[ale] Question....

[gt1355b at prism.gatech.edu]

On Tue, 19 Aug 1997, Robert L. Harris wrote:

> Ok,
>   Honest question here.  What is the exact difference between a 
> pre-2.0.31 kernel and something like 2.1.50 for example?  Is the
> pre 2.1.50 about to be released as 2.1.31?  Does it have all the
> same drivers and kernel options?  I've never heard a good explanation.

Linux has a dual development model.  All the interesting, dangerous (as in,
not guaranteed to not hose your file systems, etc.)  work is done in
odd-series kernels (0.9, 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, etc.).  When this work stabilizes
and reaches a major new level of functionality, a code freeze (probably not
as firm of one as there should be ;-) goes into effect and that development
tree becomes an even-series kernel (1.0, 1.2, 2.0, 2.2, etc.).

While work is ongoing in the latest odd-series tree, bug fixes are still
made and important changes are still back-ported to the latest stable tree. 
Right now, the latest even series is 2.0.  We're currently at revision 30 of
that, and Linus is making a major push to get the last few bugs hammered out
and get 31 on the streets; the pre-2.0.31 patches are his latest efforts at
that.

The 2.0.x series has been in bug-fix mode for almost a year now.  In the
mean time, development on 2.1.x has been underway.  The latest release there
is 2.1.51.  As with the 2.0.x series, Linus or some of the other developers
will occasionally release pre-patches before providing a whole new release. 
These patches are entirely independent of 2.0.x pre-patches.  Generally, the
pre-patches for odd-series kernels are just stop-gap measures to fix glaring
problems that Linus or whoever hasn't actually tested.  For even-series
kernels, they're a way of getting people to test and report back without
having to make a new release;  while the 2.0.x should be bug-free (or as
close as possible), you don't want to have 2.0.147 or whatever.... 

later,
chris

P.S.  Those of you who haven't yet, please get the latest 2.0.x pre-patch
from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/testing and try it out.  The
latest currently is pre-patch-2.0.31-7.gz ; to install it, change to a
pristine 2.0.30 tree (e.g., explode the 2.0.30 tarball and cd to
/usr/src/linux; pre-patches are always independent of each other and against
the previous whole release). There, type "zcat pre-patch-2.0.31-7.gz | patch
-p1" and sit back while junk flies across the screen.  Build a shiny new
kernel and modules and pound away on it to see if it breaks.... 

--
Chris Ricker                                 gt1355b at prism.gatech.edu