Etch-And-A-Half
attachment:Portal/IDB/official-doc.png |
http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/etchnhalf - Release Notes?BRhttp://www.debian.org/releases/etch/debian-installer/etchnhalf - Installation Instructions |
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 [http://teams.debian.net teams.debian.net]. The name of the list is project-etchnahalf ([http://teams.debian.net/lurker/list/project-etchnahalf.html 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 : ?BR deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian etch-proposed-updates main ?BR (more help on StableProposedUpdates page).
- How can a user install Etch And A Half before it's released?
Use at least the lenny b1 [http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ 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"\?BR >> /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)
[:KernelFirmwareLicensing:Drivers affected by firmware licensing issues] and thus removed from official Debian kernels
e.g. [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=464197 cs46xx audio driver] used with laptops like the IBM Thinkpad T20
TODO
* [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=project-etchnahalf@teams.debian.net;which=tag&data=needed&archive=no 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
[http://meetbot.debian.net/meetbot/debian-release.20071031_1800.html minutes]
[http://meetbot.debian.net/meetbot/debian-release.log.20071031_1800.html 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