Re: Wanted: hotfixes for -mm kernels

[Dmitry Torokhov]

On 2/2/06, Randy.Dunlap <rdunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Feb 2006, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
>
> > On 2/2/06, Lee Revell <rlrevell@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 15:00 -0500, Chuck Ebbert wrote:
> > > > Most -mm kernels have small but critical bugs that are found shortly
> > > > after release.  Patches for these are posted on linux-kernel but
> > > > they aren't made available on kernel.org until the next -mm release.
> > > >
> > > > Would it be possible to create a hotfix/ directory for each -mm
> > > > release and put those patches there?  A README could explain that
> > > > the fixes are untested.  At least people reading the files could
> > > > see an issue exists even if they're not brave enough to try the
> > > > patch. :)
> > >
> > > I doubt it - mm is an experimental kernel, hotfixes only make sense for
> > > production stuff.  It moves too fast.
> > >
> > > A better question is what does -mm give you that mainline does not, that
> > > causes you to want to "stabilize" a specific -mm version?
> > >
> >
> > Some people just run -mm so the hotfixes/* would help them to get
> > their boxes running until the next -mm without having to hunt through
> > LKML for bugs already reported/fixed. This will allow better testing
> > coverage because most obvious bugs are caught almost immediately and
> > then people can continue using -mm to find more stuff.
>
> Yep.  I think it's a good idea, although it does move fast, like
> Lee says.

One can argue that it doesn't move fast enough - I am pulling from
Linus into my working tree pretty much daily whereas -mm is static for
about a week. SO with Linu's tree I'm getting fixes to abvious
problems/regressions much faster.

>  I'd be willing to help if e.g. there was some place
> where several of us could upload patches to.
>

That's a nice idea too.

--
Dmitry
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