From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760164AbYEANWy (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2008 09:22:54 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752189AbYEANWr (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2008 09:22:47 -0400 Received: from smtp4.pp.htv.fi ([213.243.153.38]:34739 "EHLO smtp4.pp.htv.fi" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751009AbYEANWr (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2008 09:22:47 -0400 Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 16:21:59 +0300 From: Adrian Bunk To: Arjan van de Ven Cc: Linus Torvalds , Andrew Morton , "Rafael J. Wysocki" , davem@davemloft.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, jirislaby@gmail.com, Steven Rostedt Subject: Re: RFC: starting a kernel-testers group for newbies Message-ID: <20080501132159.GC29330@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> References: <20080429.190352.137408408.davem@davemloft.net> <200804302136.58005.rjw@sisk.pl> <20080430131537.1f7a0914.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20080501003125.GM29330@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> <20080430000338.50548884@infradead.org> <20080501113038.GW29330@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> <20080430072013.7c3b30b1@infradead.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080430072013.7c3b30b1@infradead.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.17+20080114 (2008-01-14) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 07:20:13AM -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > On Thu, 1 May 2008 14:30:38 +0300 > Adrian Bunk wrote: > > > On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 12:03:38AM -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > > > On Thu, 1 May 2008 03:31:25 +0300 > > > Adrian Bunk wrote: > > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 01:31:08PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, 30 Apr 2008, Andrew Morton wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > There should be nothing in 2.6.x-rc1 which wasn't in > > > > > > 2.6.x-mm1! > > > > > > > > > > The problem I see with both -mm and linux-next is that they > > > > > tend to be better at finding the "physical conflict" kind of > > > > > issues (ie the merge itself fails) than the "code looks ok but > > > > > doesn't actually work" kind of issue. > > > > > > > > > > Why? > > > > > > > > > > The tester base is simply too small. > > > > > > > > > > Now, if *that* could be improved, that would be wonderful, but > > > > > I'm not seeing it as very likely. > > > > > > > > > > I think we have fairly good penetration these days with the > > > > > regular -git tree, but I think that one is quite frankly a > > > > > *lot* less scary than -mm or -next are, and there it has been > > > > > an absolutely huge boon to get the kernel into the Fedora > > > > > test-builds etc (and I _think_ Ubuntu and SuSE also started > > > > > something like that). > > > > > > > > > > So I'm very pessimistic about getting a lot of test coverage > > > > > before -rc1. > > > > > > > > > > Maybe too pessimistic, who knows? > > > > > > > > First of all: > > > > I 100% agree with Andrew that our biggest problems are in > > > > reviewing code and resolving bugs, not in finding bugs (we > > > > already have far too many unresolved bugs). > > > > > > I would argue instead that we don't know which bugs to fix first. > > > We're never going to fix all bugs, and to be honest, that's ok. > > >... > > > > That might be OK. > > > > But our current status quo is not OK: > > > > Check Rafael's regressions lists asking yourself > > "How many regressions are older than two weeks?" > > "ext4 doesn't compile on m68k". > YAWN. > > Wrong question... > "How many bugs that a sizable portion of users will hit in reality are there?" > is the right question to ask... >... "Kernel oops while running kernbench and tbench on powerpc" took more than 2 months to get resolved, and we ship 2.6.25 with this regression. Granted that compared to x86 there's not a sizable portion of users crazy enough to run Linux on powerpc machines... cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed