On Tue, Feb 01, 2000 at 10:21:47PM +0000, Terry Dawson wrote:
> Jan Wasserbauer wrote:
>
> > > The correct thing to do is slowly phasing it out. Keep it around for at
> > > least one unstable and stable kernel series and printk() a warning that it
> > > will go away. And take care that when it is gone old applications will
> > > die gracefully (_not_ randomly core dump).
> >
> > I'm not a big fan of keeping old stuff. We now have development kernel.
> > When 2.4 comes out I suppose people to upgrade all their stuff.
> > On the other hand it is nice to be compatible.
>
> Jan,
> I would guess that a large percentage of people on this list are still
> running Linux 2.0.* based systems. Many of the Amateur Radio Linux
> fraternity are Amateur Radio first, Linux second and they are less
> inclined to routinely follow updates in code, especially operating
I would guess, that exactly these people don't install stuff themselves but
rather eventually do an update with a new RedHat/Suse/Debian/whatever
distribution. They will get a new Kernel _along_ with matching application
software.
> system, just because it's a good thing to do. It takes time and effort
> to keep up to date, and as a result you'll find people that will tend to
> track application software more rigourously than operating system
> software.
But you don't run Quake on a XT-class computer either. You have 'updated'
your computer to match your increased requirements.
> As much as it's a little untidy to keep legacy code and interfaces
> around, I think it's necessary to wear a certain amount of backward
> compatability and not be too cavalier if we want Linux to be viewed as
> something generally usable.
So you effectively ask the developers to have 1.2.x., 2.0.x, 2.2.x and
2.3.x installed and operational (together with all library variants that
may be out there) to test each and every modification on them.
I think it's absolutely sensible, targetting for 2.4 or later, to intentionally
cut support for older kernels.
Look at the new ax25-tools: they _require_ glibc 2.1.x - because supporting
older libs is ugly and older libs don't provide funcionality the tools need.
If you already have glibc, then a new kernel is no problem!
People who know about programming will understand that, and others will
plug their new distro-CD in.
>
> Terry
>
Thorsten
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