Aix7xxx unstable in 2.4.21-rc2? (RE: Linux 2.4.21-rc2)
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Justin used to say "use my latest driver" when people reported >problems. Read lkml.
Probably he said that but he also answer its mail and offer support when someone spend time and tries to accurately report problem. I have been a long time aic7xxx users (both on professionnal multiprocessor servers and on my home machine) and Justin provided helps. And now, I have no more problem altthough I sometime puts GB on a streamer.
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Its great if Justins new driver fixes the problems, but as I told him I thought it was too late for it to be included. Thats my bad, too, because if I had included it early in 2.4.21pre it could be in now.
Well, I reported the bug as soon as alan included them in 21-pre7-acxx and mentionned that the bug was fixed for me in newer justin release.
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Justin could well have fixed the problems in the current driver instead answering "use my latest driver", couldnt he?
No!. Why should he do that? Either you trust the maintainer and give him a chance to have its driver more widely tested by including it in stable kernel upon request. Here you just have applied alan patch without even searching (I mean asking justin) if this was the right version to include, thinking that it had already received some testing via alan...
What worries me the most with the current 2.4 status is that if you want to sell linux to manager, sys admin or anyone who can pay the bills you face immediately the following problems :
- For server, you need to start applying patches for aic7xx or risk
deadlock or even fail to boot, and probably other SMP race things due to the 2.4 evolution slowness. As far as I know dell use aic7XXX adapter in its server line (no word about SCSI RAID drivers...). Of course IDE cleaning is important for desktop and laptop users but not so much for servers,
- For laptop, even if IDE seems to be OK, 2.4 is almost unusable
without ACPI patches as you risk to damage your laptop with overheat 5ACPI controlled fan) or not manage IRQ routing correctly or have dead keys. Then you also need some FB driver update, ... I do not even mention PPC laptops...
So, besides your availability, which I would regard as something that may be behond your real control, I would rather suggest to clearly define priorities for *next* 2.4 kernel so that you can use your spare time to make 2.4 unpatched usefull again.
-- eric running on 2.4.21-rc2-ac3 + NTFS patches + ACPI update + ...