Re: Applying e1000e patch to the Debian 2.6.26 kernel

[Thomas Goirand <thomas@goirand.fr>]

Ben Hutchings wrote:
> We normally backport specific bug fixes and small changes to support new
> hardware, rather than updating drivers completely.  Some driver changes
> will depend on core changes in the kernel.
> 
>> (Lenny and a half)?
> 
> I don't know when that will be released, but it will use an entirely new
> kernel version.

Do I still have a chance to have it included anytime soon in Debian?
Because that's the goal... It's really an annoying problem for us.

> It's a large patch combining cleanup and functional changes, which is
> always hard to review.  Please instead identify which of the following
> changes between 2.6.26 and 2.6.27 are needed:
> 
> 95b866d e1000e: Fix incorrect debug warning
> [...]
> a5136e2 e1000e: allow VLAN devices to use TSO and TCP CSUM offload
> 
> I've put these individual changes in
> http://womble.decadent.org.uk/tmp/e1000e-patches/ so you don't need to
> use git to generate them.
> 
> Ben.

Thanks a lot for the effort to put this all online for me. I got them
downloaded already locally, you can cleanup and delete these from your
web server if you want.

I can try the patches one by one, but that can take a long long time if
I have to recompile a full kernel package each time. What do you think
is the best approach for me to make quick tests? Just do a "make
modules_install" from the linux-source-2.6.26 folder (taken from the
linux-source-2.6 package), test, apply another patch, test, etc. ?

Also, what's your suggestion to test all this? Make a dichotomy test,
applying half of the patches, then 1/4, etc. until I can isolate what
patch(es) are needed? That's my first idea, and shouldn't take too long
if I can compile the e1000e module only and not the full kernel.

Thanks for your help,

Thomas