Re: Question about the new kernel with PAE (Wheezy) - Report
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:54:37 +0200, Sven Joachim wrote:
> On 2011-06-22 13:21 +0200, 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.
>
> Sorry, I thought you meant the Debian installer which originally
> installed your system.
Although I said "the installer" I really was referring to the updater,
sorry for messing the terms.
>>> 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 :-)
>
> Would you prefer that the linux-image-686 metapackage
>
> - depends on the -486 kernel, losing SMP support for the vast amount of
> machines that have PAE support and multiple cores?
>
> - is dropped entirely, leaving you with an old kernel and no way to
> automatically install a newer one until you manually choose one of the
> linux-image-486 or linux-image-686-pae packages?
>
> Neither of these options seems to be very good.
No indeed, but I would add a third option:
- is smart enough to ask the user what he wants to install/keep/upgrade.
Something like this prompt:
"Hey, there is a new kernel package available for you, and I see you are
running a kernel with "x" characteristics, so would you like to... a)
upgrade to the -486 kernel that keeps the same compilation options than
the kernel you are running, b) jump to a PAE-SMP kernel or c) Keep the
current one and do not update, I'll decide later?"
So if the user is running a non-smp/non-pae kernel, let him to decide the
path to go.
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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