20070417
Log
TZ UTC+1
05:00 BenC So, we're all here... 05:00 BenC Agenda is at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/Meeting although it is a bit out-of-date 05:00 BenC kernel-release schedule...uh, released :) 05:01 BenC bug status...stable, but still reviewing for post-release updates 05:02 BenC I think basically we're at a point where we can move on to gutsy topics, and the new kernel tree 05:02 rtg Lets cleanup the wireless stuff. 05:02 BenC well, the tree is going to change considerably 05:02 BenC stock kernel is going to be in ubuntu-2.6.git 05:03 BenC all extra drivers are being moved to a linux-ubuntu-modules package 05:03 pkl_ the current tree will be used for any updates to Feisty? 05:03 pkl_ The new tree will only be for Gutsy? 05:03 BenC pkl_: ubuntu-feisty.git is for feisty security and stable release updates 05:03 BenC right 05:04 BenC ubuntu-2.6.git right now is just a clone of linux-2.6.git 05:04 zul im still mulling over the virtualization infrastructure stuff 05:04 BenC I'll push that to the public kernel.org repo soon 05:04 BenC zul: probably best to hang tight till I get the build infrastructure in place 05:04 zul BenC: no problem.. 05:05 BenC at this point, I have a local .diff of the delta between ubuntu-feisty.git and upstream code 05:05 BenC I'm merging patches into for-linus branch in preparation for the 2.6.22 merge window with Linus 05:06 BenC but we'll be sending out the patches sooner than that to get good feedback 05:06 pkl_ how much of this delta will be pushed upstream? 05:06 BenC my intention is to get all of it pushed upstream 05:06 mjg59 Are you differentiating between core code and external drivers? 05:06 BenC the current diff is only ~65k, and a lot of that is toshiba_acpi and DSDT-acpi-initramfs 05:07 mjg59 Ok 05:07 BenC mjg59: yes 05:07 mjg59 Len's consistently refused the DSDT-acpi-initramfs patch 05:07 BenC I haven't touched the ubuntu/* stuff yet 05:07 BenC I know, but it's so bogus to do so 05:07 mjg59 Indeed 05:07 BenC we allow DSDT to be built into the kernel, so there's no argument for not allowing manual DSDT override 05:08 BenC I think it's the initramfs early prep that's ugly, but unavoidable 05:09 BenC Anyway, I'll post my current diff, and keep it updated as I put things in for-linus...need to push that branch out to the ubuntu-2.6.git anyway 05:10 fabbione BenC: question... now that you want to have ubuntu-2.6.git basically vanilla and linux-ubuntu-modules... 05:10 fabbione what about patches that affects deeply vanilla? 05:10 fabbione are we going to fork the code and slam it in ubuntu-modules? 05:10 fabbione and if so how to we managed changes to core parts of the kernel that needs to be inline? 05:10 BenC in severe cases yes...minor updates (like some of the ocfs2 stable patches) we can keep in the vanilla tree 05:11 BenC I'm going to be extremely tight on what goes in there...mostly to keep myself in check 05:11 BenC I've always been pretty liberal with syncing to things like drivers/ata/, and most times for good reason, but we always end up getting bitten with some unforseen bugs 05:12 BenC check-ins for ubuntu-2.6 will most times go through a two-signed-off-by process 05:12 BenC even for me :) 05:13 fabbione Signed-off-by: Ben Collins <bcollins@ubuntu.com> 05:13 BenC exceptions will be things like debian/* updates and trivial s/KERN_ERR/KERN_INFO/ types things 05:13 fabbione Signed-off-by: Angie Collins <acollins@ubuntu.com> 05:13 BenC lol, busted 05:14 BenC I'll be writing up a more thorough explanation of the gutsy tree this week 05:14 BenC update wiki, etc. 05:14 rtg I assume jgarzik will choose 2.6.22 as the next stable tree. Why wouldn't we track it almost exactly for the next 3 or 4 months? 