Re: Bug#571255: Please fix this
Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> writes:
> On Thu, 13 May 2010, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> The only affect I see this will have is that an installed linux-image meta
>> package will be updated. That might get a new kernel installed or not.
>
> If the minimal version is carefully chosen, it will ensure a new kernel is
> installed. That's the standard Debian way to have newer kernel
> auto-installed and upgraded so we should be able to rely on it for
> upgrades.
No. If the linux-image meta package isn't installed then it won't
be. Only if the user is using that way will it cause an update. The only
thing "Breaks" prevents is an old meta package being installed.
>> But how does that change anything for the system? It does not mean the
>> new kernel will be used at all. It does not mean older kernel images
>> will be removed. It does not change the kernel the system is currently
>> running. It in no way means udev will actually work.
>
> Newer kernels are used by default in grub, sure the user can make a bad
> choice but we can't prevent everything.
>
> The current hack was no better in that regard. It just ensured that a
> newer kernel was being installed, it had no way to ensure that a good
> kernel is going to be used on next boot.
Not saying it was. Just saying the Breaks will hardly help. The problem
is udev being so screwed up. The only real solution would be to make
udev work with multiple kernel versions.
> We could improve this further by having grub only display working kernels.
> Packages could communicate a minimal kernel version to grub, and grub
> could use that information in update-grub.
Please don't remove any entries. Booting a not quite woring kernel might
be the only way to recover from a bad kernel/udev update. But the
entries with too old kernel could be marked in some way.
Apart from that I like the idea.
MfG
Goswin
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