Re: Status of kernel patch packages

[Ben Hutchings]

On Wed, 2010-03-24 at 00:39 +, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:35:33PM +0100, Yann Dirson wrote:
[...]
> > But I'm not aware of a git tree holding the debian kernels - SVN is
> > still listed as the VCS for the linux-2.6 package (which, BTW,
> > continues to surprise me).
> 
> It's on our to-do list but further down than the work needed for squeeze.
> 
> I do have a script that can convert the patch series into a git branch,
> and I could publish a git repository if that's useful.
[...]

An experimental branch based on the 'sid' branch in Subversion is now
available at:

git://git.debian.org/kernel/linux-2.6.git squeeze
http://git.debian.org/?p=kernel/linux-2.6.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/squeeze

This *will* be rebased at will; please don't treat it as anything more
than informative at present.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.


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Re: Status of kernel patch packages

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Tue, Mar 23 2010, Yann Dirson wrote:


> Let's maybe stay focussed on the initial problem: we *had* a way to
> handle kernel patches as part of a self-contained distribution, but
> there is no support for this any more.  Moreover that support we had
> was not 100% satisfactory (eg. bad handling of conflicting patches
> needing manual merge - although that was something I wanted to address
> in the never-finished dh-kpatches 0.100).  My idea is to rethink the
> whole thing using today's tools - namely, git.
>
> Anyway, to get back to the initial problem of the current linux-patch
> packages, we currently still have patches in the distro, which were
> packaged for a mechanism that is not to be shipped in squeeze (and
> referencing that obsolete mechanism in their /usr/share/doc/), and
> this in itself is a problem of quality of the overal distro, right ?

So all we really need is a little script that does the
 patch/unpatch  that make-kpkg used to do on the fly, and have the user
 run the patch script, call make-kpkg (or make deb-pkg, or what have
 you), and call the unpatch script later if the feel like it.

This should be pretty simple to do, really.

manoj
-- 
When one is overcome by this wretched, clinging desire in the world,
one's sorrows increase like grass growing up after a lot of rain. 335
Manoj Srivastava    
4096R/C5779A1C E37E 5EC5 2A01 DA25 AD20  05B6 CF48 9438 C577 9A1C


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Re: Status of kernel patch packages

[Ben Hutchings]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:35:33PM +0100, Yann Dirson wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 12:17:22AM +0900, Hideki Yamane wrote:
> > On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:14:59 +0100
> > Yann Dirson  wrote:
> > > So the question is, is it time to request removal of those packages,
> > > or is there any remaining reason not to do so that I missed ?
> > 
> >  As linux-patch-tomoyo1.7 package maintainer, tomoyo is merged with 
> >  mainline, but it's not fully featured one yet. At least, I want to 
> >  provide it with squeeze.
> > 
> >  and hope kernel-package would enable patch support again... ;)
> 
> I won't speak for Manoj here, but I feel we should think about other
> ways to provide those patches.
> 
> One way could be simply to provide ensure those patches in some git
> tree, that users can easily fetch and merge before running make-kpkg.
 
Or just 'make deb-pkg', the upstream-supported method.

> But I'm not aware of a git tree holding the debian kernels - SVN is
> still listed as the VCS for the linux-2.6 package (which, BTW,
> continues to surprise me).

It's on our to-do list but further down than the work needed for squeeze.

I do have a script that can convert the patch series into a git branch,
and I could publish a git repository if that's useful.

> But at least we could have some convention
> about where to make available git trees for patch stacks - something
> on git.debian.org surely, which could be quite efficient with the
> "forks" feature of gitweb activated (which does not seems to be the
> case aleady).
> 
> Then maybe some simple helper scripts could make it a snap to fetch
> all patch stacks and start a merge.  Maybe we could at some point also
> be able to publish merges of conflicting patch stacks in a similarly
> convenient way.  Such a resource may even be interesting to many
> people out of Debian.
 
Forking Linux is easy; maintaining a fork is very hard indeed, and we
generally try to avoid doing so.  This is why we are trying to get rid
of the virtualisation 'featuresets'[1] and get all our other patches
upstream[2].  It's also why we're sharing the work of maintaining 2.6.32
with other distributions.  Any intrusive patch set (as opposed to a new
driver or filesystem, which is easier to maintain out-of-tree) should be
treated as a short-term experiment, to be merged upstream or abandoned.
It should never be included in a stable distribution.

[1] Not right now but after squeeze.
[2] Mostly successfully.

Ben.

> Well, that's just random week-end thoughts - you know, world
> domination and the like :)
> 
> Best regards,

-- 
Ben Hutchings
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
  - Albert Camus


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Re: Status of kernel patch packages

[Yann Dirson]

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 11:57:01AM +0100, Yann Dirson wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 05:39:00PM +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 05:28:33PM +0100, Yann Dirson wrote:
> > >On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 12:17:22AM +0900, Hideki Yamane wrote:
> > >>On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:14:59 +0100
> > >>Yann Dirson  wrote:
> > >>> So the question is, is it time to request removal of those >
> > >>packages, or is there any remaining reason not to do so that I >
> > >>missed ?
> > >>
> > >> As linux-patch-tomoyo1.7 package maintainer, tomoyo is merged
> > >>with  mainline, but it's not fully featured one yet. At least, I
> > >>want to  provide it with squeeze.
> > >>
> > >> and hope kernel-package would enable patch support again... ;)
> > >
> > >I won't speak for Manoj here, but I feel we should think about
> > >other ways to provide those patches.
> > >
> > >One way could be simply to provide ensure those patches in some
> > >git tree, that users can easily fetch and merge before running
> > >make-kpkg.
> > 
> > Lots of possibilities arise if we do not constrain ourselves to the
> > Debian ideal of a fully self-contained distribution usable while
> > offline.
> > 
> > I happen to like that ideal, also for kernel patches.
> 
> I don't think there is a contradiction - eg. it could make sense to
> ship a kernel repository in a package, and similarly for kernel
> patches referencing the former as a (local) remote.

