From: Sven Eckelmann <sven.eckelmann@gmx.de>
Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 12:30:38 +0200
References: <201005030828.08856.lindner_marek@yahoo.de>
	<20100503080301.GE10849@lunn.ch> <4BDE91F3.4010209@aon.at>
In-Reply-To: <4BDE91F3.4010209@aon.at>
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Message-Id: <201005031230.45286.sven.eckelmann@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: [B.A.T.M.A.N.] sysfs compat
Reply-To: The list for a Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking
	<b.a.t.m.a.n@lists.open-mesh.org>
To: b.a.t.m.a.n@lists.open-mesh.org

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=46ranz B=F6hm wrote:
> Also all Atheros based systems with binary drivers from Atheros itself
> or SDK's from third party vendors only work with particular (quite old)
> kernel versions. Perhaps you are able to build with newer kernel but
> it's much more difficult to get support from the chip manufacturer this
> way.
>=20
> Using open source drivers instead is not always an opinion because it's
> very hard to comply with radio regulations and get your product
> certified. This is why I think it's somehow also important for BATMAN to
> support older kernels.

Yes, commercial support is a big problem. The atheros driver (targeted for=
=20
2.6.15) can be ported to with reasonable effort to a kernel supported by=20
batman-adv. But as you stated above the upstream support maybe will be gone=
=20
afterward.

=2E..do we really trust devices running really old kernels? There must be a=
 well=20
educated and hard working support team behind that kernel to keep it workin=
g.=20
Not that bugs come over time, but bugs are found over time and must be fixe=
d=20
or otherwise some people will have more fun than you with these "features".

So we have different possibilities, but the most important one should be th=
e=20
requirements of the actual developers. Both Marek and Simon use batman-adv =
on=20
different kernels and have special requirements on kernel versions they mus=
t=20
support.

We can use openwrt as extra information what should be supported. Currently=
 I=20
see kernels from 2.6.25-2.6.34.

To come back to the security consideration: Usually the kernel folks suppor=
t=20
the last kernel only with security fixes and other bug fixes. This isn't=20
sufficient for people which run a specific kernel a long time (distribution=
s=20
for example). As result of these requirements a specific kernel version is=
=20
maintained longer than others [1] ("LTS" if you want to name it in ubuntu-
style). So the lowest kernel version number here is 2.6.27

I am not sure if we really want to check kernels of specific desktop/server=
=20
distributions because they aren't our real target audience and kernels of=20
distributions with a really long support time tends to have more in common=
=20
with every other kernel but not with the vanilla kernel with the same versi=
on=20
number.

Best regards,
	Sven

[1] http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/stable-status-01-2010.html

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