Re: New 2.4.27 powerpc kernel packages ready, please test (including nubus and apus support) ...

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sat, Feb 26, 2005 at 09:31:47AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> Hello all,

Oh well, i just had a irc chat with Steve Langesek on #debian-boot, and i thus
feel that i should explain a few things here, altough i am sure Colin Watson
and Joey Hess would have noticed those : 

  1) the dropped flavours (power3/power4) are not built or used anymore in the
  sid branch of d-i, furthermore they where probably never tested, and
  upstream believes they don't work at all. They are still built as .udeb, and
  included in the sarge branch, but i am fixing that in the next two days.

  2) the change should be fully transparent to yaboot/quik new/old world pmac
  users, as well as powerpc ibm rs6k users, since the powerpc flavour is left
  untouched, and they use the vmlinux kernel anyway. It even makes things
  easier for them by dropping the kernel-image/kernel-module distinction.

  3) the people affected are essentially the prep users, for which the 2.4
  kernels are broken anyway, and the pegasos users. both of these are used to
  using mkvmlinuz since it is used on 2.6, and have no sane reason to use 2.4
  anyway.

  4) the change saves around 80MB of disk space in the archive, and on the
  first iso, since all those kernels should be in the ISO anyway. I don't
  think this will translate into netinst iso saving of space, as some of those
  packages where dropped anyway.

  5) the only real reason for not dropping 2.4 kernels altogether are the
  problems with miboot and oldworld machines on 2.6 kernels, as well as the
  missing 2.6 kernels for apus.

  6) we add an (untested but still) new subarch, the nubus powermacs. Not for
  sarge, but we will now be able to say we support all existing powermacs
  variants :)

Ok, there is maybe other stuff, and i apologize for the bad timing with regard
rc3, but well this is really not my primary concern, and i devoted as much
time as i could (this whole week indeed) to it, but i sincerely think this
will be better in the long run, and also having a sole 2.4.27 powerpc kernel
package will make it easier for the security team in the long run, thus not
forgetting the apus kernels in security updates :)

Friendly,

Sven Luther