05:15 fabbione rtg: because users will never be satisfied without their tons of extra drivers 05:15 BenC rtg: we'll get it by naturally following linux-2.6, so to avoid delta and crud, we'll just wait for it 05:15 fabbione or tons of extra patches to gain half FPS out of glxgears 05:15 BenC rtg: if he syncs for 2.6.22, then we'll get it within 3-4 weeks anyway 05:16 BenC fabbione: I need for gutsy's kernel process to be an excercise in how gutsy+1 will go (since it maybe the next LTS) 05:16 BenC so we may end up saying "Sorry, we can't take in a huge chunk of code for drivers/char/drm/ updates because we need the current code to remain stable" 05:17 kylem did you revert the drm stuff for feisty, btw? 05:17 fabbione BenC: oh yeah. i get your idea.. that's not the issue... i have the feeling it's going to clash with other kind of requests like .. we need to support my Bluetooth dildo kind of thing 05:17 BenC where as before it was like "Sure, I'll git-pull the entire damn thing" 05:17 BenC kylem: I reverted my initial sync, but then dropped back to 2.6.21's stuff 05:18 kylem ok. 05:18 BenC fabbione: bluetooth dildo == Wishlist...want me to open a bug for you? :) 05:19 fabbione BenC: sure thing :) 05:20 BenC so a big portion of the roadmap for gutsy revolves around these changes in the build system, and kernel maint policies 05:20 BenC some of these things will get discusses at UDS because they could benefit from input outside the kernel-team (release managers, archive maint, etc) 05:21 BenC some of them will just get done (ditching kernel-package, O= build system, linux-source split from linux-ubuntu-modules, etc.) 05:23 BenC Ah, another bug area we want to fill is validation testing of the kernel build 05:23 mjg59 Well, the difficulty is in ensuring that we don't regress in breadth of hardware support 05:23 BenC things like module.alias checking, alias overlaps, etc 05:23 BenC mjg59: exactly 05:24 mjg59 And sometimes, that's likely to require us to modify core code 05:24 BenC we already have a trivial module checker in feisty that makes sure we don't have modules go missing between builds 05:25 BenC mjg59: I don't think we have any patches in feisty like that...things we have to core code can either be synced upstream now, or if it's major, pushed to linux-ubuntu-modules 05:25 BenC toshiba_acpi is one I think might end up that way 05:25 mjg59 Well, strictly toshiba_acpi should be rewritten to generate input events 05:26 BenC but the likelyhood of that happening considering the acpi-event patch has been around over a year? :) 05:26 mjg59 Depends on how much spare time I have 05:27 mjg59 It's not likely to be merged in its current state 05:27 BenC yeah, I recall the lkml discussions about the current patch 05:28 BenC toshiba_acpi still has a bunch of stuff to be compatible with our own toshset package though 05:28 kylem or someone else could just fix it up... 05:29 mjg59 toshiba_acpi as it currently stands is a bit of a screaming nightmare 05:29 mjg59 And the old maintainer doesn't handle it any more 05:29 mjg59 I should just take over 05:29 BenC guess we should move on... 05:30 BenC feisty security/updates 05:30 BenC we already know what's in git 05:30 BenC are there any patches we knew of in lp right now that need to go into post-release feisty kernel? 05:30 BenC I know we need some more id's moved from ata_piix to piix 05:31 BenC bug #84603 ubotu Malone bug 84603 in linux-source-2.6.20 "Hard disk I/O randomly freezes when hald is running and optical drive is empty" [Medium,Confirmed] https://launchpad.net/bugs/84603 05:31 zul the microsoft keyboard patch is one I can think of 05:31 BenC there's a workaround, so not critical for release 05:31 rtg I'm close to figuring out bug #103768 05:31 ubotu Malone bug 103768 in linux-source-2.6.20 "softmac and network-manager cite unreconcilable differences" [Critical,Unconfirmed] https://launchpad.net/bugs/103768 05:32 pkl_ tifm driver, moving from 0.7 to 0. again (reverted sometime last month) 05:32 BenC rtg: don't forget ubuntu/net/wireless/wext-old.c ...it's the most likely area of the problem 05:32 pkl_ 0. -> 0.8 05:32 rtg BenC: I'm leaving tracks all over it trying to figure out the race. 05:33 BenC rtg: compare the code to what's in net/core/wireless.c 05:33 BenC might give some clues 05:33 fabbione BenC: the OCFS2 stuff please 05:33 BenC pkl_: did I revert that by mistake when I updated tifm/mmc? 05:33 fabbione (for feisty) 05:33 BenC fabbione: In git, so queued 05:33 pkl_ BenC: yes 05:33 fabbione BenC: cool 05:34 BenC pkl_: ok, shoot me later...can you prepare a diff to bring things back? 05:34 pkl_ BenC: yes 05:34 BenC as of now, any patches proposed for feisty (other than embargoed security patches) should go through kernel-team@lists.ubuntu.com 05:37 BenC I think that's all the main topics I had to discuss 05:37 BenC anyone have anything they want to bring up? 05:38 BenC Anyone have comments on the feisty kernel release, how the crisis was handled, addition suggestions for improvement, or suggestions for gutsy kernel, specs, etc... 05:38 BenC ? 