Linux 3.12 Kernel Released; Linux 4.0 Planning Talked Up

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 3.12 Kernel Released; Linux 4.0 Planning Talked Up

As was anticipated, the Linux 3.12 kernel was released this afternoon. The Linux 3.12 kernel is a mighty big update but beyond announcing its debut, Linus Torvalds also made mention of a delay in the Linux 3.13 merge window and has begun expressing possible plans for a Linux 4.0 release in about one year's time...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTUwMzA

[mercutio]

is there zfs support for linux 3.12 yet? it was broken on the release candidates.

[Delgarde]

Last but not least, Linus Torvalds is beginning to brew plans for Linux 4.0. Linux 4.0 isn't about some big change, but similar to going from Linux 2.6 to Linux 3.0, it's simply with the minor point release numbers rising quite high. Linus doesn't want to have a Linux 3.(some-large-number) so after Linux 3.19 he's tossing out the idea of moving to Linux 4.0.

If he keeps this up, though, he'll just end up with Linux (some-large-number).0 within a few years. Why not at least run it up to 3.99 before switching to 4.0, and avoid using up the supply of small major version numbers...

[madjr]

if they just plan 19 releases of a kernel version and the 20th is a new one, maybe they should make it more predictable.

for example from v4 to v5, it would be more predictable to go by multiples of 5:

4.00 , 4.05, 4.10, 4.15, 4.20 [...] 4.85, 4.90, 4.95, 5.00


going from 2.60 to 3.00 and from 3.19 to 4.00, without it being an "awesome" big release and just a normal one is kinda weird IMO.

But who said FOSS has ever been "predictable" ...

[stiiixy]

If he keeps this up, though, he'll just end up with Linux (some-large-number).0 within a few years. Why not at least run it up to 3.99 before switching to 4.0, and avoid using up the supply of small major version numbers...

I'm waiting the day it all goes Linux 2021 - Scary Pussy Cat, Linux 2022 - Another Gay Name, Linux 23 - WEEEEEE

[DeepDayze]

I'm waiting the day it all goes Linux 2021 - Scary Pussy Cat, Linux 2022 - Another Gay Name, Linux 23 - WEEEEEE

Maybe each major release should be the year with each dot release each month...talk about rapid development! Perhaps the midyear release xxxx.6 would be for just bug fixes and the first release of the new year be where major changes take place

[mercutio]

i find both ubuntu and openbsd versioning to work well.

ubuntu numbers after release date, so 13.04, 13.10 etc.

openbsd goes 3.9, 4.0, 4.1 etc.

there were huge changes between linux 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6...

but really the changes are getting smaller now. and to me, it's about 2.2 where it started getting to the point that most things worked pretty well. 2.0 was pretty bad, enough for me to use 2.1 kernerls.

that said i'm using 3.2-rc7 right now, and just ignoring my zfs file system.

[Ibidem]

that said i'm using 3.2-rc7 right now, and just ignoring my zfs file system.

Aren't there a few open security bugs in that?

[mercutio]

Aren't there a few open security bugs in that?

erk, 3.12-rc7. and there's probably nothing in 3.2 that would bite me. newer linux kernels have some tcp performance improvements though.

[DanL]

Kernel version numbers are fairly meaningless. You can't really tell anything about the kernel just from the version number unless you follow Phoronix or some other kernel news source. If the pattern continues to repeat, you may be able to tell which kernel is an LTS and which kernel a distro will use, but that's subject to change very quickly.

i find both ubuntu and openbsd versioning to work well.

I like the date-influenced version scheme as well, but the kernels have a variable number of rc's, so it could get confusing if a release was delayed into the next month.

If he keeps this up, though, he'll just end up with Linux (some-large-number).0 within a few years.

He has to keep pace with Firefox and Chrome! (I think they're up to 150.0 now, or maybe I've just lost track of time...)