UDS Lucid -- Kernel Summary

[Andy Whitcroft]

UDS Lucid was a busy time for the Kernel Team.  We chose a new kernel
for the Lucid Lynx release, we reviewed our policies for Stable Updates,
reviewed our kernel delta and configuration, and much more.  The purpose of
this email is to give a very brief overview of our decisions and provide
pointers to more detailed information for those who are interested.

The primary decision for the kernel team at UDS is to choose the
base kernel version for the release.  For Lucid this will be 2.6.32.
This version has just released providing the maximum stabalisation time,
it also is expected to be the kernel of choice for long term releases from
other distributions.  We will also keep ext4 as our primary filesystem.

We also reviewed our Stable Release Update policy, moving to a more
upstream stable branch oriented policy.  We will be taking upstream stable
updates for longer and preferring those for Lucid.

We reviewed our Ubuntu delta, the drivers and patches we are carring.
We plan to update all of our Ubuntu drivers except for drbd.  drbd is
primarily consumed by the server team and they use a dkms module to get
a more up to date version.  On the patch side we have identified a
number of redundant patches which have been dropped and a number which
should be moved upstream, activity which is on going.

We have decided to experiment with backporting newer kernels onto LTS
releases for Lucid.  This will involve provision of kernel from later
cycles into Lucid, supported on certified platforms.  The policy here is
being firmed up now.

For graphics, we chose to enable Radeon Kernel Mode Settings by default
and to seriously look at enabling Nouveau for Lucid.  This should bring
pretty boot to the majority of users.

For those who crave more detail on these and a couple of other key
initiatives can find more information at the wiki page below, which we will
be keeping up to date with the current state of the union for the kernel:

    http://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/UDSLucid

If you are concerned about any of the decisions you can find us on
#ubuntu-kernel on Freenode.

-apw