[linux-dvb] Re: Status of dvb-kernel vs DVB?

[Holger Waechtler <holger@convergence.de>]

Ragnar Sundblad wrote:
> --On den 9 januari 2003 16:38 +0100 Holger Waechtler 
> <holger@convergence.de> wrote:
>
> > > Which driver version should I be using now?
> >
> > current CVS head, module DVB/ if you want to watch TV, module dvb-kernel/
> > if you want to join development.
>
> What is the status of dvb-kernel really? Is it close to on par
> with DVB-head?
We want to make a release of the DVB-tree next time. This new release 
wilol include the Linklayer firmware Klaus is testing these days and it 
will be the last standalone driver release.

dvb-kernel is the source we use to generate patchsets for the 2.5 kernel 
tree. Here we are doing fundamental changes like Michael's saa7146 
driver rewrite. Next time Florian wants to improve the software 
demultiplexer so that it supports multiple feeds on the same PID. And we 
think about some minor API extensions to allow mmap'd demux ringbuffer 
in order to avoid kernel/userspace copies.


> Are bug fixes and new features going into both trees or how
> does this work work?
New features which might introduce instabilities should be applied only 
to dvb-kernel. The driver in DVB/ should only get stabilized.


> I'd like to both have a totally stable system _and_ work with the
> driver when I can :-). In my experience, the head DVB driver hasn't
> been totally glitch free either, but if I am going to work on a
> bug it seems stupid to put the efforts on a driver that is doomed.
Bugfixes should always get applied to both trees. When changes are 
pretty fundamental then we will apply them first in dvb-kernel and maybe 
we will backport them later to the DVB-tree


> On the other hand I don't really want to use a development driver
> that has lots of bugs or shortcomings for daily use.
>
> I'd be happy if someone could clearify and maybe give us a
> dvb-kernel status update.
>
> In addition, is there any need for using kernel > 2.4.18 for
> the DVB driver or the 2.4-compat dvb-kernel driver?
> Is there any good reason for using a 2.5 kernel for dvb-kernel
> and not use the 2.4-compat stuff?
Basically it should be possible to build the driver against all (or 
most) 2.4 and 2.5 kernels, but I'm not too sure about this because we 
did not tested this for a while and Michael purged some stuff from 
compat.[hc]. So if you get in troubles while building the driver for a 
particular kernel version please report and prepare a patch.

Holger



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