3 ms·

Red Hat backports security fixes, hardware support and certain new features to their kernel packages, staying on a stable kernel version throughout the product

Red Hat backports security fixes, hardware support and certain new features to their kernel packages, staying on a stable kernel version throughout the product lifecycle is what allows them to guarantee a consistent kernel ABI that virtually every other distribution throws to the wayside. Personally I prefer not having third-party kernel modules on my servers break every time I run `yum upgrade` like I do with Fedora (oh VMWare, how I hate you so).

readams 8y ago
except they still break because Red Hat backports bleeding-edge features but doesn't change the version number.
vbezhenar 8y ago
I'm using HP B120i fakeraid controller with proprietary driver and it broke after 7.4 upgrade, so while they probably doing a good job about binary compatibility (7.5 didn't broke it), it's not ideal.
- snuxoll 8y ago
  Unfortunately the kABI does not encompass every symbol exported by the kernel, there is a whitelist maintained in the kernel-abi-whitelists package and scripts to check conformance of a module to the whitelist. Symbols are only ever added throughout the lifecycle of a RHEL release, so anything that conforms to the 7.3 kABI will also work on 7.4 - but if the module uses a symbol NOT whitelisted in 7.3 there's no guarantee the 7.4 update won't break it. Not that it's much solace when your proprietary blob breaks, but Red Hat does make considerable effort to give vendors a stable target to build against - unfortunately not everyone fully validates conformance which results in the same old problems cropping up from time to time.
  - silly-silly 8y ago
    That and Spectre fixes forced a BUNCH of third party code that relied on non exported code to break.
- xnyanta 8y ago
  I really hate HP for this stupid fakeraid shit. The regular SATA AHCI controller is unusable on the HP servers I have because it does not pass the temperature info to the iLO and causes the fans to skyrocket to 70% permanently. Obviously, using the B120i was out of question due to their crappy driver only targeting RedHat's ancient kernel so my only viable solution was to have to go out and purchase a 200$ real HP P420 smart array RAID card to connect my drives to.

readams 8y ago

except they still break because Red Hat backports bleeding-edge features but doesn't change the version number.

vbezhenar 8y ago

I'm using HP B120i fakeraid controller with proprietary driver and it broke after 7.4 upgrade, so while they probably doing a good job about binary compatibility (7.5 didn't broke it), it's not ideal.

snuxoll 8y ago
Unfortunately the kABI does not encompass every symbol exported by the kernel, there is a whitelist maintained in the kernel-abi-whitelists package and scripts to check conformance of a module to the whitelist. Symbols are only ever added throughout the lifecycle of a RHEL release, so anything that conforms to the 7.3 kABI will also work on 7.4 - but if the module uses a symbol NOT whitelisted in 7.3 there's no guarantee the 7.4 update won't break it. Not that it's much solace when your proprietary blob breaks, but Red Hat does make considerable effort to give vendors a stable target to build against - unfortunately not everyone fully validates conformance which results in the same old problems cropping up from time to time.
- silly-silly 8y ago
  That and Spectre fixes forced a BUNCH of third party code that relied on non exported code to break.
xnyanta 8y ago
I really hate HP for this stupid fakeraid shit. The regular SATA AHCI controller is unusable on the HP servers I have because it does not pass the temperature info to the iLO and causes the fans to skyrocket to 70% permanently. Obviously, using the B120i was out of question due to their crappy driver only targeting RedHat's ancient kernel so my only viable solution was to have to go out and purchase a 200$ real HP P420 smart array RAID card to connect my drives to.