Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS released [LWN.net]

Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS released

Posted Jul 5, 2008 9:32 UTC (Sat) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750)
In reply to: Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS released by callegar
Parent article: Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS released

> However, it is unfortunate that the release notes do not mention the 
> hard lockup problem cited above. Regardless of how infrequent it 
> may be, it is now well documented on the ubuntu bug traker, 
> acknowledged by the kernel developer and discussed on the 
> forums (see the above link and comments therein for details).

Which specific bug was the one that was well documented and understood? You're linking to ca.
10 bugs in those linked comments, most of which are quite vague and have no clear idea about
what's going wrong.

If the bug is well understood, there is probably a patch for 2.6.24 doable for it, but so far
the only "fix" was to upgrade to 2.6.25, which is just a shot in the dark.

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Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS released

Posted Jul 5, 2008 13:57 UTC (Sat) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link]

Please, don't make me say what I am not actually saying: I have never suggested that the bug
is well understood. Indeed if it was, it would be fixed already. Suggesting the contrary would
mean believing that it is left there on purpose, that I surely don't.

I am only saying that:

1) the bug /existence/ is well documented as proved by the many (often duplicate) bug reports.
And although these do not allow one to count the statistical incidence of affected systems,
surely it says that it is > 0%.

2) the bug is acknowledged by the ubuntu kernel team. Otherwise, they would not be the first
saying that it is fixed in the intrepid kernel, and there wouldn't have been some of them
suggesting that something should (should have) possibly be done for 8.04.1

3) the bug appears to be fixed (maybe even incidentally, as the side effect of other changes)
in more recent versions of the kernel.

In my opinion (but I think that we may agree on it), this - together with the fact that the
bug is marked at a high priority, and that frequent lockups can easily result in data loss -
should have made this problem mentioned in the release notes, together with notices on how to
identify if a platform is affected and with workarounds.

Also in my opinion (and here evidently we do not agree), using a 2.6.25 "point 10" is not such
a shot in the dark. In my opinion it would be wise to provide it /in addition/ to 2.6.24 /for
those/ experiencing this showstopping bug on ubuntu's 2.6.24. In the end 2.6.25 is what
everybody is using from Fedora to Opensuse.

Indeed, (but again this just "pour parler"), I think that one of the reasons why some kernel
bugs have not yet been fixed in Hardy is not only to be sought in the lack of resources of the
kernel team (which surely plays a role), but also in the very initial choice of 2.6.24 that
prevents from "re-using" the work of other distros kernel teams (thus relaxing the resource
scarcity issue).

Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS released

Posted Jul 5, 2008 18:27 UTC (Sat) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

Right, the word "understood" was made up by me, from the "documented".
I believe there are hang reports on every kernel, but possibly these hardy ones are now more
common than with some of the earlier Ubuntu kernels (2.6.22, 2.6.20, 2.6.17, 2.6.15...). I'm
not sure if the release notes could have something more than disclaimer-like "it may be that
not all hardware combinations continue to work flawlessly in 8.04", and the same is true with
every release.

I agree to disagree with the 2.6.25 stableness vs. shot in the dark, and agree to agree with
the fact that Ubuntu kernel team could use more resources. I've heard before there are no
resources to support more kernels at the same time, which is why .25 cannot be offered in
addition to .24. In the gutsy times people would have wanted the kernel team to offer
differently compiled kernel flavors because ATI's binary drivers didn't resume from suspend
with newer kernels with the new allocator.

Thanks for elaborating the issue and answering my questions. I do think the issue is real, any
regression is, and it's just details that I'm checking and also wondering how realistic any
one solution is (if no clear patch can be found). It's not just a problem of Ubuntu 8.04, it's
a problem with the generic problem of regressions that always happen.