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"Don't break userspace" is more like a _goal_ than a law. The kernel is an extremely complex piece of code, the developers can't be asked to test every kernel
by bityard 4y ago
"Don't break userspace" is more like a _goal_ than a law.
The kernel is an extremely complex piece of code, the developers can't be asked to test every kernel release against every piece of userspace software on every hardware configuration. That's one of the reasons that new code and significant changes require a bunch of mailing list discussion, reviews, and signing-off.
Also, Proxmox ships with its own supported kernel, it shouldn't be a big surprise that you ran into issues while straying off the beaten path.
- londons_explore 4y ago> The kernel is an extremely complex piece of code, With no regression tests, nearly no unit tests, and lots of bits of supported hardware that nobody on the Dev team uses day to day... It's a miracle that quality is as high as it is.
- bonzini 4y agoThere are plenty of tests, just not in Linus's tree. KVM has not one but three suites of unit and integration tests, for example, but only 60ish tests are in the kernel's tools/testing/selftests directory.