RISC-V for-next/fixes (cont'd from PW sync)

[Alexandre Ghiti]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 9:32 PM Conor Dooley <conor at kernel.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 08:57:50PM +0100, Björn Töpel wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I figured I'd put some words on the "how to update the RISC-V
> > for-next/fixes branches [1]" that came up on the patchwork call today.
> >
> > In RISC-V land, the for-next branch is used for features, and typically
> > sent as a couple of PRs to Linus when the merge window is open. The
> > fixes branch is sent as PR(s) between the RCs of a release.
> >
> > Today, the baseline for for-next/fixes is the CURRENT_RELEASE-rc1, and
> > features/fixes are based on that.
> >
> > This has IMO a couple of issues:
> >
> > 1. fixes is missing the non-RISC-V fixes from releases later than
> >    -rc1, which makes it harder for contributors.

The syzbot report [1] requires fixes in mm [2], if we don't update
fixes on top of the latest -rcX, we'll keep hitting this bug, so
rebasing -fixes on top of the latest -rcX is necessary to me.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-riscv/00000000000070a2660614b83885@google.com/T/#t
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20240326063036.6242-1-osalvador@suse.de/

> > 2. for-next does not have the fixes from RISC-V/rest of the kernel,
> >    and it's hard for contributors to test the work on for-next (buggy,
> >    no fixes, and sometime missing deps).
> >
> > I used to spend a whole lot of mine time in the netdev tree of the
> > kernel, and this is how they manage it (Thanks Kuba!):
> >
> > Netdev (here exchanged to RISC-V trees), fast-forward fixes, and then
> > cross-merge fixes into for-next -- for every -rc.
> >
> > E.g., say fixes is submitted for -rc2 to Linus, once he pulls, do:
> >
> >   git push --delete origin $SOMETAG
> >   git tag -d $SOMETAG
> >   git pull --ff-only --tags git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
> >   build / test / push out.
> >
> > Then pull fixes into for-next:
> >
> >   git pull --tags git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/riscv/linux.git fixes
> >
> >
> > Personally (obviously biased), I think this would be easier for
> > contributors. Any downsides from a RISC-V perspective?
>
> After you left, Palmer said he'd go for merging his fixes tag into
> for-next after they got merged by Linus. At least I think it was that,
> rather than Linus' -rcs...