Will debian sarge ever include a 2.6.11 kernel or kernel source? If so
when? And how will I know?

The reason I ask is that I have installed debian sarge/testing on my
laptop, a Gateway Solo 2100. This laptop has a Cirrus Logic pd6729 pcmcia-
pci bridge on IRQ 0. The pd6729 driver for kernel 2.6.8 doesn't support
that. But I contacted the guy who wrote the driver and he said a fix will
appear in the 2.6.11 kernel.

So I am anxiously waiting for my chance to upgrade to a 2.6.11 kernel.

Op Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:32:30 +0000, schreef JGH de volgende woorden:

> Will debian sarge ever include a 2.6.11 kernel or kernel source? If so
> when? And how will I know?

yes it (normally) will, but i don't know when since the actual 2.6.11
kernel is not yet released from http://www.kernel.org, and debian testing
runs a bit behind on debian unstable which packages the kernel some time
after the release of the official kernel. My best guess is that it will
take some weeks for the official 2.6.11, and then maybe one or two months
before it ends up in testing...

> The reason I ask is that I have installed debian sarge/testing on my
> laptop, a Gateway Solo 2100. This laptop has a Cirrus Logic pd6729
> pcmcia- pci bridge on IRQ 0. The pd6729 driver for kernel 2.6.8 doesn't
> support that. But I contacted the guy who wrote the driver and he said
> a fix will appear in the 2.6.11 kernel.
>
> So I am anxiously waiting for my chance to upgrade to a 2.6.11 kernel.

you could try to compile the 2.6.11 kernel from kernel.org (the present
release candidate or the full version when it is released.

You could also upgrade to unstable where the kernel will be released
sooner after the official release.

Dirk

--
Richard M. Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Donald E. Knuth engage in a discussion
on whose impact on the computerized world was the greatest.
Stallman: "God told me I have programmed the best editor in the world!"
Torvalds: "Well, God told *me* that I have programmed the best
operating system in the world!"
Knuth: "Wait, wait - I never said that."
-- Erik Meltzer, rec.humor.funny

JGH wrote:

> Will debian sarge ever include a 2.6.11 kernel or kernel source?

Perhaps. It depends if it is released in time.

> If so when?

Certainly not before an upstream version becomes available.

> And how will I know?

apt-cache search kernel-image-2.6.11 will show a result.

If it doesn't make it into Sarge, then there is nothing preventing you from
pulling in a kernel from Sid or the next testing (I think a google search
for apt pinning will help), or from building your own from source.

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

Op Wed, 02 Feb 2005 23:58:08 +0100, schreef Dirk de volgende woorden:

> Op Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:32:30 +0000, schreef JGH de volgende woorden:
>
>> Will debian sarge ever include a 2.6.11 kernel or kernel source? If so
>> when? And how will I know?
>
> yes it (normally) will, but i don't know when since the actual 2.6.11
> kernel is not yet released from http://www.kernel.org, and debian testing
> runs a bit behind on debian unstable which packages the kernel some time
> after the release of the official kernel. My best guess is that it will
> take some weeks for the official 2.6.11, and then maybe one or two months
> before it ends up in testing...

forgot to mention how you would know:
apt-cache search kernel-image-2.6.11
will show you the available 2.6.11 kernels (none at the moment)

Probably there are also some debian fora where you could see the
announcement...

>
>> The reason I ask is that I have installed debian sarge/testing on my
>> laptop, a Gateway Solo 2100. This laptop has a Cirrus Logic pd6729
>> pcmcia- pci bridge on IRQ 0. The pd6729 driver for kernel 2.6.8 doesn't
>> support that. But I contacted the guy who wrote the driver and he said
>> a fix will appear in the 2.6.11 kernel.
>>
>> So I am anxiously waiting for my chance to upgrade to a 2.6.11 kernel.
>
> you could try to compile the 2.6.11 kernel from kernel.org (the present
> release candidate or the full version when it is released.
>
> You could also upgrade to unstable where the kernel will be released
> sooner after the official release.
>
> Dirk

