What makes a production kernel?

[Tom Diehl]

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004, Eric Hattemer wrote:

> I know the rawhide kernels are more about testing and saying, "hey, 
> would this day-old feature be cool to eventually put into production", 
> but what's the philosophy on the FC2 kernel?  Has it already been 
> decided that it will be an older version?  I haven't tried all of the 
> new kernels, but neither the nvidia nor the savage X drivers have worked 
> on any kernel I have tried since 2.6.3-1.118.  I know a lot of people 
> have said, "Blame NVIDIA.  They don't come out with a new driver every 
> week to match the way our kernels are changing", but I don't think this 
> is a reasonable stance.  The nvidia module is widely used, and I think 

It does not matter if you think it is reasonable or not. They have the
Linux kernel source. No one outside of Nvidia has their source. How would
you like to change the spark plugs on a car with the hood welded shut?

> to say that FC2 doesn't support it may be a serious issue for some 
> people.  I know most people don't care about the savage driver, but I 
> wonder if a new one will ever be released.  I don't think its a good 
> idea at this time to include a default kernel that isn't backward 
> compatible in this respect to the older ones. 

Like it or not if you buy a closed piece of hardware this is what you
get.

What I fail to see is why people buy this crap from companies and then
whine on these lists that it does not work. This is just plain stupid.
Do you really think whining that you screwed up on these lists is going
to change anything?? PLEASE PLEASE go whine to NVIDIA, or buy from a
hardware vendor who is interested in supporting open source.

Tom