2002-01-15 10:42:43

by Zwane Mwaikambo

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery --the elegant solution)

This all sounds like distro work to me. Distributions could put the
userland apps in place to allow "automagic" tuning, recompilation etc
based on questions asked of the user. This Supe-Me-Up app could even
download the latest _Distro_Tested_ kernel and use that as the basis of
the new tuned one. Really i don't see what any of this has to do with
Linux Kernel. Eric i'm not putting down your excellent work, but i really
don't see where this is going, Normal users should _never_ have to use
kernel.org trees.

Regards,
Zwane Mwaikambo



2002-01-15 11:37:48

by Reid Hekman

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery --the elegant solution)

On Tue, 2002-01-15 at 04:40, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:
> Normal users should _never_ have to use
> kernel.org trees.

Yikes! Sayings about never saying "never" aside... I should think the
goal is for everyone to be able to use kernel.org trees with reasonable
expectations. I'd like to see the day when distros can include a
pristine tree. I don't expect it, and the need for outside trees isn't
going away, but I'd like to see kernel.org be the canonical Linux for
more production systems, development starts, and non-i386 arch's.

With respect to Aunt Tillie, hardware discovery and kernel configuration
are separate issues. Can't the hardware probes be a separate package?
The autoconfigurator I think will be useful, but can't the configurator
just be dependent on outside packages like other functionality is
dependent on isdn4k-utils or iptables?

Regards,
Reid "thinking this is getting offtopic" Hekman
--
Current: [email protected]
Permanent: [email protected]

2002-01-16 15:32:44

by Bill Davidsen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery --the elegant solution)

On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Reid Hekman wrote:

> On Tue, 2002-01-15 at 04:40, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:
> > Normal users should _never_ have to use
> > kernel.org trees.
>
> Yikes! Sayings about never saying "never" aside... I should think the
> goal is for everyone to be able to use kernel.org trees with reasonable
> expectations. I'd like to see the day when distros can include a
> pristine tree. I don't expect it, and the need for outside trees isn't
> going away, but I'd like to see kernel.org be the canonical Linux for
> more production systems, development starts, and non-i386 arch's.

Slackware has run stock kernels in some releases. Whenever possible I
prefer to run a stock kernel, since I can then avoid finding out that an
application isn't portable after all :-( Done that, didn't polish my
reputation or improve my disposition.

I would say that very few normal users are running applications so close
to the cutting edge that they need kernel patches to make them work.

--
bill davidsen <[email protected]>
CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.

2002-01-21 14:55:49

by Mark H. Wood

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery --the elegant solution)

On 15 Jan 2002, Reid Hekman wrote:

> On Tue, 2002-01-15 at 04:40, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:
> > Normal users should _never_ have to use
> > kernel.org trees.
>
> Yikes! Sayings about never saying "never" aside... I should think the
> goal is for everyone to be able to use kernel.org trees with reasonable
> expectations.

Yikes indeed. What's a distribution? Oh, wait, I recall sometime back in
the last century I downloaded some diskette images called "Slackware 1.2".
I guess that's my distribution. Since then I've replaced every single bit
outside of a few /etc/rc.d scripts, installed a dozen locally-built kernel
upgrades, etc.

Now that I think of it, what's a normal user?

--
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer [email protected]
Our lives are forever changed. But *that* is exactly as it always was.