Let's maybe stay focussed on the initial problem: we *had* a way to
handle kernel patches as part of a self-contained distribution, but
there is no support for this any more.  Moreover that support we had
was not 100% satisfactory (eg. bad handling of conflicting patches
needing manual merge - although that was something I wanted to address
in the never-finished dh-kpatches 0.100).  My idea is to rethink the
whole thing using today's tools - namely, git.

Anyway, to get back to the initial problem of the current linux-patch
packages, we currently still have patches in the distro, which were
packaged for a mechanism that is not to be shipped in squeeze (and
referencing that obsolete mechanism in their /usr/share/doc/), and
this in itself is a problem of quality of the overal distro, right ?


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Re: Status of kernel patch packages

[Yann Dirson]

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 12:17:22AM +0900, Hideki Yamane wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:14:59 +0100
> Yann Dirson  wrote:
> > So the question is, is it time to request removal of those packages,
> > or is there any remaining reason not to do so that I missed ?
> 
>  As linux-patch-tomoyo1.7 package maintainer, tomoyo is merged with 
>  mainline, but it's not fully featured one yet. At least, I want to 
>  provide it with squeeze.
> 
>  and hope kernel-package would enable patch support again... ;)

I won't speak for Manoj here, but I feel we should think about other
ways to provide those patches.

One way could be simply to provide ensure those patches in some git
tree, that users can easily fetch and merge before running make-kpkg.

But I'm not aware of a git tree holding the debian kernels - SVN is
still listed as the VCS for the linux-2.6 package (which, BTW,
continues to surprise me).  But at least we could have some convention
about where to make available git trees for patch stacks - something
on git.debian.org surely, which could be quite efficient with the
"forks" feature of gitweb activated (which does not seems to be the
case aleady).

Then maybe some simple helper scripts could make it a snap to fetch
all patch stacks and start a merge.  Maybe we could at some point also
be able to publish merges of conflicting patch stacks in a similarly
convenient way.  Such a resource may even be interesting to many
people out of Debian.

Well, that's just random week-end thoughts - you know, world
domination and the like :)

Best regards,
-- 
Yann


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Status of kernel patch packages

[Yann Dirson]

[this and the following mails are resent versions, my mails did not
make it to the list due to some config problem - sorry for any dups
this may cause]

Since April 2009, kernel-package has no use any more for the
{kernel,linux}-patch-* packages (AFAIK the current recommended way of
patching a kernel is using git).  My understanding was that those
packages should then be simply removed from the archive.  However,
there are still a couple of kernel patch packages in squeeze and sid,
and some of them got recent updates.

So the question is, is it time to request removal of those packages,
or is there any remaining reason not to do so that I missed ?

[CC'd maintainers of the relevant packages]

Best regards,
-- 
Yann


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Re: Status of kernel patch packages

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 05:28:33PM +0100, Yann Dirson wrote:

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 12:17:22AM +0900, Hideki Yamane wrote:

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:14:59 +0100
Yann Dirson  wrote:
> So the question is, is it time to request removal of those 
> packages, or is there any remaining reason not to do so that I 
> missed ?


 As linux-patch-tomoyo1.7 package maintainer, tomoyo is merged with 
 mainline, but it's not fully featured one yet. At least, I want to 
 provide it with squeeze.


 and hope kernel-package would enable patch support again... ;)


I won't speak for Manoj here, but I feel we should think about other 
ways to provide those patches.


One way could be simply to provide ensure those patches in some git 
tree, that users can easily fetch and merge before running make-kpkg.


Lots of possibilities arise if we do not constrain ourselves to the 
Debian ideal of a fully self-contained distribution usable while 
offline.


I happen to like that ideal, also for kernel patches.


 - Jonas

--
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private


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Re: Status of kernel patch packages

[Ola Lundqvist]

Hi Yann

Thanks for the reminder. Yes it is time to remove at least the openvz
kernel patch package.

Best regards,

// Ola

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 03:14:59PM +0100, Yann Dirson wrote:
> Since April 2009, kernel-package has no use any more for the
> {kernel,linux}-patch-* packages (AFAIK the current recommended way of
> patching a kernel is using git).  My understanding was that those
> packages should then be simply removed from the archive.  However,
> there are still a couple of kernel patch packages in squeeze and sid,
> and some of them got recent updates.
> 
> So the question is, is it time to request removal of those packages,
> or is there any remaining reason not to do so that I missed ?
> 
> [CC'd maintainers of the relevant packages]
> 
> Best regards,
> -- 
> Yann
> 
> 

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Re: Status of kernel patch packages

[Hideki Yamane]

Hi,

On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:14:59 +0100
Yann Dirson  wrote:
> So the question is, is it time to request removal of those packages,
> or is there any remaining reason not to do so that I missed ?

 As linux-patch-tomoyo1.7 package maintainer, tomoyo is merged with 
 mainline, but it's not fully featured one yet. At least, I want to 
 provide it with squeeze.

 and hope kernel-package would enable patch support again... ;)


-- 
Regards,

 Hideki Yamane henrich @ debian.or.jp/iijmio-mail.jp
 http://wiki.debian.org/HidekiYamane


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