Stephen Hemminger recently posted to the lkml in frustration, asking which Linux distributions support a stock kernel. He specifically listed problems between the stock kernel and Mandrake, due to its use of supermount, and SuSe due to its usage of ReiserFS attributes. He explained, "When running a non-vendor kernel, I need to reasonably expect that the system will boot and all the filesystems and standard devices are available."

The various responses listed a few distributions that evidently work well with the stock kernel, including RedHat's Fedora, Debian, Slackware, and Gentoo. Stephen concluded, "I am not saying it is bad that the distributions try to satisfy their customers, or create a better experience; they just need to stop breaking things, and add running a standard kernel as part of their QA cycle."

From: Stephen Hemminger [email blocked]
To:  linux-kernel
Subject: Distributions vs kernel development
Date: 	Fri, 7 May 2004 08:53:12 -0700

After having being burned twice: first by Mandrake and supermount, and second
by SuSe and reiserfs attributes; are any of the distributions committed to
making sure that their distribution will run the standard kernel? (ie. 2.6.X from
kernel.org). When running a non-vendor kernel, I need to reasonably expect that the system
will boot and all the filesystems and standard devices are available.  I don't
expect every startup script to run clean, or every device that has a driver
only in the vendor kernel to work. 

But kernel developers need to be able run a standard environment. This effects
both day to day kernel testing and automated test environments like PLM and STP.
I am not saying it is bad that the distributions try to satisfy their customers,
or create a better experience; they just need to stop breaking things, and add
running a standard kernel as part of their QA cycle.



From: Arjan van de Ven [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Distributions vs kernel development
Date: 	Fri, 07 May 2004 18:02:36 +0200

On Fri, 2004-05-07 at 17:53, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> After having being burned twice: first by Mandrake and supermount, and second
> by SuSe and reiserfs attributes; are any of the distributions committed to
> making sure that their distribution will run the standard kernel? (ie. 2.6.X from
> kernel.org).

I can say that for Fedora Core we do have this goal. Obviously we do
expect a "recent enough" kernel, eg a 2.2 kernel on FC1 probably will
give issues, as will 2.4.0. 2.4.2x ought to be fine though.



From: Jeff Garzik [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Distributions vs kernel development
Date: 	Fri, 07 May 2004 12:03:00 -0400

Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> After having being burned twice: first by Mandrake and supermount, and second
> by SuSe and reiserfs attributes; are any of the distributions committed to
> making sure that their distribution will run the standard kernel? (ie. 2.6.X from
> kernel.org). When running a non-vendor kernel, I need to reasonably expect that the system
> will boot and all the filesystems and standard devices are available.  I don't
> expect every startup script to run clean, or every device that has a driver
> only in the vendor kernel to work. 

Fedora Core runs stock 2.4 and 2.6 kernels just fine...   :)

	Jeff



From: Måns Rullgård [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Distributions vs kernel development
Date: 	Fri, 07 May 2004 18:05:43 +0200
 Obscurity, linux)

Stephen Hemminger [email blocked] writes:

> After having being burned twice: first by Mandrake and supermount, and
> second by SuSe and reiserfs attributes; are any of the distributions
> committed to making sure that their distribution will run the standard
> kernel? (ie. 2.6.X from kernel.org). When running a non-vendor kernel,
> I need to reasonably expect that the system will boot and all the
> filesystems and standard devices are available.  I don't expect every
> startup script to run clean, or every device that has a driver only in
> the vendor kernel to work.

My last slackware install used an unmodified kernel, I don't know if
the latest versions so the same.  I run gentoo with vanilla 2.6
kernels.  I recently installed a vanilla 2.6 kernel on a redhat9
machine, without any problems (which quite surprised me).

-- 
Måns Rullgård
[email blocked]



From: Martin J. Bligh [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Distributions vs kernel development
Date: 	Fri, 07 May 2004 09:22:17 -0700

> After having being burned twice: first by Mandrake and supermount, and second
> by SuSe and reiserfs attributes; are any of the distributions committed to
> making sure that their distribution will run the standard kernel? (ie. 2.6.X from
> kernel.org). When running a non-vendor kernel, I need to reasonably expect that the system
> will boot and all the filesystems and standard devices are available.  I don't
> expect every startup script to run clean, or every device that has a driver
> only in the vendor kernel to work. 
> 
> But kernel developers need to be able run a standard environment. This effects
> both day to day kernel testing and automated test environments like PLM and STP.
> I am not saying it is bad that the distributions try to satisfy their customers,
> or create a better experience; they just need to stop breaking things, and add
> running a standard kernel as part of their QA cycle.

I run Debian to do this all the time. If you run the stable distro, it doens't
have all bleeding edge desktop crap, but it does have the major advantage of
actually working, and being perfectly stable. Getting it to run 2.6 needs
a few small updates, but nothing hard. 

Testing is very solid too, has 2.6 support out of the box, and more updated 
desktop stuff (I run that on my laptop). Unstable seems more stable than most
vendors shipped distros to me, but changes more rapidly. They also seem to
break serial console occasionally in unstable by loading fonts into it 
(idiots!), but that's trivial to fix.

The fact that their own kernel packages are so close to mainline probably 
helps a lot ;-)

M.



From: Pascal Schmidt [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Distributions vs kernel development
Date: 	Fri, 7 May 2004 21:41:13 +0200

On Fri, 07 May 2004 18:00:22 +0200, you wrote in linux.kernel:
> After having being burned twice: first by Mandrake and supermount, and second
> by SuSe and reiserfs attributes; are any of the distributions committed to
> making sure that their distribution will run the standard kernel? (ie. 2.6.X from
> kernel.org).

Slackware, both -current and 9.1. Don't expect fancy initscripts
handling every possible thing you could boot off for you, though.

-- 
Ciao,
Pascal

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