[CentOS-devel] CentOS Plus: Valuable or wasted resource?

Thu Sep 10 16:11:45 UTC 2009
Akemi Yagi <amyagi at gmail.com>

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 7:59 AM, Tim Verhoeven
<tim.verhoeven.be at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Ross Walker <rswwalker at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is CentOS Plus really necessary?
>>
>> The reason I ask is it seems it is there to provide additional kernel
>> modules not included in the base repo that could be added to 'extras'
>> as kmods.
>> Let outside repos provide custom kernels.

> First, the CentOSPlus is more then just the modified kernel. Stuff
> like the RHWAS stuff will also end up in CentOSPlus when its released.
> It is basically a place where we put all things that conflict with the
> things in the base OS repo.

Yes. I'm sure Ross meant just the centosplus kernel, not the
centosplus repository.

> Secondly, the kernel itself is maintained by Akemi who is also part of
> the Elrepo team that builds kmods. So you can choose between
> installing kmod or using the centosplus kernel. And there are thing
> done in the centosplus kernel that can't be done using kmods. But I
> will let Akemi fill in the details.

I have been helping with the maintenance of centosplus kernels for
about a year. And yes, I am involved in the ELRepo project as well (I
must admit that most of crucial works are the results of other
members' contributions).

[OT] Just to defend myself ... I supply the src.rpm for the cplus
kernel usually within 24 hours for each kernel update. "is always
behind" may be a bit misleading ... :-)  [/OT]

As Tim mentioned, enabling certain options for additional device
support is not the only thing cplus kernels offer.  There are patches
that are applied which cannot be done in the distro kernels.  For
example, there are currently 4 patches in the cplus kernel. Two of
them will be in the upcoming CentOS 5.4.

I think that many, if not all, of the kernel drivers enabled in the
cplus kernel can / will be replaced by kABI-tracking kmods.  In fact,
Alan Bartlett made a list of such modules some time ago.  At this
moment, kmods for ntfs, ufs, jfs, reiserfs, and video4linux are
available from ELRepo.

> So, the same person doing the CentOSPlus kernel is also doing kmods.
> There is no waist of resources :-)

Indeed, my _waist_ is just fine.  :-P

Akemi