Re: Debian-edu/Skolelinux and Edubuntu cooperation
lørdag 14. mai 2005, 11:55, skrev Gavin McCullagh:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, 14 May 2005, Gjermund Skogstad wrote:
> > AFAIK Linux supports loading of "foreign-compiled" kernel modules as
> > long as they are built on the same exact version of kernel source, and
> > this was supported from 2.4 upwards?
>
> Sorry, I understand. However, supposing for the sake of argument that I
> wanted a SATA driver for the woody installer, how easy is it to backport
> drivers like this to 2.4.18? I guess perhaps that's an extreme case but in
> general how difficult is it to backport recent drivers to an older kernel?
>
The correct answer to this would probably be that I don't really know :)
On the other hand I suspect that the main problem regarding most drivers with
established projects (driven by individuals or groups) in Linux isn't as much
a backport issue as it is an issue regarding it being formally supported or
not. Often this would be due to political or practical reasons rather than
out of technical reasons.
In my experience it has not been lots of problems to get unofficial source
compiled against an (at any given time) reasonably resent kernel within the
same major version. The transition from 2.6 into 2.4 is another issue, so any
drivers written for 2.6 would probably need major adaptation. Some of them
might never work properly at all ...
So on a higher level this suggestion also implies that one define the need for
a new Cd-release when:
- a kernel upgrade is paramount for the installation process
- a _large_ part of the installer-process needs general update (this obviously
needs to be more precisely defined)
- a new version of Skolelinux / debian-edu is released
--
Regards
Gjermund Skogstad
(http://www.linuxfolk.net)
Reply to: