Re: interesting times installing 2.4.17 in Woody...

[Andrew Pimlott <andrew@pimlott.ne.mediaone.net>]

On Sat, Feb 16, 2002 at 04:40:57PM -0500, Brian Mays wrote:
> Andrew Pimlott <andrew@pimlott.ne.mediaone.net> wrote:
> > ... Or, really, just hard-code the whole deal in pcmcia-cs, and forget
> > about sourcing version-specific fix-ups.  The stand-alone and kernel
> > drivers aren't likely to break compatibilty with themselves, right?
> > So there are only two variants that you'll ever have to worry about,
> > and hard-coding them should be fine.
> >
> > Does this make sense?  I would be happy to help work out the details,
> > because I think this will bite upgraders.
> 
> I don't quite understand what you're getting at here.

If I understand the issue, it is that there are now two mappings
from hardware to drivers (ie, modules): one mapping for the kernel
drivers, one for the stand-alone.  Before the kernel drivers, there
was only one mapping, and it was kept in the pcmcia-cs package.
Your proposal was to move the mapping for the stand-alone modules
into the stand-alone modules package, in the form of a .fix file.
While that's nice in principle, it has the back-compatibility
problem I mentioned.

I'm proposing:  Keep the knowledge of both mappings entirely in the
pcmcia-cs package.  pcmcia-cs can figure out which drivers (kernel
or stand-alone) are in use, and choose the right mapping itself.

Specific implementation suggestion:  Instead of looking for
./config-`uname -r`.fix, source ./config-stand-alone.fix (part of
pcmcia-cs) when the stand-alone drivers are detected.  (Or, it might
make more sense to have /etc/pcmcia/config be the mapping for the
stand-alone drivers, and source ./config-kernel.fix when the kernel
drivers are detected.  This keeps the package closer to upstream.)

Of course, you can also source a file provided by the pcmcia-modules
package if that provides additional benefits (ie, the mapping
changes from one version of the stand-alone drivers to the next).
But I haven't heard a direct need for that.

Again, tell me if I can help, and I'll shut up if I'm just getting
in the way.  :-)

Thanks!

Andrew