On Thursday 10 July 2008, Ian Campbell wrote:
> First patch is to kernel wedge and adds the Xen block and net devices
> (optional since they won't appear in the 486 images) as well as making
> generic_serial optional in order to allow 686-bigmem kernel udebs to be
> built. [kernel-wedge.patch]
! +++ packages/kernel/kernel-wedge/modules/nic-modules (working copy)
! +xen-netfront ?
! +++ packages/kernel/kernel-wedge/modules/scsi-modules (working copy)
! +xen-blkfront ?
As these modules are only going to be used with the i386 -bigmem kernel
and even only exist there, I wonder if we want them in kernel-wedge.
In this case I think adding them only where they are actually used is
preferable. That would mean adding them in relevant files in
linux-kernel-di-i386-2.6/modules/i386/ instead.
> Second patch is to linux-kernel-di-i386-2.6 and simply adds the
> 686-bigmem flavour kernels. [linux-kernel-di-i386-2.6.patch]
I think a bit longer explanation in the changelog would be good: that the
new variant is intended to be used for Xen installations.
> Third patch is to base-installer and causes the 686-bigmem kernel to be
> installed into the new system iff the installer is also running a
> bigmem kernel. This has been filed as #480054 and I'll send an update
> there too. [base-installer.patch]
First of all I'm afraid that even your latest patch is going to be
invalidated by a new change in i386 kernel selection: #490542 :-P
But more importantly, the last hunk of the patch is not going to do what
you want. Did you run the testsuite ('cd kernel/tests; ./runtests i386')?
I think you'll see failures. Unless I'm very much mistaken your code does
not produce the desired fallback to first the "plain" -686 flavor.
As #490542 is a further simplification I think it's easiest to have your
change on top of that one (I expect to commit tomorrow). And with those
changes I don't think a separate testcase for AMD is still needed.
> Final patch is the the installer itself to cause a 686-bigmem netboot
> image to be built. [installer.patch]
! +++ installer/build/config/i386/netboot-bigmem.cfg (revision 0)
AFAICT the following is missing to ensure the result lands in a subdir:
EXTRANAME = netboot/bigmem/
Besides that I still wonder if just "bigmem" is the best name for this. I
would think that users are going to be looking for Xen images.
My proposal would be to use "netboot-xen" as internal name (the fact that
we need the bigmem kernel for Xen is secondary to the purpose for which
we build it IMO) and maybe "netboot/xen-bigmem" for the directory
(EXTRANAME).
> New from last time is a patch to finish-install to add a getty on hvc0
> if Xen is detected. It's unfortunate that the test for Xen has to be
> present but this is the only way which I could find that work reliably.
> [finish-install.patch]
No real problems except the indentation: please use tabs as in the rest of
the file.
BTW, I propose that you (if you're interested) are given commit access to
the D-I repository on alioth so you can commit this yourself and maintain
Xen (and maybe virtualization in general) support directly. I see you
already have an account.
Cheers,
FJP
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