On Fri, Feb 05, 2021 at 07:44:12PM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote: > Hi! > > > > > Ugh, I thought this was an internal representation, not an external one > > > > :( > > > > > > > > > It might work somewhere, but there are a lot of (X * 65536 + Y * 256 + Z) > > > > > assumptions all around the world. So this doesn't look like a good idea. > > > > > > > > Ok, so what happens if we "wrap"? What will break with that? At first > > > > glance, I can't see anything as we keep the padding the same, and our > > > > build scripts seem to pick the number up from the Makefile and treat it > > > > like a string. > > > > > > > > It's only the crazy out-of-tree kernel stuff that wants to do minor > > > > version checks that might go boom. And frankly, I'm not all that > > > > concerned if they have problems :) > > > > > > > > So, let's leave it alone and just see what happens! > > > > > > Yeah, stable is a great place to do the experiments. Not that this is > > > the first time :-(. > > > > How else can we "test this out"? > > > > Should I do an "empty" release of 4.4.256 and see if anyone complains? > > It seems that would be bad idea, as it would cause problems when stuff > is compiled on 4.4.256, not simply by running it. > > Sasha's patch seems like one option that could work. > > Even safer option is to switch to 4.4.255-st1, 4.4.255-st2 ... scheme. Using EXTRAVERSION would work, but it is effectivly the same thing as nothing exports that to userspace through the LINUX_VERSION macro. So clamping the version like Sasha's patches seems to be the best solution. thanks, greg k-h
