The Linux 6.10 kernel is currently in the candidate development stage. In an email list about DRM graphics driver update patches, Linus Torvalds called himself a faithful follower of "dogfooding" 。
"Dogfooding" is an English slang, which is a short name for "Eating your own dog food" (literally translated as "Eat your own dog food" ）, often used to describe the use of products produced by companies (especially software companies).
In the process of software development, dogfooding enables developers to test their company's products in real scenarios, so that project managers can have a better understanding of how the products will be used before product release.
Dogfooding has a variety of ways, such as building branches, building personal builds, and conducting personal tests directly. These methods can help developers conduct feasibility tests before integrating changes into daily builds, thus making builds more stable, and avoiding possible inconsistency and dependency problems, Especially when many developers (or development teams) participate in the development of the same product.
For Linus, "eating kernel dog food" will undoubtedly help him personally experience the problems users may encounter, investigate bug reports in a timely manner, and ensure that the passed code works as expected. In addition, it is also helpful to find unexpected problems in the code and improve the stability and quality of the kernel.
Linus has always insisted on "dogfooding". Even during the busy merge window, he will still build his own kernel - and then AMD development machine Run the latest Linux kernel code on the. Of course, he doesn't restart the machine every time he pulls new code, usually every day.
From https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wizH1b8vv67xVSoSHqp5B=dNsqtpP + 86RM7G5z14nuRHw@mail.gmail.com /
You should know that a lot of new code (and bugs) will be introduced during the merge window, so you can imagine how much work the Don has to do. However, in order to comprehensively test the kernel changes, Linus did not relax because of this. It is really a model for our programmers!
