Re: Question about the new kernel with PAE (Wheezy) - Report

[Dom <toyer@rpdom.net>]

On 22/06/11 12:21, Camaleón wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:06:33 +0200, Sven Joachim wrote:
>
> (...)
>
> > > But just out of curiosity, what's the raw logic behind the routine that
> > > decided to install a PAE kernel instead another one? Why the installer
> > > took such option? :-?
> >
> > It didn't.
>
> Well, it did.
>
> 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)
> (...)
> The following packages will be upgraded:
> (...)
>     linux-image-686 (2.6.38+34 =>  2.6.39+35.1)
>
> It decided to install the PAE kernel instead the 486 (non-PAE). Why? As I
> hadn't installed a "linux-image-2.6-686-pae" previously I'd expected a
> non-PAE update, and given that "-686" was not available, "-486" seemed
> the most suitable selection.

Because linux-image-686 now depends on linux-image-686-pae.

The kernel team made a decision to drop the standard bigmem and smp 
kernels and just package the pae version with pae and smp support. This 
is because modern 686 cpus all support pae. They feel that anyone not 
using pae would find the 486 kernel more suitable.

> > The old -686 kernels from squeeze and earlier do not support
> > or need PAE.
>
> Yes, and that's why I wonder why the update routine decided to go the PAE
> way :-)

The installer is only doing this to satisfy the changed dependency of 
linux-image-686.

--
Dom