Linux Kernel version numbers
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Hi Michael.
L-K: This is my definition, but if any of you would care to improve on it, both Michael and I would appreciate hearing your comments. Michael isn't on the list as far as I know, so please CC your replies to him/her.
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In the kernel versions, what do the numbers mean specificially?
The important part is this: For a production system, the first number should be 2, the second number should be an even number, the third number should be reasonably high and the fourth number should be missing. Given that, the system should be reasonably stable.
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Example- 2.4.10. I was informed 2 is major, 4 is minor, 10 is patch and 5 is Pre. But I'm still lost what is major, minor, patch and pre??????
There's no official definition, but here's a reasonable one that I tend to use on my programming projects:
MAJOR = Something extremely important changed, and the result is
not backwards compatible with earlier versions.
MINOR = Something important changed, but the result is still
backwards compatible with previous versions. Also, if this is an even number, the result is reasonably stable, but if this is an odd number, new features are probably under development and the result may not be usable.
PATCH = Something minor changed, and the result is usable.
PRE = Something minor changed, and the result needs testing
as it could easily be unstable if this is present.
It's not an exact fit to the Linux kernel development, but it isn't to bad a fit to what Linus Torvalds decides to do.
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Thank you for your time
NP.
Best wishes from Riley.