From: Terry Dawson (fpzhuc.qaslsnxwg@mx.dy.fi)
Date: Thu Feb 03 2000 - 00:03:26 EET
Thorsten Kranzkowski wrote:
> I would guess, that exactly these people don't install stuff themselves but
> rather eventually do an update with a new RedHat/Suse/Debian/whatever
> distribution. They will get a new Kernel _along_ with matching application
> software.
I think you'll find they're happy to try out new application software,
prior to it being released in their distribution, because most
distributions have been very slow in embracing amateur radio. They just
don't want to be mucking about with kernels and base configuration
utilities all the time.
> But you don't run Quake on a XT-class computer either. You have 'updated'
> your computer to match your increased requirements.
Sorry, I dont' run Quake at all.
> So you effectively ask the developers to have 1.2.x., 2.0.x, 2.2.x and
> 2.3.x installed and operational (together with all library variants that
> may be out there) to test each and every modification on them.
No of course not. You've taken an extreme interpretation of what I've
said.
> I think it's absolutely sensible, targetting for 2.4 or later, to intentionally
> cut support for older kernels.
> Look at the new ax25-tools: they _require_ glibc 2.1.x - because supporting
> older libs is ugly and older libs don't provide funcionality the tools need.
> If you already have glibc, then a new kernel is no problem!
The decision to discontinue support for the older pre-glibc was an
obvious one. Just about every new piece of software will be written to
support glibc so users will be forced to upgrade anyway, but perhaps
most importantly, because it is absolutely fundamental to *all* of
Linux, not just amateur radio, the move is assured of happening
relatively painlessly because all distributions will have strong
incentive to support it. Such incentive doesn't exist for things like
AX.25 utilities.
All I'm really saying is that "sudden death" handovers always cause
trouble. A period of overlap allows end-users the luxury of a small
amount of time to work out what needs to be done to upgrade, with the
option of falling back to something that works in the interim.
Terry
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