This talk covers the current state of the 2.5 Linux kernel, what has happened in the last year, and what is likely to happen next. Topics covered include experiences with forward porting fixes from 2.4, and introduces several tools that make life easier whilst syncing patches between multiple trees. Another topic covered will be the ease/difficulty in feeding patches back into Linus Torvalds main 2.5 branch, including some brief discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of Linus' usage of bitkeeper.

Due to the 'up to the minute' nature of this talk, further details will unfold over the coming months.

After nearly a decade of various computing jobs from data entry clerk to Amiga games programmer at a failed startup, and facing much pressure to "get a real job", I went to university to find out what to do with the rest of my life. I never really figured it out, but discovered Linux somewhere along the way, and have been contributing to a diverse range of projects since, from oprofile to helping out the x86-64 kernel port.