* Linux stable: 4.19 vs 4.14 @ 2019-11-01 21:24 Avinash Patil 2019-11-02 17:54 ` Valdis Klētnieks 0 siblings, 1 reply; 3+ messages in thread From: Avinash Patil @ 2019-11-01 21:24 UTC (permalink / raw) To: kernelnewbies Hi Greg, I am looking at Linux kernel page: https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html I am curious as to why Linux4.19 which was released later has earlier EOL than 4.14? If we have to choose one version over another for BSP, which one is preferred? Thanks, Avinash _______________________________________________ Kernelnewbies mailing list Kernelnewbies@kernelnewbies.org https://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
* Re: Linux stable: 4.19 vs 4.14 2019-11-01 21:24 Linux stable: 4.19 vs 4.14 Avinash Patil @ 2019-11-02 17:54 ` Valdis Klētnieks 2019-11-05 4:59 ` Avinash Patil 0 siblings, 1 reply; 3+ messages in thread From: Valdis Klētnieks @ 2019-11-02 17:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Avinash Patil; +Cc: kernelnewbies [-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1836 bytes --] On Fri, 01 Nov 2019 14:24:26 -0700, Avinash Patil said: > Hi Greg, I'm not Greg, but... :) > I am curious as to why Linux4.19 which was released later has earlier > EOL than 4.14? Not all stable releases are kept going for the same amount of time. Most go EOL as soon as a few newer releases have come out, while every 5th one or so is kept going for longer. > If we have to choose one version over another for BSP, which one is preferred? If you're planning to dump unsupported crap on customers, it doesn't matter. Let's face it - if you're not going to provide updates, when a stable stream EOLs doesn't matter if you ship 4.19.81 or 4.14.151, because your customers aren't ever going to get 4.19.104 or 4.14.183. But you probably want to base the BSP on 4.19 so that your customers get the benefit of all the stuff that got fixed between 4.14 and 4.19. Remember that only a *very* small fraction of fixes - those that qualify under Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst get included in the stable tree. And of course, unless you have no intention of building similar boards in the future, it's a good idea to upstream any custom drivers. That way, when your follow-on BSP gets based to the 5.11 kernel, your drivers are already in-tree, and even more importantly, already updated to any 5.11 kernel API changes, because anybody who changed a kernel API was required to update your driver for you. (And no, "We only plan to sell 50,000 so it's not worth it" is not a valid excuse. There's plenty of stuff that's in-tree that's very niche with only a few users. Heck, we kept an entire architecture (the i386 Voyager) around for 2 machines. Not two models, two physical machines. We finally dropped it when James Bottomley was unable to mix-and-match parts from the two machines to get either one to boot....) [-- Attachment #1.2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 832 bytes --] [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 170 bytes --] _______________________________________________ Kernelnewbies mailing list Kernelnewbies@kernelnewbies.org https://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
* Re: Linux stable: 4.19 vs 4.14 2019-11-02 17:54 ` Valdis Klētnieks @ 2019-11-05 4:59 ` Avinash Patil 0 siblings, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread From: Avinash Patil @ 2019-11-05 4:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Valdis Klētnieks; +Cc: kernelnewbies Thanks for the response, Valdis. Thanks, Avinash On Sat, Nov 2, 2019 at 10:54 AM Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote: > > On Fri, 01 Nov 2019 14:24:26 -0700, Avinash Patil said: > > Hi Greg, > > I'm not Greg, but... :) > > > I am curious as to why Linux4.19 which was released later has earlier > > EOL than 4.14? > > Not all stable releases are kept going for the same amount of time. Most go > EOL as soon as a few newer releases have come out, while every 5th one or so is > kept going for longer. > > > If we have to choose one version over another for BSP, which one is preferred? > > If you're planning to dump unsupported crap on customers, it doesn't matter. > Let's face it - if you're not going to provide updates, when a stable stream > EOLs doesn't matter if you ship 4.19.81 or 4.14.151, because your customers > aren't ever going to get 4.19.104 or 4.14.183. > > But you probably want to base the BSP on 4.19 so that your customers get the benefit > of all the stuff that got fixed between 4.14 and 4.19. Remember that only a *very* small > fraction of fixes - those that qualify under Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst > get included in the stable tree. > > And of course, unless you have no intention of building similar boards in the future, > it's a good idea to upstream any custom drivers. That way, when your follow-on > BSP gets based to the 5.11 kernel, your drivers are already in-tree, and even more > importantly, already updated to any 5.11 kernel API changes, because anybody who > changed a kernel API was required to update your driver for you. > > (And no, "We only plan to sell 50,000 so it's not worth it" is not a valid excuse. There's > plenty of stuff that's in-tree that's very niche with only a few users. Heck, we kept > an entire architecture (the i386 Voyager) around for 2 machines. Not two models, > two physical machines. We finally dropped it when James Bottomley was unable to > mix-and-match parts from the two machines to get either one to boot....) > _______________________________________________ Kernelnewbies mailing list Kernelnewbies@kernelnewbies.org https://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2019-11-05 5:02 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 3+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2019-11-01 21:24 Linux stable: 4.19 vs 4.14 Avinash Patil 2019-11-02 17:54 ` Valdis Klētnieks 2019-11-05 4:59 ` Avinash Patil
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