with "the system." This text is a collection of suggestions which
can greatly increase the chances of your change being accepted.
-If you are submitting a driver, also read Documentation/SubmittingDrivers.
+Read Documentation/SubmitChecklist for a list of items to check
+before submitting code. If you are submitting a driver, also read
+Documentation/SubmittingDrivers.
Quilt:
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/quilt
-Randy Dunlap's patch scripts:
-http://www.xenotime.net/linux/scripts/patching-scripts-002.tar.gz
-
Andrew Morton's patch scripts:
-http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/patch-scripts-0.20
+http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/
+Instead of these scripts, quilt is the recommended patch management
+tool (see above).
3) Separate your changes.
-Separate each logical change into its own patch.
+Separate _logical changes_ into a single patch file.
For example, if your changes include both bug fixes and performance
enhancements for a single driver, separate those changes into two
complete, that is OK. Simply note "this patch depends on patch X"
in your patch description.
+If you cannot condense your patch set into a smaller set of patches,
+then only post say 15 or so at a time and wait for review and integration.
+
+
4) Select e-mail destination.
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org. Most kernel developers monitor this
e-mail list, and can comment on your changes.
+
+Do not send more than 15 patches at once to the vger mailing lists!!!
+
+
Linus Torvalds is the final arbiter of all changes accepted into the
Linux kernel. His e-mail address is <torvalds@osdl.org>. He gets
a lot of e-mail, so typically you should do your best to -avoid- sending
MAINTAINERS file for a mailing list that relates specifically to
your change.
+Majordomo lists of VGER.KERNEL.ORG at:
+ <http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html>
+
If changes affect userland-kernel interfaces, please send
the MAN-PAGES maintainer (as listed in the MAINTAINERS file)
a man-pages patch, or at least a notification of the change,
copy the maintainer when you change their code.
For small patches you may want to CC the Trivial Patch Monkey
-trivial@rustcorp.com.au set up by Rusty Russell; which collects "trivial"
+trivial@kernel.org managed by Adrian Bunk; which collects "trivial"
patches. Trivial patches must qualify for one of the following rules:
Spelling fixes in documentation
- Spelling fixes which could break grep(1).
+ Spelling fixes which could break grep(1)
Warning fixes (cluttering with useless warnings is bad)
Compilation fixes (only if they are actually correct)
Runtime fixes (only if they actually fix things)
- Removing use of deprecated functions/macros (eg. check_region).
+ Removing use of deprecated functions/macros (eg. check_region)
Contact detail and documentation fixes
Non-portable code replaced by portable code (even in arch-specific,
since people copy, as long as it's trivial)
- Any fix by the author/maintainer of the file. (ie. patch monkey
+ Any fix by the author/maintainer of the file (ie. patch monkey
in re-transmission mode)
-URL: <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/trivial/>
+URL: <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/bunk/trivial/>
you to re-send them using MIME.
+WARNING: Some mailers like Mozilla send your messages with
+---- message header ----
+Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
+---- message header ----
+The problem is that "format=flowed" makes some of the mailers
+on receiving side to replace TABs with spaces and do similar
+changes. Thus the patches from you can look corrupted.
+
+To fix this just make your mozilla defaults/pref/mailnews.js file to look like:
+pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false); // RFC 2646=======
+pref("mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support", true);
+
+
7) E-mail size.
It is quite common for Linus to "drop" your patch without comment.
That's the nature of the system. If he drops your patch, it could be
due to
-* Your patch did not apply cleanly to the latest kernel version
+* Your patch did not apply cleanly to the latest kernel version.
* Your patch was not sufficiently discussed on linux-kernel.
-* A style issue (see section 2),
-* An e-mail formatting issue (re-read this section)
-* A technical problem with your change
-* He gets tons of e-mail, and yours got lost in the shuffle
-* You are being annoying (See Figure 1)
+* A style issue (see section 2).
+* An e-mail formatting issue (re-read this section).
+* A technical problem with your change.
+* He gets tons of e-mail, and yours got lost in the shuffle.
+* You are being annoying.
When in doubt, solicit comments on linux-kernel mailing list.
Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>
+using your real name (sorry, no pseudonyms or anonymous contributions.)
+
Some people also put extra tags at the end. They'll just be ignored for
now, but you can do this to mark internal company procedures or just
point out some special detail about the sign-off.
The canonical patch subject line is:
- Subject: [PATCH 001/123] [<area>:] <explanation>
+ Subject: [PATCH 001/123] subsystem: summary phrase
The canonical patch message body contains the following:
support that - since because the sequence number is zero-padded,
the numerical and alphabetic sort is the same.
-See further details on how to phrase the "<explanation>" in the
-"Subject:" line in Andrew Morton's "The perfect patch", referenced
-below.
+The "subsystem" in the email's Subject should identify which
+area or subsystem of the kernel is being patched.
+
+The "summary phrase" in the email's Subject should concisely
+describe the patch which that email contains. The "summary
+phrase" should not be a filename. Do not use the same "summary
+phrase" for every patch in a whole patch series.
+
+Bear in mind that the "summary phrase" of your email becomes
+a globally-unique identifier for that patch. It propagates
+all the way into the git changelog. The "summary phrase" may
+later be used in developer discussions which refer to the patch.
+People will want to google for the "summary phrase" to read
+discussion regarding that patch.
+
+A couple of example Subjects:
+
+ Subject: [patch 2/5] ext2: improve scalability of bitmap searching
+ Subject: [PATCHv2 001/207] x86: fix eflags tracking
The "from" line must be the very first line in the message body,
and has the form:
and deleted lines per file. A diffstat is especially useful on bigger
patches. Other comments relevant only to the moment or the maintainer,
not suitable for the permanent changelog, should also go here.
+Use diffstat options "-p 1 -w 70" so that filenames are listed from the
+top of the kernel source tree and don't use too much horizontal space
+(easily fit in 80 columns, maybe with some indentation).
See more details on the proper patch format in the following
references.
-13) More references for submitting patches
-
-Andrew Morton, "The perfect patch" (tpp).
- <http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/tpp.txt>
-
-Jeff Garzik, "Linux kernel patch submission format."
- <http://linux.yyz.us/patch-format.html>
-
-Greg KH, "How to piss off a kernel subsystem maintainer"
- <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/03/31/>
-
-Kernel Documentation/CodingStyle
- <http://sosdg.org/~coywolf/lxr/source/Documentation/CodingStyle>
-
-Linus Torvald's mail on the canonical patch format:
- <http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/7/183>
-----------------------------------
Don't try to anticipate nebulous future cases which may or may not
be useful: "Make it as simple as you can, and no simpler."
+
+
+----------------------
+SECTION 3 - REFERENCES
+----------------------
+
+Andrew Morton, "The perfect patch" (tpp).
+ <http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/tpp.txt>
+
+Jeff Garzik, "Linux kernel patch submission format".
+ <http://linux.yyz.us/patch-format.html>
+
+Greg Kroah-Hartman, "How to piss off a kernel subsystem maintainer".
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/03/31/>
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/07/08/>
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/10/19/>
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/2006/01/11/>
+
+NO!!!! No more huge patch bombs to linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org people!
+ <http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=112112749912944&w=2>
+
+Kernel Documentation/CodingStyle:
+ <http://sosdg.org/~coywolf/lxr/source/Documentation/CodingStyle>
+
+Linus Torvalds's mail on the canonical patch format:
+ <http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/7/183>
+--