Kernel Modules in Fedora -x

[Les Mikesell]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:

>> There's some mention of usability and robustness there that don't 
>> match my experience except around mid to late FC3 and FC6.
> 
> You can continue changing interfaces quite rapidly without affecting 
> robustness. If there are problems with robustness file bug reports. Did 
> you file any?

Yes, in the firewire case, but I couldn't wait the several months it 
took before disks were recognized again.  Then for most of FC5 the 
update kernels wouldn't boot on an ibm xseries 225 but I didn't have any 
idea what to report. Eventually on the mail list someone suggested a 
bios update which I did to coincide with installing FC6.  After the bios 
update, older versions wouldn't work but the new ones did.

>> Robustness is something you can observe without knowledge of 
>> internals.   Why something breaks is not particularly relevant.
> 
> Pretty much. So your real concern is not ABI but things not breaking.  So
>  if anything included in Fedora breaks report it. If it is not Fedora 
> specific consider reporting upstream.

But I don't necessarily want to limit my machine to fedora-owned 
drivers. If that is a restriction, then it should be stated clearly 
where a new user would see it before installing.

>> Can you - or someone - comment on whether you'd trust it with your 
>> working copy of something important?
> 
> I don't have firewire devices but if my data is important to me, I would 
> consider doing automated backups.

Yes, I don't expect it to be more robust than the underlying disk drive. 
  I was just hoping for an educated guess about another months-long 
interval where it wouldn't work at all.  Or if it will be solid enough 
to leave in a raid-mirror configuration?

> All my work is done in Fedora. So I do absolutely depend on it.

It's probably not coincidental that fedora works nicely on your 
hardware.  It hasn't been that way for me much of the time and the user 
mail list makes it look like others have many of the same issues.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com