Re: some basic Rawhide kernel questions

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On Wed, Apr 1, 2020 at 5:25 PM David <dlocklear01@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As of today, my install still uses the version below
for the kernel

     5.6.0-0.rc7.git1.1.fc33.x86_64

( and is running great, in my opinion )

But in today's Rawhide compose announcement of upgraded
packages, the kernel was listed as
upgrading to the newer

     kernel-5.7.0-0.rc0.git2.1.fc33

So I have several questions

1 )   Yesterday, I think I only got the kernel-header package.     Is that
the way this normally works.

The kernel upgrades pretty much daily, though sometimes it can take a day or 2 to get out to mirrors. Between what you are running and what has been built, we did 5.6.0-1,  kernel-5.7.0-0.rc0.git1.1, and kernel-5.7.0-0.rc0.git2.1  Kernel-headers is typically built only once a week, or once per rc.
 
2 )    Does Rawhide never run on the stable version of the kernel ?

Generally not for more than 24 hours. As 5.6.0 was released on a Sunday, it gets built on Monday morning. We will either start doing builds of the merge window Monday afternoon, or Tuesday morning at the latest.  This week, it was Monday afternoon.  Kernels are built with a snapshot of Linus tree most weekdays.  The first rc build each week and the final stable build of a kernel are built as release kernels with debug options turned off, and git snapshots in between have additional debugging options turned on. These do have some impact on performance, but not too drastic.  Of course we also offer regular snapshot builds in a rawhide nodebug repository for people who really want them.  A side effect of this is they are not secureboot signed while the official rawhide builds are.
 
 
3 )    What all goes into repackaging the kernel by the people tasked with
doing that ?

Taking a snapshot of the current upstream tree, setting all of the new config options appropriately, building/testing/pushing.  Stable updates tend to require much less work, config doesn't change.  Even with rc kernels after rc1 the config is fairly set until the next merge window opens up.
 
 
4 )   How much different are the two kernels listed above ?

 The diff between rc7-git1 and 5.7 git snapshot 2 is roughly 300k lines.  The merge window is when the majority of new features for a given version come in, so the diff from day to day can be huge. For instance snapshot 2 is almost 280k lines smaller than snapshot 3, and that covers a roughly 24 hour period.  After rc1 comes out, this slows down drastically.

5 )   Does Rawhide use every tiny update on the git for the kernel, or does it
sometimes skip one or two ?

We tend to take a snapshot every weekday, provided upstream has pulled in commits.
 
6 ) Are there any other interesting insights related to this procedure ?


It is fairly straightforward, build and test the upstream tree as often as possible.  This lets us hopefully catch bugs before they make it to a stable release, and gives us a much smaller window for tracking down bugs that are found... If you have a problem with 5.6-rc5-git2, but rc5.git1 works for you, it has been narrowed down to just a few dozen possible issues.  From there it is easier to fix, or report the issue to upstream for a fix, and hopefully get that fix in before 5.6.0 final releases. Once a Fedora version hits beta (as F32 has, it only gets a snapshot once per week with the rcX releases until the stable it out, so FC32 is on 5.6.0 right now, with 5.6.1 building. It will remain on stable kernels. The week after next is a 5.6.0 test week where we will get users testing the 5.6 series on stable Fedora versions (F31 and F30), and based on the feedback from that, we will get 5.6.x onto those branches as the supported kernel shortly after.

I am just curious, and I am certain that the answers may be above my IQ, so
please try to explain it all as simple as possible.

I have used other developmental versions of distros, but this process does not
take place in some of those.    For example, even in the most unstable of the
KDE Neon "Unstable Developer's Edition," the kernel never changes ( except
maybe some kind of security update ?? ).      I do not recall the kernel getting so
many updates in Tumbleweed either.    ( Tumbleweed, is my second favorite way
to use Linux, by the way. )


I can understand from a KDE development platform, they are more concerned with KDE changes than kernel changes.  Somewhat surprised that Tumbleweed isn't updating the kernel at least weekly.  We tend to be more aggressive than most in updating the kernel across the board, but particularly in rawhide, we have found the feedback loop that we get from this to be valuable.

Thank you.

David Locklear
Novice Rawhide user
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