Re: When to expect a kernel commit in Debian stable's kernel?

[Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com>]

Felix H. Dahlke put forth on 10/9/2009 5:19 PM:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm quite new to Debian, and wondering how long it usually takes for a
> kernel patch to go through unstable and testing to stable.

No better time to learn than the present.  If you want "hot off the
press" kernel features and patches, go your own way, as I do, and build
your own kernel and modules:

greer:/# cat /etc/issue
Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 \n \l
greer:/# uname -a
Linux greer 2.6.31.1 #1 SMP Sat Oct 3 10:43:14 CDT 2009 i686 GNU/Linux


http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-common-tasks.html

4.5 Building a custom kernel from the "pristine" kernel source

Building a kernel from the "pristine" (also sometimes called "vanilla")
kernel source, distributed from www.kernel.org and its mirrors, may be
occasionally useful for debugging or in the situations when a newer
kernel version is desired. The procedure differs only in obtaining the
kernel source: instead of unpacking the kernel source from Debian
packages, the "pristine" source is downloaded using your favourite
browser or using wget, as follows:


     $ wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.19.tar.bz2

The integrity of the downloaded archive may be verified by fetching the
corresponding cryptographic signature


     $ wget
http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.19.tar.bz2.sign

and running the command (gnupg package must be installed):

     $ gpg --verify linux-2.6.19.tar.bz2.sign

Successful verification results in output similar to the one below:

     gpg: Signature made Wed 29 Nov 2006 02:50:07 PM PST using DSA key
ID 517D0F0E
     gpg: Good signature from "Linux Kernel Archives Verification Key
<ftpadmin@kernel.org>"
     gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
     gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to
the owner.
     Primary key fingerprint: C75D C40A 11D7 AF88 9981  ED5B C86B A06A
517D 0F0E

After that the archive may be unpacked using

     $ tar xjf linux-2.6.19.tar.bz2
     $ cd linux-2.6.19

The unpacked kernel tree (in linux-2.6.19 now has to be configured. The
existing configuration file may be used as a starting point

     $ cp /boot/config-2.6.18-3-686 ./.config

After the configuration with one of the configuration frontends (invoked
by make oldconfig, make config, make menuconfig, etc) is completed, the
build may be started using make-kpkg command as described above.


--
Stan