LWN: Comments on "Kernel release status"

Stable 2.6

set — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 04:18:02 +0000

The developement cycle is just more compressed; Andrews kernel patches
constitute a sort of low grade fever developement kernel, and what he
feeds to Linus and what Linus applies to mainline constitute what I
guess is the stablest baseline release. If you want a kernel that only
has security and concervative bugfixes, you definitely want a vendor
kernel.
Based upon personal observation of the kernel mailing list, lug lists,
personal and anecdotal evidence from friends, however, the 2.6 series
has been one of the most quickly and consistantly stable bases of all
the 'stable' series in terms of reliability.
The experiment of a rolling developement model seems to be working quite
well. There are so many other parties doing the other aspect of stable
that it doesnt really seem to make sense to burden the devs with that role.

Stable 2.6

giraffedata — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:40:02 +0000

I don't think anyone is even working on a stable 2.6 kernel. Linus announced at OLS the death of the even-release-means-stable system. He intends for non-stabilizing changes to go into the 2.6 series indefinitely. For there to be a stable 2.6-based kernel, someone else, e.g. a Linux distributor, needs to make a branch that takes only stabilizing changes.

BTW, stable means two different things in this context. One is that a particular release works reliably -- e.g. doesn't crash at random times. The other is that the series doesn't change much from one release to another. I don't think either of these applies to 2.6.

Better

set — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 05:06:06 +0000

Andrew Mortons patches (to which the original poster refered) are not stable kernel releases.

Better

marduk — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:34:42 +0000

Wow, is 2.6.x really still that unstable? I've had a lot of issues with 2.6.6, but not many since. I know a few people who have pulled their hair out on 2.6.8.

So when are we gonna see a stable realease of the stable kernel?

Better

ncm — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 02:56:27 +0000

2.6.9-rc2-mm1 seems to fix lots of bugs that were in 2.6.9-rc1-mm3. Aside from non-specific stability improvements (knock wood), it fixes usb-storage (so I can see my camera again) and doesn't crash when I strace simple programs.