[fedora-arm] Kernel rebases

[Josh Boyer]

On Thu, Aug 02, 2012 at 12:03:06AM +0100, Peter Robinson wrote:
> Hey Josh,
> 
> On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:47 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at redhat.com> wrote:
> > Howdy,
> >
> > Just a quick update on kernel rebases.
> >
> > Justin rebased Rawhide to the 3.6 merge window git tree last week and
> > I'm continuing on with that until the merge window closes.  Then we'll
> > pick up the RC kernels throughout, as usual.  If there is a feature or
> > option you have been waiting for in 3.6, now is the time to speak up
> > and make sure it's set as you want.
> 
> I've been looking at that already, some of the platforms are broken at
> the moment unfortunately but I think the config options seem to be OK
> at the mometn

OK.  Note that nobody (to my knowledge) has explicitly changed any of
the ARM config options for the 3.6 merge window kernels, so they should
be whatever they default to.

> > For both Rawhide and F17, the ARM configs could use some serious looking
> > at.  We continue to have a lot of config options pop up when we do
> > stable rebases.  Getting them set in Rawhide during the merge window
> > kernels is going to be the best bet to ensure things are working as
> > expected.
> 
> For rawhide we did seriously look at the ARM configs and you'll notice
> they are significantly different from what is currently in F-17. I
> would like some further feedback and suggestions as to how they could
> be improved.

I did notice, yes.

> In terms of setting the config options for 3.5 there were set in
> rawhide and had 3.5 kernels compiling through out the entire process.
> Is there a process in how those options get merged back to stable
> releases? Is that something I should be handling? Again would like
> some details as to how I can improve the process to make it easier for
> you there as well.

So this is the somewhat confusing part.

The config-arm-* _fragments_ in rawhide are much better set up than in
F17.  Or at least they appear to be to my somewhat untrained eye.  And I
have noticed that they're starting to move more towards the expected
"inherit from config-generic, only override if necessary" model rather
than the "config-arm-<board> is a full .config" model.  That is nice to
see.

Oddly, when we did the 3.4 and 3.5 rebases, the options that should have
been set for those base kernels in rawhide didn't seem to be explicitly
set.  Whether it's the different config-arm* setup in F17, or something else,
I don't know.  All I know is that Justin and I both had to fill in a
bunch of ARM options that popped up, and they're likely 80% OK and 20%
wrong, with that 20% being something that breaks the world.

Fortunately, we won't have this problem with the F16 3.5 rebase since I
killed ARM entirely on that branch.

As for the process, really getting the config-arm-* fragments in a
somewhat consistent is going to be the best start.  Then the kernel team
can gladly ping whomever is interested or feels responsible for the ARM
configs when we start a rebase.  On my side of things, I'll try and pay
attention to any config option changes that get set by the ARM team in
rawhide as well.  Hopefully this is just a growing pain that we'll
eventually get over as things stablize.

Mostly, I'm glad you replied and I appreciate the willingness to work
through this.  Thanks.

josh