kernel version incorporating a particular feature

[Matt Schulte]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 7:59 AM, Jeff Kirsher <tarbal at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/12/2011 05:12 AM, amit mehta wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 4:46 PM, Jeff Kirsher <tarbal at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 10/12/2011 02:17 AM, amit mehta wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 2:20 PM, rohan puri <rohan.puri15 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 2:14 PM, amit mehta <gmate.amit at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> How do i find the linux kernel version from which a certain
>>>>>> feature was first incorporated. For example , How do i find the
>>>>>> first kernel version which had support for
>>>>>> GRO (generic receive offload) ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Amit
>>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Amit,
>>>>>
>>>>> Kernel version is 2.6.29 refer http://lwn.net/Articles/358910/
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Rohan Puri
>>>>>
>>>> Thanks Rohan, But still there should be some information in a changelog
>>>> for each kernel release somewhere. Currently looking for such information
>>>> in Linus's tree(https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/),
>>>> but it seems like getting such kind of information is quite engaging.
>>>>
>>>> - Amit
>>>>
>>> You can always use a LXR to find when a feature was first incorporated.
>>> Here is a link to just one of the several LXR available:
>>> http://lxr.free-electrons.com/
>>>
>> You mean to say browse the code, no changelog or something ?
>>
>> -Amit
>>
>>
>
> Well I was not thinking of browsing the code, because that would take a
> long time.  But I was thinking of an identifier search which is much
> faster and you can cover several kernel versions in a lot less time than
> it would take to read a changelog of every release looking for a
> feature.
>

I have recently had to track down several additions and changes to the
kernel that broke my drivers.  Short of randomly googling to find the
answer Jeff is right, using one of the LXR sites seems to be just
about the only way to figure out where the change happened while also
keeping your sanity.

If there is a better way I would love to know.

Matt Schulte