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Features Interview

An interview with the Kernel Manager Juggling Jackalopes One day before the official release of Ubuntu’s “Jaunty Jackalope,” magazine interviewed Ubuntu’s Kernel Manager, Pete Graner. Pete explains how a kernel grows into a Jaunty Jackalope and looks toward the next release of Ubuntu. By Joe Casad

the offices. We work via Public IRC channels and mailing lists, and of course phone calls when needed. The kernel team is broken down into 14 members, including myself. We are broken down into three focus areas. Sta- ble Maintenance is responsible for our fielded supported releases, which in- clude doing security updates and bug fixes. New Distro Development is stabi- lizing the kernel for the next develop- ment release, identifying and patching regressions from the previous releases, and distribution feature integration. Hardware Enablement is where we work with our partners, like Dell and HP, to Figure 1: Pete Graner (Ubuntu Kernel Manager), Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu Founder), and make sure Ubuntu works with selected (Ubuntu Community Manager) celebrating at the April 23rd Jaunty Release hardware models. Party in London. Ubuntu has a large community and during a development cycle we have hat does a busy, globe-trotting while I was in the US Army as part of a public releases, so we don’t really “Beta” Ubuntu Kernel Manager do Rapid Prototyping Project in about 1994. test in the traditional sense. We begin Wone day before Jaunty Jacka- At the time, everything was Sun OS- testing at our very first development re- lope hops out onto the world stage as based and we needed a lightweight, por- lease – called Alpha 1 – through our Beta the latest Ubuntu release? He tells table computer that could be used in release and into the Release Candidate Ubuntu User how the kernel team flight, then jumped via parachute into (RC). works, how the community contributes, the target area. The contractor selected We are always testing. The time be- and what the future looks like for the (Slackware) and i386 notebooks. tween the releases is two weeks, so our user-friendly Ubuntu. users/​testers are always getting new Q I get email from Ubuntu developers software through a rolling stream of Q How long have you been with the all over the world. How does develop- fixes. Ubuntu team, and how did you get in- ment work? And I know a lot of volun- volved with Ubuntu? What is your back- teers are excited about Ubuntu. When it Q So Ubuntu is Linux. People are gen- ground? comes to kernel development, do you erally aware that you get your code from work directly with beta testers in the the venerable Linux community project A I’ve been with Ubuntu just about a community? known as . Does the kernel come year. This was my second Ubuntu re- from Debian? Or do you work directly lease. Prior to that, I worked at Red Hat A For the most part, we are one virtual with the project? in various capacities, which include on- team. The team is made up of two site SELinux Engineer at the National halves: engineers and com- A The kernel does not come from De- Security Agency (NSA) – I managed the munity volunteers. bian due to the need to select a kernel Level 3 Support team – and my last po- About 95 percent of the Canonical en- version that will provide Ubuntu with sition was the Base gineers are remote employees – that is, the features it needs. Engineering Manger for Red Hat Enter- we all work from home. Canonical has a We have many cases where we will prise Linux, and by extension, Fedora. I few offices – London, Boston, and Taipei need a newer kernel due to our hard- started using and developing in Linux – but for the most part, we don’t work in ware enablement goals or particular fea-

20 ISSUE 01 Ubuntu User Interview Features

tures that can’t easily be back-ported to A Most end users should never even Q What’s up ahead? Are you already an older kernel. know the kernel is there. We try to pick working on the next release? Can you At the Ubuntu Developer Summit the right kernel configs and driver de- give us a hint about what the emphasis (UDS), we make the decision on what faults so that the user’s experience is a will be? kernel version we will use based on the good one. feedback we receive from the other de- We receive feedback all the time A We’ve been working hard on reduc- velopment teams. So, for example, at the about what hardware does or does not ing the amount of non-upstream code Jaunty UDS we decided on 2.6.28. At work and where we can find drivers if that we ship and have been investing that point, we import the kernel from the they exist for new hardware, so I would time and energy into making upstream upstream Linux kernel and we begin to say feedback isn’t an issue. We try to vanilla kernel builds available for inter- track the development there. This allows provide the best hardware support pos- ested users. We have opened the 2.6.30 us to provide the current upstream de- sible. The feedback is discussed on our kernel tree and are doing the usual patch velopment testing and, in the best case, public mailing list and, depending on scrub and trying to eliminate as many bug fixes. what it is, we may implement it in the out-of-tree patches as possible. And next kernel update or it might get de- smoke testing. We won’t really start de- Q Do you start with specific goals for ferred to UDS, where we need a broader velopment in earnest until after the ker- each release? If so, where do the goals discussion. nel version is selected at UDS. Until come from? Do you all sit down together then, it’s all prep work and things that and talk about a vision? Q I know there is a vision to bring are kernel-version independent. Ubuntu into the server and corporate en- For 9.10, we have a large number of A Before each release we hold a meet- vironment. Can you talk a little about re- items on the plate. We will be looking at ing where we get all the Canonical engi- cent work on that path? the 2.6.30 or .31 kernel. Some of the neers, community developers, and inter- items for discussion at UDS will be mov- ested parties together and discuss what A I would have to say Ubuntu Server ing off of grub to grub2 for boot loading, the needs are. This is called UDS has moved out of the vision phase. Also, improving power management, improv- (Ubuntu Developers Summit). The ses- I’d like to caveat this by saying I’m not ing Suspend/​Resume/​Hibernate, en- sions at UDS are normally at the individ- tied deeply into the server team plans. crypted swapfiles, improving WiFi and ual development team level, except With that said, Ubuntu Server is a very 3G support, and much, much more. n when you have things that cross subsys- solid product, deployed in numerous en- tems in Ubuntu. The goals and features vironments today. INFO with working plans come out of this As far as recent work, much of the [1] Ubuntu development: https://wiki. meeting. This year’s UDS is being held focus has been on making the default ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment in Barcelona, Spain, during the week of server applications come out of the box [2] Ubuntu testing: May 25-29. with sane defaults for the average use https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing case. Q How does the process work? Can you walk us through the time line of an average release cycle?

A We develop to a 6-month-time- based release, with a release every April and October. Once we start active devel- opment, we have Alpha, Beta, and RC releases every two weeks. So it would look like: (Alpha) Release Candidate 1 (RC1), UDS, then RC2, RC3, RC4, RC5, RC6, Beta, RC, Final Release. This of course means we have numer- ous milestones we have to meet in the cycle. You can view the 9.10 Karmic Koala schedule online (https://​­wiki.​ ­ubuntu.​­com/KarmicReleaseSchedule​­ ).

Q Ubuntu has a reputation for focus- ing on the end user – making Linux seamless and accessible to the beginner. How do you solicit feedback from users? And how to you integrate that feedback into the kernel?

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