F8 kernel-2.6.24.3-12.fc8

[Hans de Goede]

David Boles wrote:
> Callum Lerwick wrote:
>> On Fri, 2008-03-07 at 11:15 -0500, Jarod Wilson wrote:
>>> On Friday 07 March 2008 10:51:25 am Benjamin Kreuter wrote:
>>>> On Thursday 06 March 2008 19:29:23 Chuck Ebbert wrote:
>>>>> Sorry, we had to release with known bugs. A new kernel will be in
>>>>> updates-testing very shortly.
>>>> Why did you have to release with known bugs?  Why not just wait 
>>>> until the
>>>> bugs are fixed?  The last three kernel updates broke suspend for me...
>>> Uh... If we waited until all the known bugs were fixed, we'd never 
>>> release *any* kernel... :)
>>>
>>> Despite this kernel making my own iwl4965 unusable, I was fully in 
>>> favor of releasing it. In theory, we fixed more problems than we 
>>> caused, and you're always welcome to keep running the prior kernel. 
>>> (I'm actually running a slightly modified 2.6.24.2-7.fc8 now).
>>
>> Yes, the real issue here is not all bugs, but regressions. Regressions
>> are a major problem for Aunt Tillie. Kernel regressions can result in an
>> unbootable, unusable system. I can't imagine ever deploying Fedora on
>> Aunt Tillie's machine for exactly this reason, kernel regressions.
>>
>> Use case: Aunt Tillie diligently keeps her Fedora machine up to date. A
>> new kernel results in a regression with her hardware. Maybe it doesn't
>> even boot. What does she do? Can we really expect her to know how to
>> boot the previous kernel? How is she to even know it is the kernel that
>> broke? Does she even know what a kernel is? How does she fix it? Booting
>> the old kernel in GRUB is a one time deal. How does she make it stick?
>> How does she blacklist the broken kernel? What does she do when 6 more
>> broken kernels come through the update pipe?
>>
>> What do *I* do to prevent this? Tell her to not update, and risk
>> security issues? Should I have blacklisted updating the kernel before
>> leaving her alone with the machine? Which still leaves the kernel
>> potentially vulnerable.
>>
>> This is not theoretical, I ran into this very kind of problem in F7. F7
>> ran perfectly, initially. A kernel update (a bump from 2.6.21 to 2.6.22,
>> mind you...) resulted in a reboot loop on my wife's eMachines m6805
>> (x86_64) laptop. I even bugzilled it right away, though bugzilla's
>> wonderous search functionality is refusing to find it right now. Many
>> months and many kernel updates went by, all of them broken. It finally
>> got fixed when the bug was discovered in the rawhide kernel and ended up
>> on the F8 release blocker list.
>>
>> This is a terrible user experience for *me*, let alone Aunt Tillie. I
>> can't imagine subjecting Aunt Tillie to this without help.
>>
>> Now, I'm not saying I have the solution to this, and I'm not saying the
>> solution is easy. But IMHO this really needs to be addressed, somehow,
>> if Fedora is to ever truly be "ready for the desktop".
>>
> 
> 
> I don't think that "Aunt Tillie" should be using a bleeding edge Linux
> distribution such as Fedora provides. And if "Nephew Johnie" installs it
> for her and she has problems with it that she can not deal with herself I
> think it is "Nephew Johny's" fault for installing it for her. What do you
> think?
> 

Bzzz, wrong answer, regressions are bad . <period that is> Kernel regressions 
are worse.

Just because Fedora is trying to be up2date with all the latest and greatest 
stuff happening in FOSS land, does not make regressions all of a sudden OK.

You (we?) really need to stop thinking this way if we ever want Fedora to be a 
serious distro, thinking this way inevitably leads to reducing Fedora to 
nothing more then a toy distro.

Regards,

Hans