Distributing 2.6 [LWN.net]

Distributing 2.6

Posted Oct 2, 2003 5:06 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524)
Parent article: Distributing 2.6

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.

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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
running some prerelease of the Linux kernel, and find out there is a bug in it.. It can be
VERY expensive (if not impossible) to upgrade those devices.

As far as the embedded announcements go, they are just press releases... it will be a while
before customers feel comfortable moving to 2.6 (release).. They definatly won't feel
comfortable moving to a 2.6 "test" kernel.

--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?