Re: modem not responding

[Erik Mouw <erik@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 08:28:30AM -0600, Bill Gatliff wrote:
> Ben Dooks wrote:
> >I am interested to find out why people seem to be so keen on sticking to 
> >obsolete kernels.
> 
> I wouldn't use the term "obsolete" to describe the 2.4 ARM kernels.  

Ben is right. 2.4.18 *is* obsolete. If you really insist on using a 2.4
kernel, take at least a 2.4.27-vrs1 kernel.

The 2.6 kernel is about a year old now, and looking at the mailing
lists, the number of people still using 2.4 on ARM is decreasing. It
won't be too long before we don't need a -vrs patch at all.

> Rather, that's where the complete and/or mature peripheral support lies, 
> especially for AT91RM9200.  I'm guessing the same thing is true for the 
> Sharp LHx SOCs.
> 
> As far as I can tell, the best term to describe 2.6 is "preliminary" as 
> the list of stuff that works in 2.4 vs. 2.6 for many ARM SOC targets is 
> very, very short.  I'm doing the best I can for AT91RM9200, but in the 
> meantime I have customers who need stuff to Just Work.

Russell has made it very clear several times during 2.5 development,
that things are really changing in the kernel, that you should submit
patches to get your stuff in working order, or otherwise it would be
broken or get removed. At that point you had two choices:

1) Spend a little time to fix your own stuff, and send the patch to
   Russell.
2) Be lazy, spend no time at all and do nothing.

Being lazy like programmers are (including myself), #2 would be the
best short term option, especially if you didn't play with 2.5 at all.

Once you get into 2.6, it gets different. Let's get back to the
options:

1) During 2.5 development, you spend a little time to fix your own
   stuff, and send the patch to Russell. In 2.6, everything Just Works
   and you can get back at being lazy.
2) During 2.5 development, you're lazy, you spend no time at all and do
   nothing to get your stuff working. In 2.6, nothing works and you
   have to spend a hell of a time to get on the road again, also
   because lots of the inner working of the kernel changed and you
   aren't familiar with it.

Both options allow you to be lazy, but at different times. I call the
first option the "long term lazy" option, and the second one the "short
term lazy" option. I guess Ben is long term lazy, while you are short
term lazy. There's nothing wrong with being lazy, but I think it's
clear the short term lazy people have no right to complain to the long
term lazy people about missing features.


Erik

PS: *exactly* the same discussion occured on this list when going from
    linux-2.2 to linux-2.4...

-- 
----  Erik Mouw  ----  www.bitwizard.nl  ----  +31 15 2600 998  ----

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