From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1422740AbWCXJAx (ORCPT ); Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:00:53 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1422748AbWCXJAx (ORCPT ); Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:00:53 -0500 Received: from zproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.162.194]:5240 "EHLO zproxy.gmail.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1422740AbWCXJAx convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:00:53 -0500 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=SiP52Ium/UKaj+OYgtdVSx2tK1Aqi2qilXqmg6powcLvjJxrCb49/a08aJpGuYcyjMZHiz3Eb+y+I3BYzeBqakQB+xvfadW7ZkGApqJLARlmdkQmhjdFmFy8/aids9l/f9j2Vu44LBPw5qOQ1l+rAaz6HePWNpZDwEdbTLh9lHM= Message-ID: <9a8748490603240100v33097236v1ccc79871b285941@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:00:26 +0100 From: "Jesper Juhl" To: "moreau francis" Subject: Re: How to test vanilla kernel Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20060324082444.69962.qmail@web25812.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Disposition: inline References: <20060324082444.69962.qmail@web25812.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 3/24/06, moreau francis wrote: > I'm wondering how you folks, install and run the latest vanilla kernel. There are many ways to test a kernel. The most basic test would be to grab the kernel sources, build a new kernel, install it, boot it & see if it blows up. If you want to get a bit more advanced the kernel sources include a few modules to stress test different parts of the infrastructure. You can run those. You can build your kernels with different (sometimes unusual) configuration options to test if some combination of options produce bad results. You can also write a few apps that test the various syscalls. Use fuzzers to pass in random values to syscalls and check for errors. Write scripts/apps to create/delete lots of random files, dirs etc to test filesystems. Run benchmark apps on different kernel versions to test for performance regressions. In short, use your imagination and try to crash the kernel in various ways. If you happen to provoke a crash, bug, other unwanted behaviour; gather all the info, and send in a bug report - see Documentation/ReportingBugs. > I guess > that people install their prefered distrib as a start point Ofcourse, you need a working install before you start replacing your kernel. > and then download > the kernel sources. Yup. >But each distrib patch and update the kernel, Many do, but not all of them, some ship vanilla kernels, like my personal favorite, Slackware. > is it safe to > forget them ? > Unless you have something setup on your box which depends on functionality patched into the kernel by your vendor, then yes, running a vanilla kernel is perfectly OK - if it was not we'd never get it tested ;-) > BTW, is there a 'best' distrib to achieve that ? > No. Use whatever distro you happen to prefer. -- Jesper Juhl Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html