computation-friendly kernels

[Dave Jones]

On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 03:15, Bill Rugolsky Jr. wrote:

> > I'm going to look into merging the vm changes for a future fc1 update.
> > Right now there still seem to be some niggles that need to be worked
> > out, but it's certainly no worse than whats in FC1 by all accounts.
> > 
> > I can't win..
>  
> Just one user's perspective, but at this point I'd suggest responding
> to serious bug reports in the FC1 kernel, and concentrating effort on getting
> 2.6 into shape (forward porting fixes from 2.4, getting the less common
> block drivers working, etc.). FC2 will be upon us soon. :-)

Thanks to the benefits of DSL disappearing for 5 hours last night, I
thought about this some more. The next thing in the pipeline after the
current stuff in -testing for FC1 is getting Tux enabled again, and
getting that well tested.  (There are a number of reasons for merging
this, including a migration point for RHL9 users).

Given that Tux might take 2-3 weeks of testing/devel, we'd be pushing
into February/March before I could get any of the vm updates into FC1,
at which point there's going to be a lot of time taken up getting FC2
into shape. Given the short life of FC1 from that point -> FC2 release
(and shortly afterwards, fc2 eol), the relative payoffs may not be worth
the time.  Some of the smaller changes to the mainline vm may be
candidates, but they'll likely all need rediffing thanks to various
patches we have which touch vm internals already (nptl, tux, execshield,
etc)

We'll see how things go.

	Dave