--
Richard M. Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Donald E. Knuth engage in a discussion
on whose impact on the computerized world was the greatest.
Stallman: "God told me I have programmed the best editor in the world!"
Torvalds: "Well, God told *me* that I have programmed the best
operating system in the world!"
Knuth: "Wait, wait - I never said that."
-- Erik Meltzer, rec.humor.funny

Dirk <Dirk.vanhertem(DOEDITWEG)@ieee.org.invalid> wrote in
>> So I am anxiously waiting for my chance to upgrade to a 2.6.11
kernel.
>
> you could try to compile the 2.6.11 kernel from kernel.org (the
present
> release candidate or the full version when it is released.
>

Yeah, I tried that. I spent several evenings downloading the source
code, installing patches, compiling, etc. But then it wouldn't boot. I
believe debian requires something called initrd and the kernel source
didn't seem to have that.

I'm just guessing that this was what the problem was though because I am
blind and the system has to boot before I can get speech.

Anyway, I googled for initrd and foundmessages from people who tried and
failed to download that patch, couldn't compile it,etc. So I gave up. It
was hard enough just to get to that point and I was fed up.

So I have to wait for the kernel source to be on the debian site. I
think I can build a bootable kernel starting with 'apt-get install
kernel-source-2.6.11' when that works.

Can I install a kernel-image and/or kernel-source from debian unstable
without switching entirely to unstable? I don't want to risk messing up
my screen reader.

[ Followup-To --> comp.os.linux.setup ]

In comp.os.linux.misc JGH <johnheim@nospam.tds.net>:
> Dirk <Dirk.vanhertem(DOEDITWEG)@ieee.org.invalid> wrote in
>>> So I am anxiously waiting for my chance to upgrade to a 2.6.11
> kernel.
>>
>> you could try to compile the 2.6.11 kernel from kernel.org (the
> present
>> release candidate or the full version when it is released.
>>

> Yeah, I tried that. I spent several evenings downloading the source
> code, installing patches, compiling, etc. But then it wouldn't boot. I
> believe debian requires something called initrd and the kernel source
> didn't seem to have that.

No such thing in the kernel source, you just generate it.

Hint:
man mkinitrd

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 217: The MGs ran out of gas.

Op Wed, 02 Feb 2005 23:22:46 +0000, schreef JGH de volgende woorden:

> Dirk <Dirk.vanhertem(DOEDITWEG)@ieee.org.invalid> wrote in
>>> So I am anxiously waiting for my chance to upgrade to a 2.6.11
> kernel.
>>
>> you could try to compile the 2.6.11 kernel from kernel.org (the
> present
>> release candidate or the full version when it is released.
>>
> Can I install a kernel-image and/or kernel-source from debian unstable
> without switching entirely to unstable? I don't want to risk messing up
> my screen reader.

I don't know, you could try, but i give no garanties, maybe you could ask
in a debian related group...

Dirk

--
Richard M. Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Donald E. Knuth engage in a discussion
on whose impact on the computerized world was the greatest.
Stallman: "God told me I have programmed the best editor in the world!"
Torvalds: "Well, God told *me* that I have programmed the best
operating system in the world!"
Knuth: "Wait, wait - I never said that."
-- Erik Meltzer, rec.humor.funny

Op Thu, 03 Feb 2005 01:02:24 +0100, schreef Michael Heiming de volgende
woorden:

