Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!metro!ipso!runxtsa!posgate!sleeper!raz
From: raz@sleeper.apana.org.au (Roland Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Subject: Re: The patchkit (was Re: Excessive Interrupt Latencies)
Message-ID: <C4H1M1.3L5@sleeper.apana.org.au>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 01:03:36 GMT
References: <GENE.93Mar15115756@stark.stark.uucp> <1993Mar16.093636.29923@gmd.de> <g89r4222.732307558@kudu> <C409MC.n1D@agora.rain.com> <1obts0$doq@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Organization: Desolation Road Railfan BBS
Lines: 79
mycroft@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) writes:
>What I would like to create is a streamlined patching tool that would
>make patching, replacing, and removing files easier, would not do
>blatantly stupid things like the large patchkit header in each file,
>which totally screws up selective patching, and a moderated newsgroup
>`comp.os.386bsd.patches' that would contain one article per patch, and
>would have a much lower latency (on the order of one or two weeks
>average).
YES! YES! YES! (Quick question - not having attempted to patch
selectively - what happens? Why is the patch header a problem?)
Re: comp.os.386bsd.patches
Given the circus that surrounded creation of comp.os.386bsd.*, I am
not optimistic about a new group (although even if I was, we are looking
at approx 2 months), how about comp.os.386bsd.announce? Not strictly in
its charter I know, but it IS moderated and a patch release IS a "launch"
of general interest to the 386bsd community at large.
>Obviously, this is a fair amount of work, and I can't do it all by
>myself. Anyone wishing to help out (or even just say `Go for it!') is
>welcome to send me mail.
Go for it! (Chris Demetriou (sp?): care to comment?)
>b) Example time: If I'm a user who needs a working com driver, what do
>I do? If I know there's going to be one in the next patchkit, I might
>wait. But at the moment, I haven't the foggiest notion, so I'll
>probably go get cgd's, and have to back it out later. This is tedious,
>especially, when I have to do it for N patches and new drivers.
Silly question time: Why isn't cgd's com driver distributed as a patch?
(Is it?)
>c) If the patchkit mechanism weren't *braindead*, I wouldn't have to
>back anything out.
If you apply a bad patch - you have to back it out one day :-)
>f) NEVER replace a file on a FTP site with one of the same name if it
>has *any* changes, no matter how small! This confuses the bloody
>*Hell* out of people who may have already downloaded it, and this
>confusion propagates.
And never post unnanounced Beta patch kits the the FTP sites :-) (Yes,
it got me...)
>Take an example from the Linux crowd: Quite a number of people have
>told me that they chose Linux because they `see development happening
>faster'. What they're really saying is that they see new versions of
>programs released frequently; this gives the appearance that a lot is
>happening, even if the changes are only small, and they don't even
>bother to update their copy most of the time.
Which on the whole is useful, if only because it means that the total
number of CPU hours running a particular kernel bug is reduced. However,
my complements to the current patch group - things seem to be happening
a bit faster (at least there's a lot of talk about it...)
>Of course, the version number is a related issue. The Linux release
>number `0.99' is close enough to `1.0' that people think it's right on
>the brink of being stable (even though I've seen some major changes
>recently, like new file systems). 386BSD, by contrast, is numbered
>`0.1', which gives people the impression that it has a long way to go.
>While I think it's silly, and I personally find 386BSD much more
>stable and complete, most people really are used by^H^Hto corporate
>version numbering, and no number of words will sway their perception.
Hmm - Linus openly admits that the version after 0.13 was 0.93...
--
Bye for now.
- Raz.
raz@sleeper.apana.org.au (Roland Turner) (OH) 61 2 319 5700