Linux 3.6-rc6 Released, Final Is Coming "Soonish"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 3.6-rc6 Released, Final Is Coming "Soonish"

The Linux 3.6-rc6 kernel was released over the weekend while the final release is expected to land soon...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTE4Njc

[bofh80]

what the hell. Seriously now folks, am i just imaging it, when did linus join the browser version number war?

it tooks years to get to 3.5 firefox, no we on what? 10, 11, 12? or is it 15 already.

does it really take on so many features that a simple 3.5.2 will not suffice?

are bugfixes and regressions really worth a whole new version number?

OK OK you say, so what? Really?

You realise that if debian freezes on kernel 3.2 (is happening) and this new 3.6 was just called 3.2.4 then we would get it in the stable release. But because distro's freeze on a version number, (all of them) we miss out if we want 'stable' .

Now this is the distro's version of stable. According to the people who make the program our 'stable' version is now 'old' 'inferior' 'unsupported' 'bugged' and full of backported patches from unqualified dev's. Whereas the new version which is 'unstable' in the distro is now 'stable' for the people that make it.

Now obviously a new version program would have to go through a battery of tests, that's why they release alpha's and beta's and release candidates tho. So really i'm looking a running my own distro to solve this problem, i'd be interested on your thoughts on the matter.

[archibald]

When kernel version numbers were of the form 2.6.x distributions stabilised on the x, they didn't choose 2.6 as stable and update each time a new kernel in the 2.6 series came out. I don't think their methodology for choosing a stable kernel will have change as a result of version number reworking.

The renaming was because Mr. Torvalds thought it was silly to get to 2.6.38, since the first two numbers had ceased to provide any information: the 2.4 branch had been dropped and there was no prospect of sufficiently massive changes that would require a 2.8 branch.

[bofh80]

When kernel version numbers were of the form 2.6.x distributions stabilised on the x, they didn't choose 2.6 as stable and update each time a new kernel in the 2.6 series came out. I don't think their methodology for choosing a stable kernel will have change as a result of version number reworking.

The renaming was because Mr. Torvalds thought it was silly to get to 2.6.38, since the first two numbers had ceased to provide any information: the 2.4 branch had been dropped and there was no prospect of sufficiently massive changes that would require a 2.8 branch.

Very informative, thanks for your input. I did not realise that most distro's really did stop at .x.x mark. And so it makes sense.