> [ Followup-To --> comp.os.linux.setup ]
>
> In comp.os.linux.misc JGH <johnheim@nospam.tds.net>:
>> Dirk <Dirk.vanhertem(DOEDITWEG)@ieee.org.invalid> wrote in
>>>> So I am anxiously waiting for my chance to upgrade to a 2.6.11
>> kernel.
>>>
>>> you could try to compile the 2.6.11 kernel from kernel.org (the
>> present
>>> release candidate or the full version when it is released.
>>>
>
>> Yeah, I tried that. I spent several evenings downloading the source
>> code, installing patches, compiling, etc. But then it wouldn't boot. I
>> believe debian requires something called initrd and the kernel source
>> didn't seem to have that.
>
> No such thing in the kernel source, you just generate it.
>
> Hint:
> man mkinitrd

yes, but with debian there are some issues (read: it goes but you have
to do some stuff) on Cramfs and initrd. There is currently a tread called
"compiling kernels newer than 2.6.8" on linux.debian.laptop. I didn't
follow it completely, but you could find more there. I once tried to
compile a vanilla kernel on my debian box myself, and i had similar
problems (probably because of my incompetence)

Dirk


--
"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't
suck is probably the day they start making
Computer science vacuum cleaners" - Ernst Jan Plugge

JGH writes:
> But then it wouldn't boot. I believe debian requires something called
> initrd and the kernel source didn't seem to have that.

The install kernels of most distributions (including Debian) use initrd:
it's about the only way to ship a kernel that will boot on all permutations
and combinations of hardware. However, while Debian uses initrd in it's
install, there is nothing about Debian that requires it. It may be that
there is something about your hardware that requires it, but more likely
you made a configuration error.

> Can I install a kernel-image and/or kernel-source from debian unstable
> without switching entirely to unstable?

Yes. Unstable contains these 2.6.10 kernel packages:
kernel-image-2.6.10-1-386 - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.10 on 386.
kernel-image-2.6.10-1-686 - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.10 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4.
kernel-image-2.6.10-1-686-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.10 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4 SMP.
kernel-image-2.6.10-1-k7 - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.10 on AMD K7.
kernel-image-2.6.10-1-k7-smp - Linux kernel image for version 2.6.10 on AMD K7 SMP.

And:
kernel-source-2.6.10

Here is the description for kernel-image-2.6.10-1-386:

Package: kernel-image-2.6.10-1-386
Priority: optional
Section: base
Installed-Size: 42712
Maintainer: Debian kernel team <debian-kernel@lists.debian.org>
Architecture: i386
Source: kernel-image-2.6.10-i386
Version: 2.6.10-3
Provides: kernel-image, kernel-image-2.6
Depends: initrd-tools (>= 0.1.76), coreutils | fileutils (>= 4.0), module-init-tools (>= 0.9.13)
Suggests: lilo (>= 19.1) | grub, fdutils, kernel-doc-2.6.10 | kernel-source-2.6.10
Conflicts: hotplug (<< 0.0.20040105-1)
Filename: pool/main/k/kernel-image-2.6.10-i386/kernel-image-2.6.10-1-386_2.6.10-3_i386.deb
Size: 14521306
MD5sum: eb0b7033470660d5e36183a5503c415f
Description: Linux kernel image for version 2.6.10 on 386.
This package contains the Linux kernel image for version 2.6.10 on 386,
the corresponding System.map file, and the modules built by the packager.
It also contains scripts that try to ensure that the system is not left in
a unbootable state after an update.

Dirk (DOEDITWEG) wrote:
> you could try to compile the 2.6.11 kernel from kernel.org (the
present
> release candidate or the full version when it is released.

I can attest that this method Works. I've been using Debian since
1999, and I've never used the kernel packages that come with it. I've
always used what came out of kernel.org.

I've only run into a few issues as a result. First, when I upgraded
from 2.2.x to 2.4.x, and from 2.4.x to 2.6.x, I had to download the
latest versions of modutils, since Debian/testing didn't come with the
necessary versions at the time.

Second, when I upgraded from 2.4.x to 2.6.x, I had to manually create
/sys and add the sysfs entry to /etc/fstab.

Third, whenever I chose to reconfigure my kernel, I had to manually
select the ncursesN-dev packages to use "make menuconfig".

It should be pointed out that I upgraded from 2.4.something to
2.6.0-test1 the day it came out. (I wanted to get in on that O(1) and
anticipatory I/O scheduler goodness.