Re: The Kernel (fwd)

[George Bonser <grep@oriole.sbay.org>]

On Mon, 19 Jan 1998, Star's End wrote:

> This really is a mute point. The people targeted by SEUL will probably
> never recompile the kernel. And if they do it is there problem.

I agree.  

> 
> My humble suggestion is a minimal kernel with everything compiled as 
> modules, using kerneld.

Yes!
 
> If this causes problems then you solve them individually. Hopefully the 
> problems will be rare.

I agree. And if a problem does raise its head, we can either apply a patch
to fix the problem and release a new kernel, or, if it is a minor problem,
wait until it is included in Linus' release and release a new kernel.

One positive of debian is the kernel-package package.  It will build a new
kernel as a .deb package (with the modules, etc).  All you do is make a
script that does a dpkg -i name-of-new-kernel, tar it up with the kernel
package, put it on the ftp site.  User downloads the tarball, unzips it
into a directory and runs the script and reboots. It leaves the system in
a state where the old kernel can be booted if there is a problem with the
old one (it moves the old kernel out of the way but does not delete it).

> To the best of my knowledge the only problems an application has at the
> kernel level is the a.out vs elf format or if a module is missing. Anything
> else takes up memory, but doesn't affect an application.

The problem comes in when you have an inexperianced user that tries to do
a make config and gets in a hurry and starts eliminating support for
things because it speeds up the make.  Then he leaves out support or
something he needs (heck, I don't need no stinking loop devices).

> This is a mute point. Most users of SEUL are never going to recompile the
> kernel. 

Exactly, and we should strongly discourage them from doing it.  If there
is a problem, we need to know about it so we can fix it in future
releases. If the users start tinkering it deprives us of feedback and puts
us in the position of then having to deal with problems that are quite
different from the original once they finally get back to us.


George Bonser 
If NT is the answer, you didn't understand the question. (NOTE: Stolen sig)
http://www.debian.org
Debian/GNU Linux ... the maintainable operating system.