05:38 fabbione hmm i somehow have one... 05:38 pkl_ only, wondering it's normally like that at release time :) 05:39 fabbione note that this is only my point of view.. 05:39 fabbione pkl_: no we have seen far worst at release time 05:39 BenC pkl_: usually not that bad...we always have a crisis, but never 5 in a row :) 05:39 BenC strictly speaking for the kernel side of things 05:39 fabbione but i think now that the kernel team is growing, you should be able to handover stuff between members in a slightly easier way 05:39 BenC fabbione is right, we've had some bad release crisis before 05:39 fabbione and in case of disasters like this one 05:40 BenC fabbione: that's on my personal agenda...handing off more of my responsibilities 05:40 fabbione with a 4 people kernel team, you should be able to cover the 24h without issues 05:40 fabbione BenC: yeps.. i am just saying what i think i saw 05:40 fabbione it's up to you guys how much you want to weight it 05:40 fabbione i don't expect you to follow my directions ;) 05:40 BenC well, we can't cover 24hours since pkl sleeps late, kyle and I are both EST, and Tim is only 2 hours behind us :) 05:41 fabbione BenC: well that's where i want to go.. 05:41 BenC plus tim wakes up early 05:41 fabbione if there is a crisis, i think there is the option for people in the team to shift a few hours around 05:41 fabbione and cover almost the 24h 05:41 BenC fabbione: might be a good idea for us to spread out during major milestones 05:41 fabbione i know that 75% of kernel team is US based but most of the distro team is EU 05:42 BenC beta and RC seem like good points for that 05:42 cjwatson pkl_: I'm in the process of writing up a document/rant/whatever on past Ubuntu release panics 05:42 fabbione that somehow clashes a bit when there are situations like this one 05:42 fabbione in which we need to be more in sync than ever 05:42 cjwatson pkl_: mostly so that people experiencing it for the first time don't feel quite so much like the universe is collapsing 05:42 fabbione BenC: yeps.. just to have a Plan B crisis for when it's strictly required. 05:42 fabbione BenC: i am not saying you should be 24/7 always 05:42 fabbione that would be an insane expectation 05:43 BenC fabbione: bad thing is, most of the team gets up after EU, and because of the flow, kernel team needs to fix things in order for EU folks to get things done(cd runs) 05:43 BenC so it gets bad for people like cjwatson and Mithrandir 05:43 cjwatson there was a case during this crisis where I ended up trying to hack up test kernels because nobody else was around and I couldn't find the current state 05:43 cjwatson I'd like that not to happen again 05:43 cjwatson (and mdz was desperate to get progress) 05:44 BenC cjwatson: maybe a crisis center we can keep updated and concise for things like this 05:44 BenC s/crisis center/wiki page/ 05:44 fabbione BenC: yes i do understand that.. nothing stops one of the kernel team to be part of the release process and be able to pre-build CD at the end of the US shift right before EU wakes up 05:44 cjwatson BenC: lag between kernel team and CD team is several hours, so had it been the other end of the day it would have been OK 05:44 BenC cjwatson: right 05:44 cjwatson it gets bad when you get stuff done around your early afternoon that needs to be pushed through urgently 05:45 fabbione anyway it was just the way i felt it.. nobody should take it personal or feel bad because i know you have still done an amazing job 05:45 BenC we could definitely see about two kernel team members working more evening shifts to do things, and catch the EU folks before handing off to the other kernel team members 05:45 pkl_ There was a number of times I didn't know what had happen to the kernel overnight (after I'd gone to bed), but was being asked as I was the only kernel team member around. 