Hello Adam, hello everyone. As promised on IRC, I have worked on a useable solution for using the 2.4 kernels in our current boot floppies and I think I have one.
Arguments first: we should allways trade-off between stability and actuality of Debian components. Currently we do not know how long the freeze will take so nobody wants to make big jumps. So I did not want to make big changes on the current boot floppies, and decided to create a bf2.4 flavor parallel to the current ones (except of reiser and udma100-ext3). Currently, I see a timing problem in the release cycles of Linux kernels and Debian Woody. While we are trying to make Woody stable, more and more time passes. The kernel intended for Woody on i386 (the most used arch) is 2.2.20. Please note that this generation is tested and known to be stable, though it is missing important features that cannot be fully backported from 2.4.x. Also note that the main development of the 2.4 branch is stopped and only bugfixes and important updates are done there. I do no longer expect buggy releases. Now it is becoming stable while the old generation has more and more upcoming compatibility problems. This, and the fact that kernel 2.4.x has been tested by other distributions for more than one year, should show that it is ready for Debian, even on the i386 architecture. Don't forget that the freeze can take some months. In this time, we make a good test of 2.4using boot floppies. Some pros: - better behaviour on modern hardware - better performance - new filesystems - no 1M size limit. With 2.2.x, we currently waste about 300KiB on the first disk due to this limitation. Contras: - see above. Someone may say, 2.4.x is less stable. But before judjing this way, first check whether such statement are based on the quality of old kernel components or on problems in the new (optional) components which have never existed in 2.2.x so you naturally cannot face the particular problem there. What, if we wont change to 2.4: - You won't be able to install Debian on modern hw. You won't be able to use modern NICs, modern IDE controllers (read: no harddisk access), etc. Though IDE patch is available for 2.2.x, it is buggy (reported to hang on HD detection with new chipsets) and not frequently updated. Same for other patches. We can add new. wheels to the old car, or just take the modern one. - You wont be able to install on modern Reiserfs format, while the old (in 2.2) is reported to be buggy. - You will cause unneded headaches for many users because of poor hardware detection functions in 2.4.x. For example, take a typical ISA souncard and a popular BT TV card. You will have to do lots of RTFM to configure them with 2.2.x, while the autoconfiguration works fine in 2.4.x so the devices are ready just after modconf'ing the module. - We would loose our good image. Kernel 2.2 is seen as absolete by most people todays. Imagine, Woody+1 will be released in 1.5-2 years. Then most distributions are using stable and prooved 2.4.22 or so, while this odd software museum called Debian is sticked to 2.2.something from middle ages. Realisation: I know, our official kernel-image-2.4 packages created by Herbert Xu are using initrd and are not supposed to replace 2.2 without additional configuration. This should not be changed, so we should create some versions with essential drivers built-in, as done in 2.2.x packages. In summer 2001, I have created a set of boot floppies based on 2.4.9 and the config of kernel-image-2.2.19. I did not receive any bug reports related to the kernel version. So I suggest to create this flavor: * "bf2.4" with kernel-image-2.4.17-bf2.4. This package is created by me with following assumptions: - merged from current vanilla, udma100-ext3 and reiserfs - have at least the same drivers as reiserfs flavor - be at most as big as udma100-ext3 - with framebuffer and i18n I think I managed it (*). IMHO, now we can replace the udma100-ext3 and reiserfs flavor with the new bf2.4. Some people may dislike the removal of this flavors, but see it possitive: 2.4 supports newer (more stable!) drivers of the new filesystems and we can keep the installation kernels without many patches. So what do you think? IMHO most users will agree. (*) The source files, kernel and a test build can be downloaded soon from people.debian.org/~blade/bf2.4/ Gruss/Regards, Eduard. -- *** SignOff sbeyer: #debian.de (f**ken und haare waschen) <Y_Plentyn> hm. warum forkt er vorm haare waschen? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
