> Just pick a bit of code and contribute docs, either to the Linux KHG
> or to comments/document files for the source tree. I'm happy to start
> checking them in and Im sure Linus won't object too much
Although I do believe that well-documented code is useful, one should keep
in mind one danger with the approach suggested above: What happens if some
kind soul contributes documentation for a certain piece of the code, then a
developer comes along and changes the code? The documentation will no
longer match the code and in fact might become completely wrong. And *wrong*
documentation would IMHO be even worse than no documentation. So there
would have to be some way to insure that the documentation would either be
updated or remove when the code gets changed.
Anyway, we are running 2.0.31-pre2 on several machines with no problems so
far:
1) a dual-PPro-200, 256MB, Tyan 1662 motherboard, Adaptec 2940UW (with the
aic7xxx-Jun1 driver), 2 SMC EtherPower 10/100 cards using the de4x5
driver (one running at 10MBit, one at 100MBit). This machine is our
NFS-, DNS- and YP-server for about 20 other machines (3 HPs, the others
PCs running Linux). It is also our web server. It's been up ever since
we installed the second networking card.
2) several single-PPro-200, 128MB, same Tyan board as above, IDE hard disk,
SMC EtherPower 10/100.
One machine with the same configuration as (2) has been running 2.0.30 for
55 days, another 2.0.29 for 47 days. All these machines are often used for
long numerical calculations and at the same time for interactive work under
X.
At home, I'm also using 2.0.31-pre2 on a dual-Pentium-100 (Tyan Tomcat II)
with Adaptec 2940U (also with aic7xxx-Jun1), NE2000, Teles 16.3 ISDN (not
tested in this computer yet, but the module compiled and installed), and on
a P100 (ASUS board) with IDE disks and NE2000.
So, for many configurations, the existing 2.0.x kernels are very stable,
and I am very grateful to the developers for the great job they have done
and are still doing on 2.0.x. I wish I had more time to give something back
to the Linux community (or the free software community in general).
Achim
-- Achim Oppelt, Schwedenstr. 25, D-91080 Spardorf, Germany aoppelt@theorie3.physik.uni-erlangen.de Tel: +49 9131 85-8816 Tel (private): +49 9131 503693 Fax: +49 9131 503690