Re: 2.6 debian-installer

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 11:59:41AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Bruce:
> 
> It sounds to me as if the path the kernel developers want us to take is 
> to integrate most knowledge currently in discover and kudzu into 
> hotplug. All devices present on the system should generate hotplug 
> events, and the installer can capture those. Hotplug would use udev.
>  
> 
> Sven:
> 
>    This is sarge+1 d-i work though, is it not ?
> 
> Since the installer isn't part of the installed system, I think it would 
> be permissible to revise the installer before Sarge+1.  Perhaps that 

Yes, but after the sarge release, which is what i meant.

> would help to keep the installer from being a critical-path item for 
> Sarge+1. I don't know what all of the tasks are yet, but I have thought 
> of a bunch that are connected with hotplug.
> 
>    * Revise Hotplug pci.rc to use the sysfs mechanism to identify PCI
>      devices and thus make it 2.6 compatible. Really trivial shell
>      programming, and gets rid of the "can't synthesize PCI hotplug
>      events" boot-time message. I don't understand why nobody has done
>      it yet in making the rest of Debian 2.6 compatible. Perhaps nobody
>      noticed? Is it in the hotplug CVS yet?

2.6 will need a bit more maturity and better architecture support for
that to happen though. Definitively post sarge release stuff.

>    * Add these facilities to hotplug:
>          o Detect parallel ports. Load the drivers first, then probe them.
>                + Detect printers. Steal code from pconf_detect or detect.
>          o Detect serial ports. Again, load the drivers first, then
>            iterate through the devices enumerated in /sys/class/tty,
>            probing each in non-blocking mode.
>                + Detect serial modems using ATZ...OK handshake, then
>                  try ATIn to get more info. Is code for this in detect?
>                + Detect serial printers. Steal code from pconf_detect
>                  or detect.
>                + Can /sys/bus/input already detect serial mice? If not,
>                  steal code from mdetect or detect.
>          o Detect monitors on video cards.
>    * Add udev to the installer.
>    * Write scripts to marry hotplug into various configuration tasks.
>      Not just in the installer, but on a running, installed system.
>      Much of this can be stolen from what we are doing with detect
>      presently.

This, as i understand it, is not really the work of debian-installer,
but the base-install's responsability.

Friendly,

Sven Luther