d-i is at the point where we can run the installer under a 2.6 kernel and do successful installs, at least some of the time, on i386. This will probably be important for certian hardware that is not well supported by 2.4.
I think the thing to do, at least on full debian CDs will be to do as we
did with 2.4 for sarge, and use isolinux to have an alternate boot
method for 2.6 ("linux26"). We're producing only isolinux initrd images
for 2.6 so far (haven't squeezed it onto a 2.88 mb el-torito floppy
yet). We could also have 2.6 as default on some cd other than #1.
Anyway, I'm concerned that this will probably not fit on a netinst iso
image. The current netinst iso is 106 mb (that includes the existing
2.6.5 kernel udebs; it's under 200 mb without them). To add full 2.6
support, we would need to add a vmlinux file and an initrd for the 2.6
kernel (3.9 mb), plus the kernel-image.deb (14 mb). That would increase
the netinst iso to 124 mb in size.
One of the size constraints on this image is the size of a 128 mb usb
memory stick, as the image is put on there to make a bootable d-i memory
stick. Sticks advertised as 128 mb are really 123 mb or so, so the
netinst iso would already be too big if the 2.6 kernel were added to it.
Plus the memory stick needs a large (3 mb) initrd and a kernel to boot,
putting it well over.
There are not a lot of areas to cut on the netinst isos. The 3 mb
installation manual is about the only thing we could drop, and it's not
enough.
Anyway, maybe it doesn't make sense to combine 2.6 and 2.4 kernels on a
netinst iso -- these isos are meant to be small and minimal download
time, and why download a kernel you won't need? Would it be ok to
produce two sets of businesscard and netinst isos, one with 2.4 and one
with 2.6?
--
see shy jo
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