05:45 cjwatson pkl_: yeah, in those cases I had a feeling you simply didn't have the information but had to ask 05:46 BenC we should do a better job of handing off info and state, for sure 05:46 cjwatson next time, I would like things to be arranged such that you do have the information 05:46 BenC post mortum will be a hot topics at UDS :) 05:46 cjwatson fabbione: it wouldn't hurt to have a session at UDS on rapid change management - how to get from kernel git commit to CDs as fast as possible 05:46 BenC generally, I'm hoping process changes for development cycle will reduce the crisis level altogether, but a good crisis policy is required 05:46 cjwatson perhaps informally 05:47 fabbione cjwatson: sounds like an idea.. it would also help for people to be more familiar with git 05:47 fabbione as it is now it's only a very few of us 05:47 rtg kylem has offered to lead a git bootcamp at UDS. 05:49 fabbione rtg: yes i know.. it would be more interesting to see how many people will actually show up :) 05:49 BenC cjwatson: what can we do about making it easier to get urgent kernel uploads into the buildd's faster? 05:49 fabbione git == kernel in some people mind and kernel == evil 05:49 cjwatson BenC: speaking of distributing responsibilities, would it be possible to distribute the task of preparing feisty bits for upstream merge and setting up the gutsy tree? 05:50 BenC cjwatson: yes, we discussed that at the beginning 05:50 cjwatson BenC: even if it's really only a one-person task, I think that would be useful to increase the team's familiarity with what we've changed versus upstream 05:50 cjwatson ok 05:50 cjwatson I read through but I guess I missed that you were distributing it 05:50 BenC however gutsy tree will be new build system, so it's going to be in flux for a couple weeks 05:51 BenC I think I can push off the upstream merge entirely to someone else, if anyone is interested 05:51 fabbione BenC: i strongly reccomends to get a gutsy upload for toolchain soonish and change the build system immediatly after 05:51 cjwatson BenC: urgent kernel uploads> I think that really comes under Soyuz improvements, which will hopefully be a bit easier now that we have two Soyuz hackers again 05:51 fabbione BenC: or at least coordinate that with doko 05:51 BenC fabbione: how about I just get you a linux-libc-dev upload out of the tree, no kernel images 05:51 cjwatson significant publisher speed improvements are due to land with PPA 05:51 fabbione BenC: it's an option.. but talk to doko to make sure it's ok with him 05:52 fabbione BenC: glibc should be fine with the current running kernels on the buildd.. i am not sure about all arches tho 05:52 BenC cjwatson: do you think ppa will be a good alternative to the way we were doing things with test kernels (build locally, upload to rookery)? 05:52 doko BenC: I would appreciate it if the kernel headers could stay stable until new glibc/binutils/gcc are in the archive. 05:53 BenC doko: so you don't want me to upload anything yet? 05:53 cjwatson BenC: I think the immediate intention is more for things that aren't speed-critical 05:53 cjwatson it'll build from scratch every time, so it isn't going to get near the performance of a ccached incremental build 05:54 doko BenC: well, the current toolchain updates are tested; and it's likely that headers break on some architecture. AFAIK the archive isn't open yet. 05:54 fabbione doko: aren't we supposed to bootstrap the toolchain starting from kernel headers? or do you want to change that later? 05:54 BenC cjwatson: maybe a dedicated machine for this sort of thing would be nice...I'm not sure the whole team can do fast build/upload cycles like we were doing 05:54 fabbione doko: ok 05:54 cjwatson (PPA => Personal Package Archives, basically per-person apt archives with uploaders and such attached implemented in Launchpad) 05:54 doko fabbione: we never did a full bootstrap; I did put that on the UDS agenda 05:55 cjwatson BenC: let's talk about this more on the phone in a bit, but one idea would be to ensure that each of you has access to the others' fast personal build machines 05:55 BenC doko: Catch be out-of-band for more discussion, I want to make sure I'm not blocking you 05:55 BenC cjwatson: ok 05:55 BenC we're just about out of time 05:55 cjwatson datacentre hosting is good for most of the distro team, but for kernel development having the box locally is pretty valuable 05:56 BenC any last minute comments? 05:56 fabbione LOVE YA! 05:57 BenC kylem, pkl, rtg: Congrats on your guys first release cycle nearly at an end...I know it was rough, but everyone did a great job 05:57 BenC fabbione: DITTO! 05:57 BenC have a good week everyone, party on Thursday
MeetingLogs/Kernel/20070417 (last edited 2008-08-06 16:33:18 by localhost)