Workstation product kernel requirements

[Bastien Nocera]

----- Original Message -----
> Hi All,
> 
> My apologies for sending this out so late compared to the other
> product queries.  I will simply claim that I hope the current Fedora
> kernel is already meeting desktop/workstation needs and my delay was
> partially because of that ;).
> 
> At any rate, the kernel team would like to know what you see as the
> requirements for the Workstation product.  Thus far the discussions
> with the other product groups has mostly centered around packaging
> changes.  I would imagine Workstation doesn't particularly suffer from
> anything in the current packaging, and could likely share a common
> packaging scheme with Server for the most part.  However, if that
> isn't the case please let us know what you'd like to see from a
> packaging standpoint, keeping in mind we want a single main kernel
> package across all 3 products as much as possible.
> 
> On IRC, Matthias mentioned some issues around interactivity and I/O.
> If there are other things like that, please speak to those as well.

Is this supposed to be a wishlist, or a list of things that should carry
on working/possible release blockers?

For the former, on top of my head:
- Production-ready btrfs with the ability to export those snapshots over
  the network (I've asked about this before, got no answer)
or,
- directory hard link support for ext4 (probably hidden behind a mount option
  with warnings and bells)
- "time" changes up the directory chain when something changes (eg. if something
  changes in /foo/bar/baz, a timestamp on /foo will be changed)
- Export of "wake reason" when the system wakes up (rtc alarm, lid open, etc.)

These would probably be necessary to implement a highly integrated backup system.

- User-space helper for the OOM killer (http://lwn.net/Articles/552789/)
- Whatever is necessary to implement "LinuxApps" containers (overlayfs would be
  nice for example: http://lwn.net/Articles/542707/)
- an hibernation implementation that doesn't use the swap space (interactivity
  sucking when there's a run-away process, or hibernation? choose...)
- memory compression enabled by default on certain classes of hardware (fast enough CPU)
- better documentation for waking up machines via USB (how do I wake up a machine
  using a Bluetooth keyboard? How can I keep a USB socket powered to charge a device, etc.)
- USB "Gadget" support (using a machine as a WWAN modem, MTP device, or hard disk) for
  another machine.

That's a first pass, and more than enough to keep the kernel guys busy for a little while :)

Cheers