How is different version of kernel developped

Richard Genoud

2013-07-17 09:59:58 UTC

Hi,

Post by Jimmy Pan
Hi,
I am wondering how different version of kernel is discussed on kernel mailing list.
We can see that, the latest kernel stable is 3.9.4, and the mainline is 3.10-rc2 and there is an EOF say 3.8.13 and a longterm 3.4.47, and a linux-next
1.When we see a patch on linux kernel mailing list, which kernel version is it based on?(seems never exsists a description in the patch)

It's always the next kernel version (now that 3.11-rc1 is out, patches
are for 3.12).
Exception: patches that corrects bugs/regression of the current -rc

Post by Jimmy Pan
2.What should we do if we whant to send a patch for different kernel version?

There's no way. We simply don't.
Exception: stable kernels (cf Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt )
(only bug fixes)
(the procedure for sending patches to stable may change in a near future)

Post by Jimmy Pan
3.If a 3.x-rc turn out to be stable, is it going to be 3.x.1?

After the release candidates, *every* kernel release is "stable" (but
only a few will be "long term support")
example with 3.10 serie :
after the 3.9 is out, during 2 weeks, all the git trees of the
maintainers are merged in linux-next. conflicts are solved, and then
Linus pulls the code from those trees.
That makes 3.10-rc1.
after that, each week there's a new rc, and it stops when Linus juges
that there's no "important" regressions / bugs introduced by this rc
In our case, until 3.10-rc7
Then, 3.10 is tagged and said stable.
Greg GK will maintain this version (with bug fixes only) until
3.12-rc1 is out (I'm not very sure about the timings here, but that's
the idea)

Post by Jimmy Pan
4.There is no 3.10 in linus' tree, what exactly is linus' tree?

yes, there is : https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/
and the stable tree is here :
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git/

Post by Jimmy Pan
5.Is linux-next a preview of the next mainline version? In this case 3.10-rc3

Yes, it's a preview of the next version. But it may not compile, or
eat your data !

Richard.
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