Release management thoughts for Dapper Drake

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

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Jeff Waugh wrote:

> 
>  2. Ship both Linux 2.6.12 and 2.6.new
> 
>     I suggest we ship two kernels with dapper: A well tested and stabilised
>     2.6.12 for servers and a nicely up-to-date 2.6.new (probably 2.6.14) for
>     desktops. This does mean extra work, but while we're tracking the fresh
>     branch, we can fold fixes back into the 2.6.12 branch. Potential gotchas
>     include: incompatible inotify and udev changes (kernel/userland combos
>     elsewhere, too), desireable new stuff for servers such as the upcoming
>     SCSI changes not being backportable to our stable branch (thanks to
>     James Troup and Daniel Silverstone for pointing these out).
> 

Sorry but i strongly disagree with this approach. Maintaing 2 kernels is not
just a bit of extrawork. It is confusing and it will create a lot of extra
work.
What we will discuss at UBZ as planned in the wiki, is the possibility to use
the same vanilla kernel (.14 or .15 or whatever, time will tell) for both server
and desktop. With the latter patched with more extra interesting stuff.
Also as you mentioned yourself that will require mostlikely 2 sets of userland
tools to match the running kernel and that's definitely adding an extra and easy
point of failure.

Also keep in mind that preparing security releases for older kernel becomes
exponentially more complex with time, given the amount of code that changes
between kernel releases.

Fabio

- --
I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.
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