Re: [PATCH] selftests/mm: Fix soft-dirty kselftest supported check

[Lorenzo Stoakes (Oracle)]

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 10:52:24AM +0000, Lorenzo Stoakes (Oracle) wrote:
> Audra - to be clear this is discussion about mm process not your patch
> specifically.
>
> OK again I'm starting to think we just shouldn't support fix-patches at all any
> more.
>
> This is an example  of a change being done in a fix-patch that's _really_
> causing issues.
>
> Because this has now caused mayhem in mm-unstable and the 'kinda stable-ish'
> branch now won't compile any self tests.
>
> The fix in [0] on Chris Down's test series was for too many args to this
> function (the patch changing this should have been rebased on mm-unstable and
> changed Chris's caller there).
>
> But now since this patch above ^ got yanked, that 'fix' has stayed in place and
> now no mm self tests compile.
>
> And now we see [1], hilariously.
>
> [0]:https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20260320195751.5b08b3e32ca835c3451d7bcd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
> [1]:https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/202603271115.uE9vpppi-lkp@xxxxxxxxx/
>
> This kind of massive levels of confusion and 'I am just trying to run some self
> tests on what-should-be-for-next' is just not helpful...
>
> I think we need a for-next branch that actually consists of stuff we genuinely
> mean to take (i.e. review has settled) instead of 'literally everything because
> we move stuff from mm-new unconditionally'.
>
> Anyway we should revert the fix in [0] because it's broken now.
>
> Cheers, Lorenzo

BTW, even _at_ the fix-patch commit hash (28edd9c5a25c) the test builds fail.

So I wonder if it might be good to at least do build checks of the kernel and
also tests (tools/testing/selftests/mm and tools/testing/vma) before applying a
patch?

As that would have caught this right away. Breaking the build should be
considered a no-no.

Cheers, Lorenzo