Re: what is the whole purpose of kernel-image-di?
Ben Collins wrote:
>
> I'm sitting here looking at an obvious build failure for
> kernel-image-di on the sparc buildd, and I'm wondering what the heck
> this package is for anyway. I mean, is this thing supposed to be
> portable? If it is, it sucks at doing so, and if it's not, then is it
> the intention that non-i386 is left out of this loop?
>
> Are the debinst folks not even considering non-i386 ports during
> this development process? Am I going to have to go through all of the
> installer and hack it to bits to make it work on sparc, just as I had to
> do with boot-floppies, or is debian-installer being developed so that
> all I have to do is create a boot-block installer, and a set of
> kernel-image*.udeb packages to get it working on sparc? I'm very
> concerned that portability is becoming an afterthought.
>
Network install to a i386 was/is the initial focus of development, but
the modular nature of d-i should make it easy(or easier) to overcome any
difficulties with a specific architecture, or even a different type of
kernel (native Hurd install).
Because installer modules are deb packages architecture dependent
packages for the installer can be handled in the same way an installed
system handles it.
The boot kernel is supposed to be very modular with only enough features
to work, its not neccesarily supposed to be the kernel that will be used
post install.
Probably a lot of people (me included) arent aware of the difficulties
of specific architectures, can you go into a bit of detail about what
kernel config doesnt work for sparc ?
To answer your last question specifically, portability isnt an
afterthought, its part of the design due to modularity.
Glenn
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