From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.9 required=5.0 tests=AWL,MISSING_HEADERS,SPF_FAIL autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 X-Original-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from mail4-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail4-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.105]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9F1D9BC37 for ; Sat, 5 Sep 2009 14:02:12 +0200 (CEST) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: ApoEAOXvoUpQRFuw/2dsb2JhbADYaIQXBQ X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.44,337,1249250400"; d="scan'208";a="46064055" Received: from furbychan.cocan.org ([80.68.91.176]) by mail4-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/AES256-SHA; 05 Sep 2009 14:02:12 +0200 Received: from rich by furbychan.cocan.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Mjty6-0007R5-R0 for caml-list@yquem.inria.fr; Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:02:10 +0100 Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 13:02:10 +0100 Cc: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Why don't you use batteries? Message-ID: <20090905120210.GB27838@annexia.org> References: <4A9FBF04.1060608@gmail.com> <001901ca2e0d$89f619a0$9de24ce0$@metastack.com> <20090905102230.GB4336@deb.happyleptic.org> <200909051303.29059.jon@ffconsultancy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200909051303.29059.jon@ffconsultancy.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) From: Richard Jones X-Spam: no; 0.00; 0100,:01 distros:01 2009:98 lifespan:98 wrote:01 incompatible:01 caml-list:01 binary:02 binary:02 kernel:02 problem:05 kvm:05 kvm:05 sep:06 linux:07 On Sat, Sep 05, 2009 at 01:03:28PM +0100, Jon Harrop wrote: > Linux is basically a complete disaster in this regard because it > offers so little binary compatibility between distros. You probably want to use a commercial Linux distribution. Red Hat (as an example) *guarantee* perfect binary compatibility for the 7 - 10 year lifespan of a release of RHEL. By guarantee I mean any binary incompatibility is treated as a regression and fixed as a very high priority (just below security issues). We internally run source level tools to try to avoid releasing incompatible ABIs in the first place. > Building upon a decent VM solves this problem and many others, of > course, but Linux has none. Not sure what you mean by this. Linux was the first _PC_[1] OS to incorporate a hypervisor into the kernel (Xen or KVM depending on your interpretation of the words "hypervisor" and/or "incorporate"). With RHEL 6 we'll also be making the same ABI guarantees as above for KVM virtual machines. Rich. [1] VM/CMS and the rest was on mainframes, m'kay? -- Richard Jones Red Hat