I am setting up my new webserver (which, incidentally, this post is being written on), and had some trouble with the version of the Linux kernel I was using. I wanted to see whether my problem had been fixed between my kernel version and the current one, but couldn’t find an easy way to do that. User Octayn in ##linux on freenode IRC suggested I use git with tags. A little googling suppiled the right command-line magic.

First, I cloned the linux-stable git:


git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git


Then, after changing into the linux-stable directory, I checked the tag names available:


git tag -l | less


That showed me the formatting of the tags, namely v. So then the command to get the full changelog was:


git log --decorate v3.0.9..v3.0.32


I did find some commits that might have fixed my problem. I upgraded and so far, so good. Only time will tell.

This is here as much for my own reference as it is for yours, but I hope it helps you!