On 4/10/23 17:54, NeilBrown wrote: > On Tue, 11 Apr 2023, Jes Sorensen wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I bumped the minimum kernel version required for mdadm to 2.6.32. >> >> Should we drop support for anything prior to 3.10 at this point, since >> RHEL7 is 3.10 based and SLES12 seems to be 3.12 based. >> >> Thoughts? > > When you talk about changing the required kernel version, I would find > it helpful if you at least mention what actual kernel features you now > want to depend on - at least the more significant ones. > > Aside from features, I'd rather think about how old the kernel is. > 2.6.32 is over 13 years old. > 3.10 is very nearly 10 years old. > If there is something significant that landed in 3.10 that we want to > depend on, then requiring that seems perfectly reasonable. > > I think the oldest SLE kernel that you might care about would be 4.12 > (SLE12-SP5 - nearly 6 years old). Anyone using an older SLE release > values stability over new functionality and is not going to be trialling > a new mdadm. Hi Neil, I guess my mindset is more that I don't expect RHEL/SLES grade distros to fully upgrade mdadm, but I do see them backporting changes occasionally. I was mostly basing my question on what I see us testing for in the actual code. Dropping support for anything prior to SLES 12 (4.12) and RHEL 8 (kernel 4.18) seems fair. Cheers, Jes
