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    SubjectRe: Linux 3.10.108 (EOL)
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    Date
    Am 15.11.2017 um 05:32 schrieb Willy Tarreau:
    > On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 11:40:31PM +0100, Sebastian Gottschall wrote:
    >>> And anyway the end of life has been indicated on kernel.org for 18 months
    >>> and in every announce in 2017, so it cannot be a surprize anymore :-) At
    >>> least nobody seemed to complain for all this time!
    >> itsn no surprise for sure, but that also means i have to stay on the old
    >> kernel for these special devices and your argument about disable certain
    >> parts which simply turned bigger over time is no option
    >>
    >> since it would remove features which existed before. its not that i enable
    >> all features of the kernel. i use every kernel with the same options (some
    >> are adjusted since they are renamed or moved)
    > Then I have a few questions :
    > - how did you choose this kernel ? Or did you choose the hardware based
    > on the kernel size ?

    i did not choose it. i port regular all kernels to the platforms i use
    including 4.4 and 4.9

    but a few of these which are already ported to 4.4 and 4.9 will still
    run 3.10 for resource problems.

    > - what would have you done if 3.10 had not been LTS ?
    using another LTS at that point :-)
    > - have you at least tried other kernels before claiming they are much
    > larger ? Following your principle, 3.2 should be smaller and 3.16 not
    > much larger. The former offers you about 6 extra months of maintenance,
    > the latter 3.5 years (https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html).

    i also used 3.2 before. sure

    dont get me wrong i work with all kernels, also with latests. i do also
    not complain that 3.10 is now EOL

    i just wanted to throw some stones on the bloated kernel problem which
    is increasing

    >
    >> but even then the kernel is turning into a ram and space eating monster if i
    >> look on devices with 16 mb ram and 4 mb flash. this is mainly for
    >> maintaining older hardware with latest updates.
    > So why didn't you ask if it was possible to pursue the maintenance a bit a
    > long time ago ? LTS maintenance is a collective effort and is done based on
    > usage. If enough people have good reasons for going further it can be enough
    > a justification to push the deadline. Now it's too late.

    didnt know that. the LTS deadline was defined a long time ago. i follow
    up the mailing lists mainly for reviewing patches

    and reporting feedback if required. if it see such a discussion i may
    get in touch with it too, but with hundrets of emails every days here
    its hard to follow anything

    >> the more recent hardware is getting better here
    >>
    >> you dont seem to know how it is to work on wireless routers :-)
    > Yes I do, I've been distributing a full blown load balancer distro on a
    > 10 MB image (running on 3.10 as well). But I also know that sometimes
    > you make some nice space savings on new kernels (xz/zstd compression,
    > ability to remove certain useless stuff in these environments such as
    > FS ACLs or mandatory locks, etc). Sure, upgrading to a new kernel on
    > existing hardware is always a challenge. But it's also an interesting
    > one.

    i do use xz and i do use a modified squashfs which is even smaller than
    the xz one in the kernel

    smallest router i run with linux has 8 mb ram and 2 mb flash. so i do
    know how to get all very small. 10 mb image is no issue for me. the 4 mb
    flashes devices are my problem.


    >
    > Also just to give you an idea, I've just compared the size of these
    > kernels configured with "make allnoconfig" (and I verified that all
    > of them were compressed using gzip) :
    >
    > 3.10.108 : 875 kB
    > 4.4.97 : 522 kB
    > 4.9.61 : 561 kB
    > 4.14 : 566 kB

    its a little bit unrealistic since you have to count in network
    subsystem, filesystem and drivers.

    standard kernel with xz compression is about 800 - 900 kb for me in 3.10
    and 4.4 / 4.9 etc. is often more than 1 - 1.2 mb

    sometimes just the 100 kb more count in and turn into a problem since i
    have to remove something from the image to get it fitting

    if you are really interested i can give you a real comparisation using a
    comparable config on 3.10, 4.4 and 4.9 for a standard mips target

    >
    > So the argument that migrating away from 3.10 is hard due to the size
    > doesn't stand much here :-)
    its turning harder. i already ported 4.4 and 4.9 as i said. so i tried
    already if they are running or not. they do run, but they are bigger and
    do not fit for some targets
    >
    > Willy
    >

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