How bleeding edge are people with kernels (Was Re: [Beowulf] impressions of Super Micro IPMI management cards?)

[stephen mulcahy]

Chris Samuel wrote:
> But as soon as we went to the mainline kernel (started at 2.6.22.3, 
> currently at 2.6.23.1) those problems went away.

Hi,

This prompted me to wonder how close to the bleeding edge people in
clusterland are living with regard to Linux kernel versions?

We've Debian stable deployed on our main customer's cluster and I'm
inclined to run with their latest stable kernel (a flavour of 2.6.18
with some patches at the moment) rather than going with the latest
kernel.org release.

My understanding is that the "stable" kernel in 2.6 isn't quite the
stable kernel we had in 2.4 (with commensurate pros and cons to that
arrangement).

If people are on the bleeding edge, how well do you hammer on a kernel
before rolling it into production? In terms of cost-benefit, I think
we're better off where we are at the moment, just curious where others are.

Thanks,

-stephen

-- 
Stephen Mulcahy, Applepie Solutions Ltd., Innovation in Business Center,
GMIT, Dublin Rd, Galway, Ireland.  +353.91.751262  http://www.aplpi.com
Registered in Ireland, no. 289353 (5 Woodlands Avenue, Renmore, Galway)