Ubuntu Wiki

Pull requests come into the Ubuntu Kernel Team mailing list all the time. This write up is intended to give instruction on how to review the patches from one such pull request.

Example pull request email

The following changes since commit 88b50ff9b578518170f285b92542619ee80465ff:
  Stefan Bader (1):
        UBUNTU: Start new release

are available in the git repository at:

  git://kernel.ubuntu.com/bradf/ubuntu-lucid-wiki lp666xxx

Brad Figg (1):
      Minor change for wiki example

 debian.master/NOTES |    5 +----
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

Pre-review prep

Before you are able to actually review the changes, there is some prep work that must be done first. The following is just an example of how to create a sandbox area with everything needed to review the changes indicated in the Example pull request email above.

git clone git://kernel.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-lucid.git
cd ubuntu-lucid
git fetch
git checkout -b review-import origin/master
git fetch git://kernel.ubuntu.com/bradf/ubuntu-lucid-wiki lp666xxx
git reset --hard FETCH_HEAD

At this point all the patches are available for review.

Basic Review

One way to review the commits is with a single git command.

Review with:

git log -p $(git merge-base origin/master review-import)..

Advanced Review

However, the Ubuntu kernel team has developed a couple of nice scripts which help with reviewing a large number of patches. To see how to obtain a copy of these scripts check out this wiki page.

Review with:

maint-do-review file.txt $(git merge-base origin/master review-import)..