Re: Apt-pinning confusion

[Ramon Hofer <ramonhofer@bluewin.ch>]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:36:07 +0000, Camaleón wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:01:12 +0000, Ramon Hofer wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:23:25 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
>> 
>>> On Ma, 27 mar 12, 12:07:08, Ramon Hofer wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks for the explanation!
>>>> So why didn't they "just" update the version that won't receive any
>>>> updates?
>>> 
>>> The new version changed ABI[1], which means all modules compiled
>>> against bpo.1 need to be recompiled for bpo.2.
>>> 
>>> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_binary_interface
>> 
>> So the ABI is about the same as a module? Like the one I had to compile
>> (jme.ko [1]) to get the network up?
> 
> Mmm, not quite so although it shares the same essence.
> 
> In brief, to my understanding, kernel ABI helps developers to keep track
> for module changes that need to be recompiled and thus avoiding to
> recompile them all. When that happens, it is exposed by incrementing the
> last number of the package (in this example, "bpo.1" → "bpo.2").

Thanks for your explanation!

Aha, so instead of recompiling the modules a new kernel version is 
installed and with it the modules.
I thought the module files could just be replaced when the kernel is 
updated...


>> [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2012/02/msg02240.html
>> 
>> Still I don't understand why that kernel update couldn't trigger the
>> recompilation of the new modules.
>> Maybe there's a reason why they are held separately?
> 
> They are treated as two different packages because they are indeed two
> different packages providing different modules.
> 
> What you need to keep the kernel package updated to the latest available
> version in the backports is the kernel metapackage ("linux-image-686-
> pae"), as this will trigger the most recent version.

Thanks alot!
I somehow missed that metapackage.


Thanks again
Ramon