[alsa-devel] HG vs GIT

[Takashi Iwai]

At Thu, 7 Feb 2008 05:10:27 -0800 (PST),
Trent Piepho wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 7 Feb 2008, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > > I was just wondering about this the other day.. I don't think using
> > > kernel git trees would put anyone off. Anyone working on a sound card
> > > driver would most likely already be familiar with using git w/ the
> > > upstream kernel anyway.
> >
> > Right, if you are a developer, it's fine (and even better).  But, my
> > concern is that the whole linux kernel tree might be too heavy for
> > some casual user who just wants to try the latest version of ALSA
> > driver...  "Download 50MB and use 350MB disk space just for a single
> > fix?  Hell, no!"
> 
> You'll certainly get a lot fewer users of the latest driver code if they
> have to download, compile and install a entire new kernel.  There are
> plenty of people who will install new drivers, but won't even consider
> switching from the kernel their distro came with.

Yep.

> It would also be a huge PITA for developers who work on multiple
> sub-systems.  If I want to make a patch for an alsa driver, I have to
> reboot into an alsa kernel?  I try to go a few months between rebooting.

Hm, what's the problem to pull alsa.git tree to your own working tree?

> The media drivers on linuxtv.org work similar to ALSA, with an Hg
> repository of just the drivers that's designed to build out of the kernel
> tree (and work with multiple kernel versions).  There is an hg-menu
> interface on the server that lets developers create, delete and clone
> repositories.  Each developer has their own set of repositories that they
> own, with Mauro pulling from those into the master repository.  This way
> you can clone repos for branching, and you don't have multiple developers
> commiting directly to the same repository.

Creating developer's repo freely would be great, indeed.


Takashi