Re: I need to know how to create and use Driver Update Disks

[Horms <horms@debian.org>]

On Tue, Aug 02, 2005 at 06:03:50PM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
> On Tuesday 02 August 2005 17:35, Allyn, MarkX A wrote:
> > We have some patches that have already be open sourced (ICH7) and are
> > in the 2.6.11 and above kernels.
> >
> > What we need to do is to provide a Driver Update Disk so that someone
> > who is using the 2.6.8 kernel supplied by the stable release (Sarge) can
> > do an install on a ICH7 based system.
> 
> I think the best thing to do is to contact the Debian kernel team at 
> debian-kernel@lists.debian.org and discuss the options for the stable 
> kernels with them.
> 
> The Debian package system does not really like packages (your driver 
> update) replacing files that belong to another package (the official 
> Debian kernel-image package). This means the best option would be to get 
> the patches included in an update of the 2.6.8 kernel (which is being 
> prepared at the moment).

Yes, please send them to the kernel team. It looks like non-security
kernel updates are going to be handled using volitile. And driver fixes
that are already upstream are fair game for inclusion IMHO. In the
slightly longer term we are thinking of puting something like 2.4.12 
into volatile, I assume this would cover the changes you are after.

Actually, better still grab the kernel tree from svn and start adding
them locally to your copy of that. If you can get that working it
makes it a lot easier for the kernel team to drop in your changes.

> The other team that should be involved is the Debian Installer team (at 
> debian-boot@lists.debian.org). Getting out a separate driver update does 
> not mean it will automatically be usable by the installation system; 
> again getting the patches into the offical Debian kernels would be best.
> The installer team is currently working on a new version of the 
> installation system using the 2.6.12 kernel, but it is not yet sure if 
> users will be able to use that to install Sarge.
> 
> It very much depends on the nature of the patches if they will be accepted 
> for Sarge.

I am fairly dubious about being able to do non-security updates to sarge. 
Rather I think volatile might be the best avenue for these kind of fixes.



-- 
Horms