etch
This week there were discussions on both the Ubuntu-devel and Debian-kernel
mailing lists about using the 2.6.16 kernel for Dapper and Etch
respectively. Here are pointers to the thread
on Ubuntu-devel and the thread
on Debian-kernel.
Both of these distributions began their development prior to the 2.6.16 release, so both are based on slightly older kernels. Now, however, the kernel developers are targeting the 2.6.16 kernel for stabilizing and long term maintenance. If these distributions stick with 2.6.15 (or older), their kernel maintainers will end up backporting security and bug fixes for some time (five years for Dapper and possibly longer for Etch). So why not just go with 2.6.16? Well, alert LWN readers may remember that 2.6.16 introduced some API changes; changes that will ripple through the rest of the system and cause other things to break. It's not a step to be taken lightly, and with only three weeks until the planned Dapper release it's far too late to make such a sweeping change. The Etch release is still a good six months out, so it's much more likely that 2.6.16 will be used for Etch. (Log in to post comments)
2.6 API Changes page not updated for 2.6.16 Posted May 11, 2006 3:34 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] The 2.6 API changes page was never updated for 2.6.16, incidentally..
A kernel for Dapper and Etch Posted May 12, 2006 20:24 UTC (Fri) by hein.zelle (guest, #33324) [Link] Is Dapper going to have a realistic chance of remaining secure (kernel-wise) for 5 years with one kernel? That seems like a very long time to maintain security fixes on a single kernel release. Wouldn't it be less work to release "security" updates including a kernel upgrade to 2.6.16 or up at some point in the future? I realize that might be a nightmare as well for a stable distribution given that some hardware or software might no longer work with the new kernel. It does seem like a more viable solution to me though, at first sight.
A kernel for Dapper and Etch Posted May 13, 2006 10:01 UTC (Sat) by cjwatson (subscriber, #7322) [Link] At present, we (the Ubuntu core team) don't think upgrading to 2.6.16 is viable; it requires at least a corresponding udev change and may have as-yet-undiagnosed knock-on effects in other parts of the system. That requires a reasonably lengthy QA cycle and isn't something we can reasonably do either at this point in the release cycle or after release.
We've accepted the workload required to support 2.6.15 for five years. It certainly won't be an easy job - I don't think anyone pretends that it will be - but all that moving to 2.6.16 would do would be to defer the problems a bit. We'll see how it goes.
A kernel for Dapper and Etch Posted May 21, 2006 2:05 UTC (Sun) by mic.f (guest, #30242) [Link] maybe it's time for the kernel developers to realize what a roadmap, compatibility and planning means for the community
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