Linux kernel version support policy

[Joseph S. Myers]

On Tue, 28 Jan 2014, Aaro Koskinen wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 11:02:43PM +0000, Joseph S. Myers wrote:
> > 2.6.16 ceased to be maintained in July 2009, according to Wikipedia 
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Maintenance>.  Should we have 
> > a policy on how long after a long-term-support Linux kernel version ceases 
> > to be maintained we can move the minimum to the next long-term-support 
> > version, or such a policy based on distribution releases (or a 
> > combination)?
> 
> Is it common to upgrade GLIBC but not the kernel? At least I don't think
> any distro does that.

A major reason not just to require a recent 3.x kernel is that people are 
developing and testing glibc on systems that may not be running the very 
latest distribution versions, and so may have an older kernel; the 
question is how much to allow for that.

(I should add something I forgot in my original message: when we increase 
the minimum kernel version for use of glibc, the minimum kernel headers 
version against which glibc can be built - currently 2.6.19.1 because 
that's when headers_install became functional - should also be increased 
to match.  I hope that's uncontroversial; installing a new set of kernel 
headers for glibc builds is straightforward.)

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com