Linux 3.0

To: debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org

Cc: Debian kernel maintainers <debian-kernel@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Linux 3.0

From: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>

Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 17:52:52 +0100

Message-id: <[🔎] 1306774373.4277.21.camel@localhost>

Mail-followup-to: debian-devel@lists.debian.org

Reply-to: Debian kernel maintainers <debian-kernel@lists.debian.org>

As you may have seen, the next version of the Linux kernel will be 3.0 (or 3.0.0). There is no significant API change; this just shortens the version string and marks the start of the third decade of Linux. The kernel team will not maintain linux-2.6 vs linux-3.0 packages. We will change the binary metapackages whose names include '2.6' into transitional packages, to be removed after 'wheezy', and we may rename the source packages linux-2.6 and linux-latest-2.6. There are likely to be many programs and build scripts that test for a kernel version prefix of '2.6' vs '2.4' and will behave incorrectly when they find '3.0'. Others require that there are at least 3 numeric components in the version string, which may cease to be true. If you suspect that your packages may have such dependencies, please test against Linux 3.0 release candidates when they are uploaded to experimental (which will happen in the next few days). Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.