“Whenever a new kernel comes out, there’s a lag time between
when it’s adopted by those who don’t mind compiling it themselves
and by those who are waiting to get it bundled in an already-tested
package from the maintainers of their distributions. In part, the
delay is just the result of the difference between those who live
on the edge and those who stick with the tried-and-true, but could
it be shortened by reducing the work that the distributions have to
do to adopt the new kernel? In today’s editorial, Jeff Garzik of
Mandrakesoft describes the process of fitting the two
together.”
“Readying a distribution for a new release of the kernel at
MandrakeSoft is, like other open projects, a constant process of
refinement, testing, and interaction with non-MandrakeSoft Open
Source developers.”
“Mandrake’s bleeding-edge development distribution, “cooker”, is
always available to outside testers on the Internet. When a new
kernel appears on the horizon, the first step is to package the new
development kernel in a special RPM called “hackkernel”. (Mandrake
uses the “hack” prefix to indicate a development/unstable version
of a package.) Once hackkernel is packaged, we can begin testing
the distribution with the newer kernel. Testing involves hardware
testing at MandrakeSoft’s labs, but, even more importantly, it
involves the cooker users out on the Internet. They are our biggest
resource; no amount of internal testing can replace beta testing on
the Internet at large.”