Linux Kernel Gets Fully Automated Test 159
An anonymous reader writes "The Linux Kernel is now getting automatically tested within 15 minutes of a new version being released, across a variety of hardware and the results are being published for all to see. Martin Bligh
announced this yesterday, running on top of IBM's internal test automation system. Maybe this will enable the kernel developers to keep up with the 2.6 kernel's rapid pace of change. Looks like it caught one new problem with last night's build already ..."
Within 15 Minutes? WTF (Score:1, Insightful)
Would be much better to test it BEFORE a new version is being released, otherwise this is completely useless...
This is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Sound issues? Older network and SCSI cards? There are a lot of drivers that break, and no one notices it because there is nobody with the hardware testing the -rc or -mm kernels.
Wouldn't it make more sense to package these tools for someone to install on their collection of oddball equipment, and assist in the debugging/testing?
Where's the ARM, MIPS, and SH?
Re:Why has it taken so long? (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Presumably... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kjella
Re:Why has it taken so long? (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Within 15 Minutes? WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
Taking this into account, I believe this is meant to catch bugs mainly in nightly (unstable) builds and release candidates, not in "final" versions (those should, at least in theory, have no serious bugs left around as the latter have already been eradicated from release candidates).
Re:This is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Automated tests are not intended to catch everything or test strange permutations of pre-conditions. There purpose is to provide a mechanism for verifying that a build satisfies the basic requirements of the project.
More exotic configs need to be tested manually as usual but automated tests can provide a "failsafe" just in case a basic part of the build is broken.
Re:now all we need is automated.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:now all we need is automated.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Furthermore, it prevents regressions (Score:4, Insightful)
An automated test for B will catch regressions caused by my fix in A, making it harder to backslide. Backsliding is very expensive because bugs are far removed from their cause. If an automated test sees that changes in A caused a regression in B, the cause is immediately obvious.
Re:Within 15 Minutes? WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
If everyone did this, the newest kernels would never get tested. I think it is important that we have a diverse range of users using new, almost new, and older but well tested kernels.
Re:Presumably... (Score:3, Insightful)
The first 90% takes 10% of the time.
The last 10% takes 90% of the time.
I expect one could substitute "money", "labor", "effort" for "time" in the above.
Bob-
Re:now all we need is automated.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're going to used fixed-length buffers, though, at least use sNprintf!
Re:Well, this time I am really unhappy! (Score:2, Insightful)
Testing a product to make it better doesn't mean the product is bad to start with. Some code has higher aspirations than that.