Re: linux-next requirements

[Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>]

* Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@sisk.pl> wrote:

> > In fact those rare ways of building and booting the kernel i mentioned are 
> > probably used _more_ than half of the architectures that linux-next 
> > build-tests ...
> 
> I don't know and you don't know either.  That's just pure speculation and 
> therefore meaningless.

We know various arch (and hardware) usage stats, such as:

  http://smolt.fedoraproject.org/static/stats/stats.html

Today's stats, done amongst users who are willing to opt in to the Smolt 
daemon:

       x86: 99.7%
   powerpc: 0.3%

x86 used to be 99.5 a year ago, so the world has become even more x86-centric.

There's also the kerneloops.org client, which shows in excess of 95% x86 usage 
as well. You can also grep the linux-kernel folder for arch signatures, etc.

And yes, there are millions of ARM (and MIPS) CPUs running Linux as well. 
(They are only as present as present their developers are: the users almost 
never show up on linux-kernel.)

Plus, a kernel subsystem maintainer like me who does lots of kernel 
infrastructure work can have a pretty good gut feeling about which 
architectures are actively helping out Linux, and which are just hanging on to 
the bandwagon.

So i respectfully disagree with your 'pure speculation' bit. Yes, it's 
somewhat of a guessing game, as so many things in life - but the trend is very 
clear.

	Ingo