Re: a kernel plan for sarge and beyond ... (Was Re: ABI-changing kernel security fixes for sarge)
On Thu, Mar 24, 2005 at 04:31:24AM -0500, Andres Salomon wrote:
> The way that arch/subarch specific patches are handled needs to be thought
> out. There are architectures that are close to linus kernels, and there
> are those that aren't. The preferred way to do things is to have
> something similar to what k-s does now; all patches (whether arch-specific
> or not) are applied. Of course, when arch-specific patches end up being
> megabytes in size, and conflict w/ each other, I realize that we need
> another layer on top of that; patches that are only applied to k-s when
> building for a certain arch. This does add complexity, though. I'd like
> to avoid that, if possible. If that means working really hard to get
> upstream to sync up w/ arch-specific stuff, so be it (really, that seems
> like a better long term solution then to add infrastructure to allow more
> and more source drift away from linus' kernels for each arch).
I've been working on that for parisc -- got around 6-700k of patches
into Linus' tree. Of course, that benefit is only felt by Debian after
2.6.12 is released. There's some stuff in the parisc patch that could
break other architectures -- only in 64 bit mode (it's part of the compat
layer), but I'm sure ppc64 doesn't want to be broken by a parisc patch.
Now, I've certainly tried to *not* break other architectures (I personally
use the parisc kernels on i386 and ia64 machines), but no promises
that I haven't, and Debian doesn't want to be the ones debugging this.
So I think we do need to have per-arch patches.
--
"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon
the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse
to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince
himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep
he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain
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