Re: [PATCH 1/3] kci-gitlab: Introducing GitLab-CI Pipeline for Kernel Testing

[Guenter Roeck]

On Thu, Feb 29, 2024 at 12:21 PM Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 29 Feb 2024 at 01:23, Nikolai Kondrashov <spbnick@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > However, I think a better approach would be *not* to add the .gitlab-ciyaml
> > file in the root of the source tree, but instead change the very same repo
> > setting to point to a particular entry YAML, *inside* the repo (somewhere
> > under "ci" directory) instead.
>
> I really don't want some kind of top-level CI for the base kernel project.
>
> We already have the situation that the drm people have their own ci
> model. II'm ok with that, partly because then at least the maintainers
> of that subsystem can agree on the rules for that one subsystem.
>
> I'm not at all interested in having something that people will then
> either fight about, or - more likely - ignore, at the top level
> because there isn't some global agreement about what the rules are.
>
> For example, even just running checkpatch is often a stylistic thing,
> and not everybody agrees about all the checkpatch warnings.
>

While checkpatch is indeed of arguable value, I think it would help a
lot not having to bother about the persistent _build_ failures on
32-bit systems. You mentioned the fancy drm CI system above, but they
don't run tests and not even test builds on 32-bit targets, which has
repeatedly caused (and currently does cause) build failures in drm
code when trying to build, say, arm:allmodconfig in linux-next. Most
trivial build failures in linux-next (and, yes, sometimes mainline)
could be prevented with a simple generic CI.

Sure, argue against checkpatch as much as you like, but the code
should at least _build_, and it should not be necessary for random
people to report build failures to the submitters.

Guenter

> I would suggest the CI project be separate from the kernel.
>
> And having that slack channel that is restricted to particular
> companies is just another sign of this whole disease.
>
> If you want to make a google/microsoft project to do kernel CI, then
> more power to you, but don't expect it to be some kind of agreed-upon
> kernel project when it's a closed system.
>
>                Linus
>