kernel

["Stanisław T. Findeisen"]

Why doesn't Fedora use vanilla Linux kernel?

STF

=======================================================================
http://eisenbits.homelinux.net/~stf/ . My PGP key fingerprint is:
9D25 3D89 75F1 DF1D F434  25D7 E87F A1B9 B80F 8062
=======================================================================

[Kevin Kofler]

"Stanisław T. Findeisen" wrote:
> Why doesn't Fedora use vanilla Linux kernel?

Because packages need to be patched to integrate with the rest of the
distribution and the kernel is no exception.

Because Fedora is about shipping new technologies which sometimes have to be
backported to stable releases and the kernel is no exception.

And to ask back: Why should it?

One of Fedora's goals is to stay close to upstream (and in fact some other
distributions have a lot more kernel patches than Fedora does), but that
doesn't mean we ship completely vanilla upstream software without regards
to things like system integration. If we just did that (and if it even
worked, which is not always the case), what would be the purpose of the
distribution?

Kevin Kofler

[John Wendel]

Stanisław T. Findeisen wrote:
> Why doesn't Fedora use vanilla Linux kernel?
>
> STF
>
> =======================================================================
> http://eisenbits.homelinux.net/~stf/ . My PGP key fingerprint is:
> 9D25 3D89 75F1 DF1D F434  25D7 E87F A1B9 B80F 8062
> =======================================================================

I never run the stock Fedora kernel and I've never had a kernel problem 
(that I didn't cause). It's very easy to pick up a vanilla kernel at 
kernel.org and configure it exactly the way you want. I do it because I 
like to and it saves a few MB on the 512 MB box I use very day.

Regards,

John

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Mon, 2009-02-23 at 19:35 -0800, john wendel wrote:
> Stanisław T. Findeisen wrote:
> > Why doesn't Fedora use vanilla Linux kernel?
> >
> > STF
> >
> > =======================================================================
> > http://eisenbits.homelinux.net/~stf/ . My PGP key fingerprint is:
> > 9D25 3D89 75F1 DF1D F434  25D7 E87F A1B9 B80F 8062
> > =======================================================================
>
> I never run the stock Fedora kernel and I've never had a kernel problem 
> (that I didn't cause). It's very easy to pick up a vanilla kernel at 
> kernel.org and configure it exactly the way you want. I do it because I 
> like to and it saves a few MB on the 512 MB box I use very day.

IIRC, there are a couple of patches that are necessary for a fully
functional Fedora kernel.  You may not have encountered those issues,
but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

The kernel source RPM can be rebuilt as a nearly vanilla kernel without
too much trouble.  Then one can install that kernel using RPM and get
the benefits of packaging without most of the patches, if one wants.  I
did that a while ago for some testing, and it worked just fine.

Grab the kernel SRPM, unpack it, and read the SPEC file to see what
options are needed on the rpmbuild command.  My experience is documented
someplace in the archives, but I don't have time to hunt it down now,
and I'm happy with the distro kernels at the moment.
> Regards,
>
> John

[Bill Davidsen]

Matthew Saltzman wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-02-23 at 19:35 -0800, john wendel wrote:
> > Stanisław T. Findeisen wrote:
> > > Why doesn't Fedora use vanilla Linux kernel?
> > >
> > > STF
> > >
> > > =======================================================================
> > > http://eisenbits.homelinux.net/~stf/ . My PGP key fingerprint is:
> > > 9D25 3D89 75F1 DF1D F434  25D7 E87F A1B9 B80F 8062
> > > =======================================================================
> >
> > I never run the stock Fedora kernel and I've never had a kernel problem 
> > (that I didn't cause). It's very easy to pick up a vanilla kernel at 
> > kernel.org and configure it exactly the way you want. I do it because I 
> > like to and it saves a few MB on the 512 MB box I use very day.
>
> IIRC, there are a couple of patches that are necessary for a fully
> functional Fedora kernel.  You may not have encountered those issues,
> but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
>
> The kernel source RPM can be rebuilt as a nearly vanilla kernel without
> too much trouble.  Then one can install that kernel using RPM and get
> the benefits of packaging without most of the patches, if one wants.  I
> did that a while ago for some testing, and it worked just fine.
>
> Grab the kernel SRPM, unpack it, and read the SPEC file to see what
> options are needed on the rpmbuild command.  My experience is documented
> someplace in the archives, but I don't have time to hunt it down now,
> and I'm happy with the distro kernels at the moment.

I'm happy in general, but I prefer a faster clock tick for a machine hosting 
multiple KVM virtual machines.

[James Wilkinson]

"Stanisław T. Findeisen" wrote:
> Why doesn't Fedora use vanilla Linux kernel?

It’s a bit out of date, but Dave Jones produced
http://people.redhat.com/davej/patchlist-fc3.txt
describing all the patches that went into an FC3 kernel. The kernel has
changed a lot, but Fedora still patches for similar reasons.

Hope this helps,

James.

[Jerry Feldman]

On 02/24/2009 04:57 PM, James Wilkinson wrote:
> "Stanisław T. Findeisen" wrote:
> > Why doesn't Fedora use vanilla Linux kernel?
>
> It’s a bit out of date, but Dave Jones produced
> http://people.redhat.com/davej/patchlist-fc3.txt
> describing all the patches that went into an FC3 kernel. The kernel has
> changed a lot, but Fedora still patches for similar reasons.

And Red Hat is very good at pushing their changes up to the mainline. I 
don't know what percentage of patches Red Hat submits that are actually 
accepted.