Re: [INFO] Kernel strict versioning

[Krzysztof Halasa <khc@pm.waw.pl>]

"Franco \"Sensei\"" <senseiwa@tin.it> writes:

> Major kernel changes should probably result in major version
> change... I'm supposing it. Of course, note that ABI can be achieved
> stating that all the binaries must be compiled with the same gcc.

It isn't enough. The same compiler and the same .config - yes. But that
means you'd have no progress within, say, 2.6. Only bug fixes.
There _is_ a tree like that - 2.6.11.Xs are only bugfixes.

But remember that changing a single config option may make your kernel
incompatible. You can't avoid that without making the kernel suboptimal
for most situations - basically you'd have to disable non-SMP builds,
disable (or permanently enable) 4KB pages etc.

If you make a proprietary closed-sourse system (with kernel modules), you
probably have to make the system suboptimal. But with open source there
is a better alternative.

> So,
> the kernel module library could possibly be simply /lib/modules/2.6/.

Asking for one modules dir only is similar to asking for only one
/boot/vmlinuz-2.6 kernel file.

> I'm probably (surely) not getting the point about this issue. It's not
> that bad... I don't see awkward issues in guaranteeing 2.6, 2.8 and so
> on compatibility with the ``major second number''.

First, each 2.6.X would have to be binary-compatible with itself.
-- 
Krzysztof Halasa
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