Question about the new kernel with PAE (Wheezy)

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

Hello,

On my testing VM machine, I'm currently running:

root@debian:~# uname -a
Linux debian 2.6.38-2-686 #1 SMP Sun May 8 14:49:45 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux

Today, I've just run a dist-upgrade and see this:

The following NEW packages will be installed:
   linux-image-2.6.39-2-686-pae (2.6.39-2)
   linux-image-686-pae (2.6.39+35.1)
   mksh (40.1-1)
The following packages will be upgraded:
   cvs (1.12.13-12+b2 => 1.12.13+real-5)
   git (1.7.5.3-1 => 1.7.5.4-1)
   git-man (1.7.5.3-1 => 1.7.5.4-1)
   linux-image-686 (2.6.38+34 => 2.6.39+35.1)
   linux-libc-dev (2.6.38-5 => 2.6.39-2)
5 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 39.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 85.3 MB of additional disk space will be used.

But my VM does not expose the PAE/NX feature:

root@debian:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 14
model name	: Genuine Intel(R) CPU           T2400  @ 1.83GHz
stepping	: 8
cpu MHz		: 1828.410
cache size	: 6144 KB
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 5
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 constant_tsc up pni monitor
bogomips	: 3656.82
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:

I already knew about this kernel change:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2011/02/msg00244.html

But now the day has come and I've got two questions:

1. Will the PAE kernel work on this VM? I guess no.

2. Shouldn't the dist-upgrade routine had to automatically determine the 
best kernel for this system? Or at least provide some kind of warning? I 
think a 486 kernel would be a more sensitive choice.

Any commnents?

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón