Hi Community! here is a short update about the Linux-VServer branches in relation to the mainline kernel changes and future development ...
Linux-VServer currently provides a number of branches for 2.6 and 2.4 on 2.4 we have 1.2.x and 1.3.x where the latter one is basically dead, and the former one is in deep freeze - bugfix only mode for 2.6, the current stable branch is 2.0 while development (as you probably know) is 2.1, and a few months ago, we decided to add two new branches to that, a second stable 2.2 one and a new development 2.3 the 2.2 branch is not 'perfect' yet, but it can be considered stable as far as we can tell, which is, why we are in the release candidate stage for that one. it will include most of the 2.1 features (well, those we consider stable by now) and will replace the existing 2.0 branch for production. originally, we intended to put the 2.0 branch into feature freeze and maintain it for a few kernel releases, but the changes currently happening in mainline (integration of os-level virtualization features) require us to do a lot of changes and testing too, which we decided, will not happen for 2.0, only for 2.2 (and 2.1 for now, 2.3 for later) so to make it short and simple, the 2.0 branch will get a final release (2.0.3) for 2.6.18.x pretty soon, and that will also be the last kernel release (2.6.18) for 2.0 (except for bugfixes and new 2.6.18.x releases) 2.2 is already there for 2.6.19 and later, and is supposed to replace the 2.0 branch with a minimum of changes required. nevertheless, there will be certain legacy features and configurations which will not be supported in 2.2 anymore (mostly 2.4 compat stuff) here is a list of relevant changes: - no Legacy Kernel API (vs1.2) - no Legacy Proc FS (again vs1.2/1.3) - no Kernel Side Dynamic Context Support we will provide more details soon, but in general that means that if you are still using legacy tools and/or legacy configurations, you will not be able to use the 2.2 (or 2.3 branch) without upgrading. we'll also add a migration page to the wiki, with a few rules and checks which should ease transition for legacy systems ... in general, we'd suggest to get the latest 2.2 release candidate and try that one on one of your test systems, just to verify that it is working as expected. nevertheless if you encounter any issues, please do not hesitate to contact us via ML or IRC, so that we can ensure that 2.2.0 will be a 'prefect' release TIA, Herbert _______________________________________________ Vserver mailing list [email protected] http://list.linux-vserver.org/mailman/listinfo/vserver
