[openib-general] [ANNOUNCE][PATCH] Backport patch for 2.6.9 kernel

[Grant Grundler]

On Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 03:37:40PM -0700, Bob Woodruff wrote:
...
> Attached is a patch that can be applied to a 2.6.9 kernel
> that contains the same code that is in 2.6.12-rc2-mm3. 

Normally patches shouldn't be compressed - search engines
can't/don't dig through those. And my selfish reason for
complaining is I have to save the patch and manually
uncompress it to look at it.


diff -Naurp linux-2.6.9/Documentation/ioctl-number.txt.rej linux-2.6.9-ib/Docume
ntation/ioctl-number.txt.rej
--- linux-2.6.9/Documentation/ioctl-number.txt.rej      1969-12-31 16:00:00.0000
00000 -0800
+++ linux-2.6.9-ib/Documentation/ioctl-number.txt.rej   2005-04-13 12:18:20.0000
00000 -0700

Is this really a file in the tree?
Or just an artifact that should be removed?

...
> I have done limited testing with IPoIB on 2.6.9 from kernel.org and 
> the RedHat version of 2.6.9 that is in EL4.0 and it seems to 
> work fine.  It was tested on an Itanium tiger2 platform, but the changes
> were small and it should work for all other platforms as well. 

"the changes were small" is not how I would describe an 800k patch.
This "patch" isn't a patch in the traditional sense since most
of the 800k is new (drivers/infiniband). I'm pretty sure you
were referring to changes you made, not counting new code.
But I can't see that since it's all globbed together.

This would be better split up into three patches:
1) add drivers/infiniband (and document which SVN rev you started with)
2) changes to drivers/infiniband to use 2.6.9 services
3) changes to the kernel to support drivers/infiniband

That way we can just update each peice as necessary.

Possible names to call each peice (just ideas, you probably
have better names):
	diff-2.6.9-01-openib_drivers
	diff-2.6.9-02-openib_fixup
	diff-2.6.9-03-ib_kernel_changes

$0.02,
grant