linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2.6.27.y 1/3] ext4: Use our own write_cache

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Date:	Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:23:07 +0200
From:	Kay Diederichs <Kay.Diederichs@...-konstanz.de>
To:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....EDU>
CC:	Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer@...il.com>,
	"Jayson R. King" <dev@...sonking.com>,
	Stable team <stable@...nel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...e.de>,
	"Aneesh Kumar K.V" <aneesh.kumar@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>,
	Ext4 Developers List <linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2.6.27.y 1/3] ext4: Use our own write_cache_pages()

Theodore Tso schrieb:
> On Jun 1, 2010, at 9:54 AM, Greg Freemyer wrote:
>> It has always been marked experimental in 2.6.27, not stable so I'm
>> totally lost about this effort.
>>
>> See http://lxr.linux.no/#linux+v2.6.27.47/fs/Kconfig
> 
> This is one of the things that confuses me, actually.  Why is it that there are a number of people who want to use ext4 on 2.6.27?   Even the enterprise distro's have moved on; SLES 11 SP1 upgraded their users from 2.6.27 to 2.6.32, for example.  I wonder if it's time to start a new "stable anchor point" around 2.6.32, given that Ubuntu's latest Long-Term Stable (Lucid LTS) is based on 2.6.32, as is SLES 11 SP1.  The RHEL 6 beta is also based on 2.6.32.  (And I just spent quite a bit of time over the past week backporting a lot of ext4 bug fixes to 2.6.32.y :-)
> 
> If there are people who want to work on trying to backport more ext4 fixes to 2.6.27, they're of course free to do so.  I am really curious  as to *why*, though.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -- Ted
> 

The answer is: because 2.6.27.y is supposed to be a _stable_ kernel. If
it were e.g. 2.6.28 or 2.6.29, nobody would care. But as long as there
is a flow of backported fixes (and there have been quite a few ext4
fixes in 2.6.27) I have the expectation that known bugs get fixed sooner
or later.

If a subsystem maintainer says "I'm not going to support this old stable
thing any longer" then things change. But I hear this from you for the
first time - I may have missed earlier announcements to this effect, though.

best,

Kay

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