How can I tell what changed in a new kernel release?

Moriah

New minor version kernel releases have been coming out with great frequency lately, so much so that it is taking me too much time to keep up with them. I probably do not need to apply all of them to every box here, but I need to know just exactly what the changes are from one version to the next. What is an easy way to determine this, as opposed to actually doing the kernel install? I have some systems with highly customized built-from-scratch initrds that need a complete re-evaluation every time a new kernel is installed, so I do not want to install a new kernel that fixes something I am not using anyway.

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

http://dev.gentoo.org/~dsd/genpatches/releases.htm
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Moriah · Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 4:54 pm Post subject:

Thanks! That helps, but the descriptions are rather terse, and do not have links to more detailed write-ups. It is hard for me to tell wheter some of these would be desirable for a particular system or not.

Here is the info I found from the link you provided for the latest kernel that showed up in an emerge --sync last night:

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

The only other option would be to either google for the patch file name (well, partial name - for example, for 2705_ht-slowdown.patch, you'd drop the order key and just google for ht-slowdown.patch), or to actually look at the patches themselves. The latter option would be preferable since most patches provide documentation in the comments inside the source files.
_________________
Military Commissions Act of 2006: http://tinyurl.com/jrcto

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

Moriah · Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 6:15 pm Post subject:

Thanks, that sounds like the best idea. Maybe I will write a little perl script to go extract the comments from the patch files.

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

All that said, my (personal!) opinion is still to never upgrade a kernel on a production system unless you already know the new version offers something you really, really, really can't live without, such as closing a security hole or letting your system run five times faster (hah). I mask out each and every kernel version except the one I use, copy the ebuild to the overlay, and stick with it till death do us part.
_________________
Military Commissions Act of 2006: http://tinyurl.com/jrcto

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

Moriah · Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 6:37 pm Post subject:

I tend to agree with your approach; I just want to determine whether I really need the new build or not. I also try to build on a similar non-production box first to make sure there are no gotchas. Nice thing about using a RAID-1 mirror setup is you can always pull one drive from the array before the upgrade, so if it flops, you can always downgrade easlily.