# vanilla-sources not supported on amd64?

## toofastforyahuh

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150436

 *Quote:*   

> According to Mike (KingTaco) vanilla-sources isn't supported on amd64, thus
> 
> removing them.

 

Was wondering why there hasn't been a stable "amd64" vanilla-sources kernel in so many months.

Does this really make sense?  Are there really so many significant amd64 patches to justify using gentoo-sources instead?  The architecture seems actively supported judging by the kernel.org changelogs.

Thanks!

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## didymos

Hmm, good question. Looking at genpatches for 2.6.19, there really isn't anything amd64-specific. There's one patch for the nmi on x86_64, and then some KConfig stuff for vesafb-tng that excludes x86_64. 

All the rest of the patches are either arch agnostic or for i386,etc.  Also, looking at the current git stable branch on kernel.org, these nmi fixes are already part of the tree. Of course, 2.6.19 is unstable anyways, gentoo or vanilla, but it'll be interesting to see if vanilla is marked stable when gentoo is.

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## 96140

I recently revised the Gentoo Kernel Guide according to Daniel Drake's (dsd) request. vanilla-sources has been moved to the "Unsupported kernel packages" section, as it is no longer supported by the Gentoo kernel team.

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## didymos

Ok, just took a look at the 2.6.18 patchset.  Basically, excepting vesafb-tng, all the x86_64 stuff comes from official kernel.org patchsets.  The last patchset for 2.6.18 with amd64 changes was the linux-2.6.18.3.patch, while the current patchlevel is 5.

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## Enverex

So... you're now limited to... ONE kernel if you ever want to report any bugs? This is getting silly. How can the official default Linux kernel be unsupported?! And as stated, the Gentoo patches don't do anything amd64 related anyway.   :Shocked: 

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## 96140

More like the kernel devs aren't going to waste their time fixing issues on kernels that aren't developed by Gentoo. It makes sense when you think about it. Where does development happen for things like ck-sources, vanilla-sources, and git-sources?

That's right. Upstream. Therefore, if you have a problem with 'em, you talk to the developers of 'em.

Also, gentoo-sources isn't the only kernel package officially supported. Don't forget about all the architecture-specific kernels and the server/security kernels.

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## masterdriverz

 *Enverex wrote:*   

> So... you're now limited to... ONE kernel if you ever want to report any bugs?

 

No, you're limited to one kernel if you want to report bugs to Gentoo - our kernel! We only support this kernel because it's the one we have the most control over (eg, sandbox violations etc being fixed in gentoo-sources-2.6.19-r1, but not in vanilla)

 *Quote:*   

>  This is getting silly. How can the official default Linux kernel be unsupported?!

 

It's unsupported by Gentoo because its vanilla-sources - its exactly what upstream provide. We don't modify it in any way. If you want to get a fix from Gentoo in there (upstream), talk to dsd.

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## toofastforyahuh

Not to nitpick too much, because there is always package.mask, but is there a reason why other architectures would get promoted to "stable" and amd64/alpha would lag behind?

At least I would think that, irrespective of official gentoo support, stable packages would still be labelled as such.  Or is there a reason for amd64 folks not to upgrade to 2.6.18 or 2.6.19?

Thanks!

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## 96140

In all honesty, 2.6.19 is a completely crap release from upstream. There are just too many issues with it. At best, it's another repeat of the .13 disaster (or even .15, which in many ways was pretty bad: wireless, framebuffer/nvidia, to name a few). Just take a look around these forums alone for problems with .19. I wouldn't recommend upgrading to it unless there's some absolutely critical bit of new functionality you need. I'd just wait it out until .20, or until some much later .19 revision that actually works.

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## mbar

Seems that the kernel is plagued by "odd number curse" for several revisions now. Maybe .11 was good, but for me also .17 was somewhat crappy.

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## eNTi

odd numbers always meant "development". nothing new here. dev kernels shouldn't be in stable anyways.

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## mbar

Don't use 2.5 vs 2.6 stability "logic" to 2.6.x releases.

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## dsd

the fact that there is so little difference between vanilla-sources and gentoo-sources is sort of the point: this means you have no argument against using gentoo-sources  :Smile: 

think of gentoo-sources being THE gentoo kernel and think of vanilla sources as a developer-oriented package for those rare scenarios when having a *completely* unmodified kernel is useful.

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## 96140

 *dsd wrote:*   

> the fact that there is so little difference between vanilla-sources and gentoo-sources is sort of the point: this means you have no argument against using gentoo-sources 

 

Agreed. gentoo-sources++ . . . though vanilla is a pretty tasty name. Always makes me think of the unmodified kernel in a good way. Mmm, vanilla.  :Wink: 

 *mbar wrote:*   

> [. . .]

 

Oh, I dunno. I quite liked the last couple kernels of 2.6.17 (gentoo-sources, of course); they worked perfectly on my amd64 workstation. I do notice that 2.6.18 has been working very nicely on the workstation, though I understand that C2D processors have been having a rough time with it, regardless of gentoo- or vanilla-sources.

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## thepustule

I had to stop all upgrades on my server and put the kernel at 2.6.18.8 from kernel.org and mask udev at 087-r1 because if I went anything beyond that, I lost vblade, iscsitarget, evms, and I started having random panics also.

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