Hi, Half-way between the sarge release and the etch freeze the Debian kernel team takes a look back at what already happened after the sarge release and what you should expect for etch. linux-2.6 ~~~~~~~~~ As of 2.6, we have a unified source package from which kernel images and headers for every architecture are built. This change to a unified package since the linux-2.6.12 release makes it easier to keep up with upstream. We expect that it will also allow much easier security builds for etch. All Debian architectures are supported in 2.6, with mips/mipsel joining with the release of 2.6.16. The most user visible change is that kernel-image-2.6-$flavour has been renamed to linux-image-2.6-$flavour. We provide transition packages using the old naming scheme to allow upgrades from sarge. As mentioned above, we are tracking upstream closely. Usually, the latest upstream release reaches unstable almost on the day of its release. Experimental acts as staging area, where the -rcX kernels are built. If you want to be on the cutting edge, Bastian Blank provides daily builds out of the debian-kernel repository [1]. There has been lots of excitement around the x86 SMP alternatives patch, which would allow to reduce the current number of flavors. SMP hardware would just be a special case of hotplug CPUs. The uniprocessor flavors would also support SMP and the SMP ones could be dropped. On the feature side there is work going on to add VServer, Xen and UML flavors to linux-2.6. Most legacy Debian specific patches have been cleared, the bulk of the current patchset is arch specific. 2.6 arch support is growing from release to release, so those patchsets should be of no concern. 2.6 Linux features initramfs, which contains the boot-relevant drivers. Currently there are two different supported tools for generating the initramfs: initramfs-tools and yaird. initramfs-tools allows a more generic boot image by design and thus is the default. See for details [2]. Bug reporting ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Since newer kernels still fix more bugs than they create we encourage testing of latest -rcX kernels in experimental. If the bug you are seeing is fixed in them there is no need to open a bug report against previous 2.6 as we will rebase every new upstream release. If your bug is reproducible in the latest -rcX use reportbug and don't forget to add the relevant details like latest known good (full dmesg, lspci, ..). This will allow upstream to be made aware of regressions. If you have an old open bug against an earlier 2.6 revision please test against the latest version and provide feedback of your findings. Security ~~~~~~~~ Dann Frazier, Simon Horman, and Moritz Muehlenhoff are doing a marvelous job in scanning and testing all CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures, a unique ID for security issues) which get issued against the Linux kernel. The second round of the sarge Debian kernel is prepared [3] and has been submitted to the stable security team. You won't believe it, but there is even a round for woody prepared [4]. End of line ~~~~~~~~~~~ linux-2.4 is officially deprecated. After having several releases where your Linux kernel choice was as wide as stretching between 2.2 - 2.6 it is finally time to concentrate on 2.6 only. Currently Simon Horman does a bulk of linux-2.4 upstream security support and testing against latest CVEs. Almost no other vendor provides 2.4 security support and it is unreasonable to even think about that burden in the etch time frame. As of linux-2.6.12 the i386 flavor and support has been dropped and the 386 flavor got renamed to 486. Sarge has no official 386 support, although it should mostly work there. Documentation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Debian Linux kernel handbook [5] contains lots of information about the Debian Linux kernel packages, recommended procedures, and other Debian-specific kernel-related information. There you'll also find some practical chapters like "Filing a bug against a kernel package". The kernel-handbook is currently a "work in progress", so any contributions, suggestions and corrections are very welcome. They should be submitted to the kernel-handbook mailing list [6]. Cheers, Bastian Blank -- Debian Kernel Team [1] deb http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/debian-kernel trunk main [2] http://wiki.debian.org/InitrdReplacementOptions [3] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernelSargeUpdateStatus [4] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernelWoodyUpdateStatus [5] http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ [6] kernel-handbook-general@lists.alioth.debian.org
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature