[adding debian-cd. The context is trying to figure out how to support installation from CD/DVD into a Xen guest -- this requires a PAE (==686-bigmem) kernel for 32 bit to run under Xen, both for the installer itself and the final target kernel, hence the is a need to either fit a 686-bigmem-di udeb + regular 686-bigmem deb onto an existing CD/DVD or swap out the 686 kernel for 686-bigmem on the DVD or create a new CD1 variant just for Xen or some other option I hasn't occurred to be yet ]
On Sat, 2009-04-18 at 12:49 +0200, Frans Pop wrote: > Also note that adding the 686-bigmem kernel to CD images still has a > rather high impact (as you'd need to add both the kernel udeb _and_ the > regular kernel-image deb), which is rather undesirable for both the > netinst CD and the regular CD1. In the first case because of the size > increase it would cause [1], in the second case because it would push > packages important for the desktop task off CD1. > > Even the DVD1 image is getting tight as we currently support installation > of _all_ desktop environments from it. The margin for businesscard images > depends mainly on the capacity of actual businesscard sized media. I've been thinking about this some more and I wonder if 486 + 686 is still the best option for DVD1 -- as opposed to 486 + 686-bigmem. IMHO the set of machines which benefit from a 686 kernel but are unable to run a 686-bigmem kernel is already small and getting smaller. I reckon those machine would be fine with a 486 kernel anyway, the 686 optimisations don't buy you that much and SMP-but-non-PAE machine are an even smaller set (if such a thing even exists, I'm not sure). New machines these days already have 1-2G as a pretty basic minimum and I predict that when squeeze arrives getting on for 4G will be a common default. A PAE kernel starts to become necessary around 3.5G anyway due to the PCI hole and even for machines with <3.5G of RAM you get things like NX support thrown in. The 686 kernel is still just an aptitude run away. Ian. -- Ian Campbell In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months.
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