[ltp] Re: Linux kernel instability? (Rant/Panic/Cry-for-help!)

[Richard Neill]

Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> 1. Binary Blobs are bad, and taint the kernel
>> Yes, on my desktop, I do use the nvidia driver, as there is no other way to
>> get dual-head working. However, on the majority of the systems I run, I use
> 
> Last I looked, the `nouveau' driver supports RandR-1.2 just fine.

Thanks for the update. Will give it a go...

> 
>> My T60 thinkpad uses Vesa rather than fglrx. We aren't using WiFi
> 
> Have you found it more reliable than the "radeonhd"?

I spent a long time with it getting very cross about random crashes, 
which I originally attributed to fglrx. Then I swapped to vesa, and 
still got crashes (lockup every few days). BIOS update seems to have 
cured it, but I'm not certain yet. The vesa driver is fine in most 
circumstances, excepting that it doesn't support newer widescreens.

> 
>> As far as I can tell, most of the bugs I've recently hit seem to be related
>> to core parts of the kernel, eg SMP, NFS4, UnionFS, networking rather than
>> to the fancy stuff (suspend, 3d, wifi).
> 
> My department's experience is that NFS4 with Kerberos is still
> seriously buggy.
> 

That is exactly my point.
  Buggy as in "doesn't work at all" is merely annoying because then one 
knows not to use it.
  Buggy as in "works most of the time, so you start to rely on it, but 
it then sometimes crashes the kernel on the server, and multiple 
clients" is imho unacceptable for a feature which is in mainline.

Is there anywhere to find a list of kernel features that are known to be 
"a bit dodgy" despite being present in major distros?


Richard