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Distributing 2.6
As the 2.6 kernel slowly approaches release, it is natural that vendors and
users are becoming more interested in what this kernel has to offer. But
some distributors may be jumping the gun a bit with this kernel. Consider
these announcements:
The only problem, of course, is that there is no 2.6 kernel. The 2.6.0-test series is not the 2.6 kernel. It remains in active development, and many parts of it are still volatile. The most recent release (2.6.0-test6) included a fundamental change in the dev_t device number type, a bunch of scheduler work, numerous power management patches, and a lot of other changes. A number of important kernel interfaces are still in flux. Auditing for security problems still needs to be done. One should also bear in mind that most stable kernels do not truly stabilize until several releases after "dot-zero." The 2.5 kernel development series looks to be one of the most successful in quite some time. Many important objectives have been attained, and the 2.6.0-test kernels appear to be quite stable for most users. It is certainly an appropriate time for distributors to consider offering a 2.6 preview kernel, as SuSE will do with its 9.0 release. But it is too soon to present a 2.6-based distribution as being "production ready." Any distributor which is offering the 2.6 kernel as anything other than an early preview for testing purposes is not being entirely honest. We'll have our stable, 2.6-based distributions sometime in 2004; some things cannot be rushed. (Log in to post comments)
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 2:02 UTC (Thu) by brugolsky (subscriber, #28) [Link] Linus should wait until all the marketing idiots at these firms spend tons of money on glossy product literature that says 2.6, and then release 3.0 :-p
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 3:02 UTC (Thu) by zonker (subscriber, #7867) [Link] That's deliciously evil. I like it!
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 5:06 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] I agree 2.6 is not in any sense "production-ready" yet. Still, I also find it ok to refer to 2.6.0-testX as a "2.6" kernel, afterall, it *IS* a 2.6-kernel.The alternative would be to claim that 2.6.0-testX is, infact, a 2.5.* kernel, which would be a strange claim.
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 7:41 UTC (Thu) by oever (subscriber, #987) [Link] Talking about a 2.6 prerelease would be better: that's what it is.And you are right: it's not production-ready. E.g. I am still running test4 because I cannot get test5 and test6 to work on my relatively simple intel box.
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 13:33 UTC (Thu) by maney (subscriber, #12630) [Link] ...claim that 2.6.0-testX is, infact, a 2.5.* kernel, which would be a strange claim.Hmmmm. 2.5 is the development line between the stable 2.4 and the future stable 2.6, right? And 2.6.0-testX is not yet stable, so it must still be under development, no? So it *is* part of the 2.5 series, albeit a part which is, we all hope, getting very close to becoming a stable 2.6. Now, what was so strange about that? :-)
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 15:14 UTC (Thu) by fray (guest, #5577) [Link] ...the only problem is thats not the way the embedded Linux world operates...While SUSE can easily upgrade a kernel after the fact, if you make a million little devices all As far as the embedded announcements go, they are just press releases... it will be a while --Mark
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 9, 2003 9:02 UTC (Thu) by joib (guest, #8541) [Link] I think the point with releasing embedded distros with 2.6 is to give embedded developers time to develop with it. It's not like you take an arbitrary piece of hardware, slap on an embedded linux distro and sell the stuff in an instant. Consider if company X plans to make some product, and they plan for a one year development time. Especially if some kernel module development is needed, it might be a smart move to start developing with 2.6 now, as it probably will be "stable enough" in a year, than to first develop your kernel modules for 2.4 and then port then to 2.6 before you can release the product?
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 8:48 UTC (Thu) by hensema (guest, #980) [Link] Distributing a 2.6.0-testX kernel with a distro has one big advantage: users can upgrade to the 'real thing' as soons as it's released without much trouble (upgrading modutils, lvm/device mapper, etc).
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 11:41 UTC (Thu) by macc (subscriber, #510) [Link] SuSE allways had a conservative and a bleeding edge kernelavailable in their distribution. And bleeding edge happens to be 2.6-test-blalbll... at the moment. so what's the beef about it?
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 2, 2003 13:39 UTC (Thu) by maney (subscriber, #12630) [Link] so what's the beef about it?None at all. As the article said, It is certainly an appropriate time for distributors to consider offering a 2.6 preview kernel, as SuSE will do with its 9.0 release.
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 3, 2003 0:20 UTC (Fri) by bryn (guest, #1482) [Link] This LWN article seems over-cautious. I take the news as an encouraging sign.Packaging the 2.6 kernel with several full distributions exposes the new kernel to the full range of software that will rely upon it. This is the most effective way of testing the kernel's stability. Also, the distributors will now have a more vested interest in making sure the prominent bugs are squished, so it's possible that stabilising the kernel will be a faster process. Moreover, this all demonstrates how healthy the Linux world is. If distributors are rushing to work with 2.6, things can't be bad. It would worrying if they wanted to stick with a tried and tested 2.4 for the next few years. Some say this is what happened to the Amiga, effectively sentenced to death after Commodore decided that R&D should be slowed down so that people didn't face an ever-changing system. Obviously SnapGear are going a bit far by calling it production-ready, but that's marketing for you...
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 3, 2003 16:19 UTC (Fri) by garloff (subscriber, #319) [Link] For Linux 2.6 to get stable it misses one thing:Testing by a large amount of people. Only this way, you get the test coverage you need, both in usage patterns and in hardware combinations. To allow many people to test, it is useful to have distributions that are 2.6-ready. This way, people can test 2.6 without having to recompile a lot of needed software (modutils is just one example) themselves. Hopefully, many people will install the shipped 2.6 test kernels or compile their own 2.6 kernels and report bugs to LKML. But at the same time, a distributor would be a fool to make big PR telling that it's a 2.6 based distro and then install a 2.6 kernel by default.
Distributing 2.6 Posted Oct 10, 2003 7:52 UTC (Fri) by rsjs (guest, #15907) [Link] Development cycles for embedded devices tend tobe reasonably long. If devices based on a 2.6 kernel are going to be available in six months time, developers need to start working with 2.6 now. There will be new versions of the kernel as it matures, but migration between them will hopefully be simple. SnapGear has gone to the effort of collecting For those with a more conservative bent, the SnapGear --Rick (disclaimer: SnapGear pays me)
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