On 10/30/2011 03:02 PM, Akemi Yagi wrote:
 > On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 2:00 PM, Alan Bartlett<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 >> On 30 October 2011 17:55, Stephen Isard<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 >>> I have an RCA VR5320 digital voice recorder. It has a usb connector,
 >>> but
 >>> isn't recognized by SL 5.6.
 >>
 >> <snip>
 >>kernel-ml is not for
  production use
 >>> I don't want to get into a position of maintaining my own kernel. I'd
 >>> rather wait until I catch up with 2.6.32 and impose on friends with
 >>> newer
 >>> kernels or windows machines in the meantime.
 >>
 >> Hi Stephen,
 >>
 >> You will have a very long wait. The SL 5.x kernels will remain to be
 >> based on 2.6.18 until EOL. ;) That is how TUV maintain a stable kernel
 >> ABI for the life of EL5.
 >>
 >> If you would like to have a SL kernel based on 2.6.32, please install
 >> SL 6.x :)
 >>
 >> Regards,
  Alan.
 >
 > I was rather surprised that Alan did not mention ELRepo's kernel-ml. :-O
 >
 > kernel-ml-2.6.35 does have the patch referenced here:
 >
 > https://lkml.org/lkml/2010/11/19/609
 >
 > I should also note that kernel-ml is not for production use but it's
 > been quite stable and Alan has been doing a good job of keeping it up
 > to date. :-)
 >
 > http://elrepo.org/tiki/kernel-ml
 >
 > Akemi

NB: In response to Akemi Yagi, I have removed any commentary or 
questions that are not pure technology -- no scientific, or fundamental 
engineering questions, including any relation to the ACM Code of Ethics 
or other societal relevance; pure technology discussions seem to be the 
only thing allowed on this list.  The following post is pure technology. 
  In the future, I will not be baited by responses, nor will I address 
any issue on this list other than technology.

I have done a search for "production" on http://elrepo.org/tiki/FAQ, 
with one result:

2. What is the advantage of a kABI-tracking kmod over a DKMS enabled driver
Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) is another packaging method for 
delivering automatic 3rd party kernel driver updates. The main 
disadvantage of DKMS for Enterprise Linux is that the driver is 
automatically recompiled (by the DKMS utility) for each new kernel 
meaning that the system must contain the appropriate development 
packages and compiler, something that is not always desirable on a 
production Enterprise Linux system.


  Is the above all you mean by "kernel-ml is not for
  production use" in reference to kernel 2.6.35?  If so, can 
kABI-tracking kmod be disabled, using only the stable production 
upstream vendor methods?

   From URL: http://www.kernel.org/ as of 31 Oct 2011:

  stable: 3.0.4 2011-08-29
  stable: 2.6.39.4 2011-08-03
  stable: 2.6.38.8 2011-06-03
  stable: 2.6.37.6 2011-03-27
  longterm: 2.6.35.14 2011-08-01
  longterm: 2.6.34.10 2011-06-26
  longterm: 2.6.33.19 2011-08-29
  longterm: 2.6.32.46 2011-08-29
  longterm: 2.6.27.59 2011-04-30

  Based upon the above, 2.6.35 appears to in the longterm (long in the
tooth?) stable branch. Is the "not for production use" in reference to
  not having the upstream vendor binary interface for EL 5 or something 
else?

  Yasha Karant