6 ms·

> Also there are people and companies that compile their kernel from the master branch and run software on it. Genuinely curious: why would a company ever do t

by Cyph0n 4y ago

> Also there are people and companies that compile their kernel from the master branch and run software on it. Genuinely curious: why would a company ever do this?

sph 4y ago
I was thinking of Red Hat (for example), that pays kernel developers and regularly tests and backports features for its paying customers. That means having a finger of the pulse of the kernel tree, and trying changes to decide whether it might be worth to port them to their supported kernel branch (which lags behind master).
- Cyph0n 4y ago
  Ah, Red Hat is indeed a good example. Thanks for clarifying.
quesera 4y ago
> why would a company ever do this? Distro kernels are general purpose and include a lot of stuff you do not need. A custom-configured kernel is much smaller and (consequently, theoretically) more secure.
- Cyph0n 4y ago
  Not sure I follow. A custom kernel doesn’t need to based on master.
lillecarl 4y ago
If you have 100000 servers it's in your interest to test HEAD on 100 of them to be able to catch and bugs before they hit a release. That's how open-source should work!
- Cyph0n 4y ago
  Why not run 1-2 releases behind and test/qualify a later release? A commenter below gave a good example of a company that would need to run a bleeding edge kernel (Red Hat). The vast majority of companies would never need to do that though.
  - fiedzia 4y ago
    > Why not run 1-2 releases behind and test/qualify a later release? This may work for most people, but not all. It's easier to get things fixed while developers still work on something, than weeks/months later. Also if you have not most-popular hardware/software configuration, testing done by others isn't necessarily sufficient for you.
  - sph 4y ago
    Maybe your company needs that super duper new feature that's on master. Or you're Google scale and that 0.5% improvement in IO throughput would save you millions a year. You wouldn't want to wait until it hits the stable branch if possible.

by Cyph0n 4y ago

> Also there are people and companies that compile their kernel from the master branch and run software on it. Genuinely curious: why would a company ever do this?

sph 4y ago

I was thinking of Red Hat (for example), that pays kernel developers and regularly tests and backports features for its paying customers. That means having a finger of the pulse of the kernel tree, and trying changes to decide whether it might be worth to port them to their supported kernel branch (which lags behind master).

Cyph0n 4y ago
Ah, Red Hat is indeed a good example. Thanks for clarifying.

quesera 4y ago

> why would a company ever do this? Distro kernels are general purpose and include a lot of stuff you do not need. A custom-configured kernel is much smaller and (consequently, theoretically) more secure.

Cyph0n 4y ago
Not sure I follow. A custom kernel doesn’t need to based on master.

lillecarl 4y ago

If you have 100000 servers it's in your interest to test HEAD on 100 of them to be able to catch and bugs before they hit a release. That's how open-source should work!

Cyph0n 4y ago
Why not run 1-2 releases behind and test/qualify a later release? A commenter below gave a good example of a company that would need to run a bleeding edge kernel (Red Hat). The vast majority of companies would never need to do that though.
- fiedzia 4y ago
  > Why not run 1-2 releases behind and test/qualify a later release? This may work for most people, but not all. It's easier to get things fixed while developers still work on something, than weeks/months later. Also if you have not most-popular hardware/software configuration, testing done by others isn't necessarily sufficient for you.
- sph 4y ago
  Maybe your company needs that super duper new feature that's on master. Or you're Google scale and that 0.5% improvement in IO throughput would save you millions a year. You wouldn't want to wait until it hits the stable branch if possible.