• EtchAndAHalf

Etch and a half is the nickname for a project to add newer packages (kernel, Xorg drivers and debian-installer) within the stable Debian 'etch' release to increase its usefulness to users with hardware that requires updated drivers.

Mailing List

A mailing list for this project is available on teams.debian.net. The name of the list is project-etchnahalf (archive).

Release Notes are being staged at /ReleaseNotes.

FAQ

How can a user test Etch And A Half before it's released ?

Simply add the etch-proposed-updates sources after the etch main sources in your /etc/apt/sources.list, i.e something like :
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian etch-proposed-updates main
(more help on StableProposedUpdates page).

How can a user install Etch And A Half before it's released?

• Use at least the lenny b1 debian installer, to get installer support for newer hardware. Use only the netboot (pxe boot) or the businesscard images; nothing else will work!

• Either add "suite=etch" (sans quotes) to the boot command line or boot in expert mode and choose to install stable during mirror selection.

• After the installation step that configures the package manager but before the "select and install software" step change the sources.list file as per the FAQ item above, adding etch-proposed-updates. Do this by switching to an alternate console with Alt-F2, typing mount to see where your root filesystem is mounted, and using something like: echo "deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian etch-proposed-updates main"\
     >> /target/etc/apt/sources.list

• If you need to use the etchnhalf kernel besides the above you should chroot to the target like: chroot /target and atp-get update and apt-get install the etchnhalf kernel

How can a user propose update to support more Hardware

(not answered).

When will it be shipped

The current plan for Etch And A Half is to release as part of a point release (4.0r4).

What packages would be updated

• linux-2.6.24
• Xorg drivers
  • xserver-xorg-video-nv (version 2.0.3, available in proposed-updates. This has support for Geforce 8 series GPUs and new rudimentary dual-head support, which is only enabled with Option "Dualhead" in xorg.conf, and disabled by default).)

  • xserver-xorg-video-intel (version 2.2.1, staged at http://people.debian.org/~jcristau/etchnhalf/ - add support for 965GM, 965GME, G33, Q35, Q33 and IGD_GM (pci ids 2A02, 2A12, 29C2, 29B2, 29D2 and 2A42) Please report feedback.)

• debian-installer (based on Lenny beta 2)

What will not work with this 2.6.24 kernel

• XEN (broken with 2.6.24)
• vserver (broken with 2.6.24)

• Drivers affected by firmware licensing issues and thus removed from official Debian kernels

  • e.g. cs46xx audio driver used with laptops like the IBM Thinkpad T20

TODO

* Bugs that need to be resolved * Add b43-fwcutter, bnx2-fwcutter

Kickoff Meeting 2007.10.31 @ 18:00 GMT in #debian-release

Minutes and log

• minutes

• full IRC Log

Agenda

• Is it still a good idea?
• Kernel
  • Are there any issues with using 2.6.23?
  • Must the Etch And A Half kernel have a superset of the 2.6.18 features? (e.g., xen, linux-modules-*, kernel-patches, etc)
  • Do we need to comply with etch or post-etch blob-stripping rules?
  • What differences should the Etch And A Half kernel have vs. the packages targeted for sid (e.g., ATA config)
  • Update kernel patches and modules?
  • Newer kernel headers use linux-libc-dev: do we need that too?
  • Will newer kernel headers cause other packages that build against them to FTBFS?
  • Are there other packages that need to be upgraded at the same time? for instance sysvinit to solve #426224
  • 2.6.18 with more backports (e1000, forcedeth, ...)?
  • xen update to 3.1?
• X
  • What X driver updates?
• d-i
  • What d-i changes are necessary? What d-i branch?
• GNOME
• KDE
• Attempt to derive a list of milestones/dependencies
• Future discussion
  • teams.debian.net list?
  • future meetings

• keywords: EtchAndAHalf ; Etch-And-A-Half; Etch-N-Half ; Etchnhalf ; Etchnahalf