Server product kernel requirements

[Simo Sorce]

On Wed, 2013-10-30 at 10:16 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
> [ Resend with the right server mailing list address.  Sorry kernel@ people.]
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I realize the WG is just forming up and you have a lot of other items
> to cover for now, but I wanted to get this sent out and have people
> start thinking about it sooner rather than later.
> 
> The kernel team is interested in what the Server WG sees as its
> requirements for the kernel package.  Does today's kernel image mostly
> suit those needs already, or are there changes that would be
> beneficial?
> 
> While you think about this, please keep in mind that the kernel team
> really wants to keep a single kernel package across all 3 products as
> much as possible.  We won't scale to providing multiple kernel
> packages or vmlinux binaries for each product.  At the moment, we're
> essentially looking for a good "core" kernel package that suits cloud,
> server, and workstation and then at repackaging the drivers into
> subpackages where appropriate.
> 
> If you have changes you'd like to see, please let us know what they
> are and the reasoning behind those changes.  Hopefully we can work
> with all 3 WGs and come up with something suitable for everyone.
> Thanks for your time.

Personally I think that as long as the kernel is modular and all useful
modules are available, the Server WG should not have trouble with it.

I guess the installation procedure (hence Anaconda) need to be somewhat
customizable so that the server image is by default a lot friendlier to
the type of hardware a server gets to use, and the kind of defaults that
make more sense for a server vs say desktop or cloud.

But I think all this can be built easily above a common kernel.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce * Red Hat, Inc * New York