Hi, in the last months, a lot of things have happened with regard to kernel development and packaging. I have been trying in the last weeks to assess these changes' implications on me as a somewhat advanced end-user who is accustomed to building custom kernel .debs from the upstream sources.
Let's summarize what has happened. Please correct me if I have gotten anything wrong: - Herbert has resigned. The Debian kernel is now maintained by a group. - 2.6 Debian kernel sources use dpatch for local patches. This makes it easy to enable/disable single patches. - However, Debian's new policy is to remove non-free parts of the kernel. This can't be done by a patch, but must be done by re-packing the upstream tarball, destroying the "pristine source" approach for the kernels. - Kernel Upstream has basically abandoned the end user by declaring that the 2.6 kernels being released on kernel.org are not the most stable kernels, and that building kernels for use on production systems should be the distribution's job. My basic question is "How do I get a stable kernel by retaining best of all three worlds - Upstream, Debian, and my local requirements". A possible starting point for me would be the upstream kernel sources without the non-free firmware removed. This is necessary since hardware vendors will say "use the lastest driver from the Linux kernel", and I cannot argue against that my distribution had the drivers removed. The good news is that the Debian patch only creates files in debian/, which will make it apply cleanly even to vanilla kernel sources. Is it planned (documented as a committment of the kernel team) that this will stay that way? If yes, one could check out the Debian subdirectory without checking out the "real" kernel, which would greatly help in reducing download volume. Additional good news is that you guys use dpatch to actually change the kernel source. Do I see correctly that for example drivers-net-tg3-readd.dpatch was created because the .orig.tar.gz already had tg3 removed? The patch files themselves don't contain too much information about the character of the patch. Short comments inside the patch files themselves saying "fix local root exploit (CANxxx-yyy)" or "re-add tg3 support which was removed in orig.tar.gz", or "fix 'does not build' type error on $OBSCURE_ARCH" would be very appreciated. There seems to be documentation in README.Debian, but I am not too sure whether that list is current, and I am missing the reference to the patch file. Did I overlook something here? During preparation of this message, a few additional questions have popped up. Are the .svn directories inside kernel-source-2.6.7_2.6.7-4.diff.gz left there intentionally? The Description of kernel-patch-debian-2.6.7 says that it should be applied to a pristine 2.6.7 kernel. Does that still apply now that some drivers have been removed from the pristine kernel sources? IMO, kernel-patch-debian's description should also include some reference that the source package uses dpatch which makes it somewhat easier to choose patch sets. Let me sum up: Debian kernel development has recently made a huge leap forward. There are some questions which I would appreciate having answered, and some docs are missing (I can deliver them if I get my questions answered). The really bad things happening can easily be reverted locally. Please, keep up your excellent work. I would, however, appreciate answers to my questions. Thanks in advance. Greetings Marc -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header Karlsruhe, Germany | lose things." Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 721 966 32 15 Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 721 966 31 29
