2.6.14 status summary, and upcoming 2.6.15 ...
Hi all, ...
Well, fs uploaded 2.6.14-4, and i think now is a good time to examine the
current situation and make a status summary, and plan for the future.
We would like 2.6.15 to be uploaded soon after it is released, and for that to
happen, we need to either push 2.6.14 into testing (and kill the 2.6.12
kernels), or forget about 2.6.14 and go with 2.6.15 until we are confortable
with post-2.6.12 kernels.
This would also be a good oportunity to make a roundup of all arches, and list
the subarches which are not yet ready to move to 2.6 and need 2.4 or even 2.2
kernels, or otherwise have problems.
The main point are udev/initramfs-tools and yaird issues, i think, there are
no major real blockers for the 2.6.14 kernels apart from those, and even the
RC bugs that are open don't all seem all that much relevant (we have 8 open,
one is an artificial let's keep 2.6.14 out of testing, and the other is the
initramfs/ia64 problem, is that still of actuality ?). Maks and jonas, could
you comment from your perspective on the initramfs-tools and yaird situation ?
Marco what about udev ?
Anyway, i will start with the powerpc situation :
as of 2.6.14-4, all desktop powerpc subarch should be supported, except :
- nubus powermacs. upstream is only 2.4.27, and doesn't appear to be all
that alive. Lot of work needs to be done here. Debian has a 2.4.27 nubus
kernel that works.
- IBM PReP boxes are broken, no kernel currently in debian supports those,
no idea of upstream status, but i have seen mention of patched 2.4.22
kernels on the web.
- legacy (pre Power5) iSeries we don build kernel for yet, but adding a
new flavour for them should only be a matter of finding the right config
file for them.
In particular, one of the highlights of the 2.6.14-4 upload was support for
powerpc/apus is now again there, which means i can transit d-i to 2.6 for
apus too, and completely kill all 2.4 powerpc kernels, apart from nubus,
which is right now not really supported officiall, at least in d-i.
As for the yaird/initramfs-tools situation, first powerpc defaulted to
2.6.8 in sarge, which means that yaird is perfectly valid as a sarge
upgrade path, which is a nice situation to be in. I have tested yaird on
32bit powermacs, pegasos and prep, and it works nicely, don't remember if
we had a ppc64 tester yet though, but i know folk are running the 64bit
2.6.14 kernels so something should work. I tested initramfs-tools on the
pegasos, and it had some issues, which i reported to maks, and i think are
at least partially fixed now, will need to redo a test later, but the good
state of yaird is already sufficient from a powerpc perspective to bring
2.6.14 into testing, and the fact that it fixes firewire disk support,
which was unusable before, is a nice plus.
Ok, it would be nice to have similar reports from other arches, as well as
generic ramdisk status info, altough we have this already in the wiki, thanks
to Jonas. Jonas, maybe you would feel like adding a wiki page with the arch
status or something ?
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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