linux-kernel - Re: RFC: starting a kernel-testers group for newbies

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Date:	Thu, 1 May 2008 16:21:59 +0300
From:	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>
To:	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>
Cc:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>, davem@...emloft.net,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, jirislaby@...il.com,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Subject: Re: RFC: starting a kernel-testers group for newbies

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 07:20:13AM -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Thu, 1 May 2008 14:30:38 +0300
> Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 12:03:38AM -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > > On Thu, 1 May 2008 03:31:25 +0300
> > > Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 01:31:08PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > On Wed, 30 Apr 2008, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > <jumps up and down>
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > There should be nothing in 2.6.x-rc1 which wasn't in
> > > > > > 2.6.x-mm1!
> > > > > 
> > > > > The problem I see with both -mm and linux-next is that they
> > > > > tend to be better at finding the "physical conflict" kind of
> > > > > issues (ie the merge itself fails) than the "code looks ok but
> > > > > doesn't actually work" kind of issue.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Why?
> > > > > 
> > > > > The tester base is simply too small.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Now, if *that* could be improved, that would be wonderful, but
> > > > > I'm not seeing it as very likely.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I think we have fairly good penetration these days with the
> > > > > regular -git tree, but I think that one is quite frankly a
> > > > > *lot* less scary than -mm or -next are, and there it has been
> > > > > an absolutely huge boon to get the kernel into the Fedora
> > > > > test-builds etc (and I _think_ Ubuntu and SuSE also started
> > > > > something like that).
> > > > > 
> > > > > So I'm very pessimistic about getting a lot of test coverage
> > > > > before -rc1.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Maybe too pessimistic, who knows?
> > > > 
> > > > First of all:
> > > > I 100% agree with Andrew that our biggest problems are in
> > > > reviewing code and resolving bugs, not in finding bugs (we
> > > > already have far too many unresolved bugs).
> > > 
> > > I would argue instead that we don't know which bugs to fix first.
> > > We're never going to fix all bugs, and to be honest, that's ok.
> > >...
> > 
> > That might be OK.
> > 
> > But our current status quo is not OK:
> > 
> > Check Rafael's regressions lists asking yourself
> > "How many regressions are older than two weeks?" 
> 
> "ext4 doesn't compile on m68k".
> YAWN.
>  
> Wrong question...
> "How many bugs that a sizable portion of users will hit in reality are there?"
> is the right question to ask...
>...

"Kernel oops while running kernbench and tbench on powerpc" took more 
than 2 months to get resolved, and we ship 2.6.25 with this regression.

Granted that compared to x86 there's not a sizable portion of users 
crazy enough to run Linux on powerpc machines...

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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