Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Quick Search: in
Gentoo Kernel Upgrade Amd64 Philosophy
View unanswered posts
View posts from last 24 hours

 
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Kernel & Hardware
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Spargeltarzan
Guru
Guru


Joined: 23 Jul 2017
Posts: 317

PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 8:49 am    Post subject: Gentoo Kernel Upgrade Amd64 Philosophy Reply with quote

Hi,

I am interested how the Gentoo Linux developers maintain the latest kernel for amd64, when they decide to move next, when they decide to stay , ... , so basically the Philosophy behind it.

Currently two LTS releases, 4.4 and 4.9, are stable + 4.12.12. Why exactly the 4.12 branch (which seams to be EOL already)? Do they plan to move on already or is there a special reason why they decided to use 4.12.12 ?

For the LTS releases 4.4.87 and 4.9.49-r1 are stabilized. Currently 4.4.105 and 4.9.69 are on kernel.org, are there reasons why they stay on the former ones?

Maybe someone who has experience with Gentoo more years could give some insights :)
_________________
___________________
Regards

Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
Desktop-PC: Intel Core i7-4770K, 8GB Ram, AMD Radeon R9 280X, ZFS Storage, GNOME openrc, Dantrell, Xen
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeddySeagoon
Administrator
Administrator


Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54098
Location: 56N 3W

PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Spargeltarzan,

When a kernel appears on kernel.org the kernel devs think its stable.
When a kernel appears in Gentoo as stable, the Gentoo kernel devs think its stable. That's two different standards.

Any candidate stable package in Gentoo will have had no open bugs for 30 days and before it gets marked stable, it will have had sufficient testing.
There is a amd64 arch testers project for this sort of thing but its very quiet. Thare has also been some chatter on the -dev ML about amd64 stabilisations. That's the first message in the thread.

In the case of the kernel, only LTS versions are ever considered for stable, there are just too many kernel versions otherwise.
4.12 had a regression in the bcache code. Several people lost data.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
krinn
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 02 May 2003
Posts: 7470

PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
When a kernel appears on kernel.org the kernel devs think its stable.
When a kernel appears in Gentoo as stable, the Gentoo kernel devs think its stable. That's two different standards.

I would say it's not specific to kernel, you can see as of today videolan.org is offering vlc-2.2.8 to download (so, for them stable) while 2.2.8 is mark unstable in gentoo. https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/media-video/vlc
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Spargeltarzan
Guru
Guru


Joined: 23 Jul 2017
Posts: 317

PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@ NeddySeagoon: I am not sure if I understand you correctly, in the current stable 4.12.12 kernel there was or is a bug might leading to data loss? Or in 4.12.5? I currently run 4.12.12 and would consider downgrade to 4.9 LTS or upgrade to ~ 4.14. I believe you run an ~amd64 system, which kernel are you using? (but think 4.14 will be LTS soon, so maybe better to wait and upgrade after its stabilization...)


@ Krinn: Yes, we should only be aware on information the project maintainers give us, for example firefox team stated they only stabilize firefox LTS due to lack of manpower. But firefox quantuum offers great new features, twice the speed, I use its unstable binary to keep my system cleaner. On the other hand zfs 0.7.4, generally marked as unstable (also on zfsonlinux.org), is great software and more mature and stable than most of other software available.
_________________
___________________
Regards

Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
Desktop-PC: Intel Core i7-4770K, 8GB Ram, AMD Radeon R9 280X, ZFS Storage, GNOME openrc, Dantrell, Xen
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Spargeltarzan
Guru
Guru


Joined: 23 Jul 2017
Posts: 317

PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon, does this indeed mean for kernel 4.4.88 to .105 and 4.9.50 to .69 there were open bugs within 30 days? I like this approach of testing.

I started to read the dev mailing list and they are discussing that ebuild creators could also stabilize their own packages, or to chroot into a stable environment (because devs mostly run ~amd64) for stabilization. Without having deep insights, I believe we will have a higher quality stable tree when a different person will stabilize the packages. Gentooers, what is your opinion?

ADD: The kernel leader announced also to wait only one week bug-free for kernel stabilization here
_________________
___________________
Regards

Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
Desktop-PC: Intel Core i7-4770K, 8GB Ram, AMD Radeon R9 280X, ZFS Storage, GNOME openrc, Dantrell, Xen
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeddySeagoon
Administrator
Administrator


Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54098
Location: 56N 3W

PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Spargeltarzan,

I have a AMD RX 460 video card in an old system.
The amdgpu drivers are moving quickly and there were/(are going to be) some big changes in 4.15, so I'm using the 4.15.0-rc1 kernel right now.
I'm still having GPU issues, so I'll move to a new -rc any time now.

I do run all testing on amd64 and x86. On arm64, I'm a bit more adventurous.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Kernel & Hardware All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum