Re: compat-wireless question

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Guy, Wey-Yi W <wey-yi.w.guy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Luis,
>
> Simple compat-wireless question
>
> There are two type of compat-wireless
> 1.ÂÂÂÂÂÂ Bleeding-edge compat-wireless
> 2.ÂÂÂÂÂÂ Stable compat-wireless
>
> If I understand correctly, bleeding-edge compat-wireless took the latest
> from wireless-next-2.6,

Bleeding edge comes from linux-next.git instead of wireless-next.git
as we also get Ethernet driver updates that way. Ethernet drivers are
easy to port into compat-wireless so I have already added all Atheros
Ethernet drivers into it, feel free to send patches to Intel Ethernet
:)

> is it also include wireless-2.6 which is bug fix.

No, it just uses linux-next.git, but yeah linux-next.git would rebase
on top of Linus' tree anyway so it would eventually get all of the
respective stable fixes. Stephen would then just drag in all trees
sequentially.

> How about stable compat-wireless, it is base on stable tree, so I believe it
> has all the bug fix for the stable kernel, am I correct?

I based the stable release off of H. Peter Anvin's linux-2.6-allstable.git tree:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hpa/linux-2.6-allstable.git

After Linus releases a kernel, say 2.6.36, then new extra version
fixes, say 2.6.36.1, 2.6.36.2, etc, will not be available on Linus'
tree, but you can instead get them from the linux-2.6-allstable.git
tree. What is neat about that tree too is it also has the older stable
extra version updates. So whenever a stable kernel extra version gets
released we can make a new compat-wireless-2.6.3x.y. You can find them
here:

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download/stable/

Now as of the compat-wireless-2.6.36 releases I started noticing we
can do something better as we approach the merge window. The issue
with the merge window is that there are some patches which are marked
as stable on the commit log entry (Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxx) but not all
of these will make it to Linus' next rc release as the focus for the
RC is to fix regressions only. Right or wrong, some stable patches
eventually make it into the first extra version release of the kernel
but not on the stable release of the kernel. Some of these stable
fixes are still important though so to help with testing and getting
users/customers these fixes I've started sucking all pending stable
fixes from linux-next.git on the compat-wireless-2.6.36 releases. I
annotate this is done on a release by postfixing an "s" to the
release. You can also find all the stable patches which were sucked
out of linux-next.git by looking at the pending-stable/ directory. I
regenerate these every new RC release of the kernel or extra version
bump, but started this only as of the linux-2.6.36.y branch of
compat-wireless.

Furthermore, I realize that at times a vendor may have a patch that
although it did not make it into the stable release of the kernel it
may be important for the vendor for some customers, so because of this
we have the linux-next-cherry-picks/ directory. This directory is for
patches which have already been merged into linux-next.git but will
not make it into the stable kernel release. I took this further two
more steps too, just because sometimes a maintainer may be on
vacation, have died, or whatever, so your patches may not get merged
yet. In these cases you can submit patches for inclusion into the
linux-next-pending/ directory of compat-wireless. This is for patches
which have *at least* been posted to a public mailing list but for
whatever reason haven't yet been merged. Then lastly we have the crap/
directory of compat-wireless. This for patches which have not even yet
been posted to a mailing list for whatever reason. An example may be
that there is a known issue but yet the patches are important enough.

The purpose of all these directories is to let you customize stable
compat-wireless releases, suited for whatever purpose you have. I've
started sucking in all linux-next.git stable fixes not yet merged for
now, and am will soon start incorporating a linux-next-pending/ patch
to account for the lag in getting a patch reviewed.

Feel free to use these as well, I welcome patches to help your needs.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

  Luis
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