More docs ideas?

[Karsten Wade]

On Mon, 2004-08-23 at 05:32, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> (Top posting because I'm basically forwarding.)
> 
> There's another docs idea toward the bottom of this post. Unfortunately,
> recent changes in the kernel building schema for FC2 and FC3test* have
> started some flamewars, mostly (methinks) because of misunderstanding.
> (C'est la vie.) But it does argue for some quick docs work. There is a
> link below to a write-up that Arjan van de Ven did for FedoraNews.org
> not too long ago. I'm sticking it in the archives for reference.
> 
> Again, if no one has a quibble, I'll Bugzilla this.

This is a super-important document that we could produce fairly quickly
- Fedora Kernel Short Guide to Changes, or something.

If one or more people have the time to tackle this, I recommend we
approach Arjan with something like, "Fedora docs project would like to
assign this writer to work with you on getting this new kernel document
written.  We've started with what you did for FedoraNEWS.org, put it
into our template, and are ready to work on it further."

If anyone can reliably tackle this, it requires existing knowledge of
the history of kernel and kernel-source, as well as the time to get
familiar with the current discussion.  I'll be happy to handle the
introduction to Arjan.

- Karsten
> 
> On Sun, 2004-08-22 at 14:45, Bob Arendt wrote:
> > Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > >>If fedora.us accepts the fact that multiple-repos (co)exist, and would
> > >>be willing to work on interoperability/compatibility I would very much
> > >>welcome a new kernel module framework outside of Arjan's reach ;)
> > > 
> > > You know, YOU and 2 or 3 other people are the reason I entirely stopped
> > > caring about this. No matter what I do you or those others will just
> > > flame me and personally attack me. So I rather do just nothing and
> > > ignore the entire thing.
> 
> > As a kernel source user, module builder, I'd like to speak in *favor*
> > of the new kernel src.rpm scheme.
> > 
> > Using mod-versioned kernels, I used to have to rebuild kernel-source
> > up through the "make dep" stage to get valid kernel headers to compile
> > against.  It was error-prone; If I didn't change the Makefile
> > EXTRAVERSION, or copy the correct architecture config file to start
> > with, I got incompatible headers.  Building a module for multiple
> > archs, this was repetitious.  OR - I could burn a *lot* of disk space
> > replicating the kernel source just to build the headers to build
> > modules against.  Yech.
> > 
> > Now the kernel headers are included with each kernel install!
> > Fantastic!  No more special builds.  ASCII headers compress really
> > well, so there's little inflation in binary-kernel rpm size.  And it's
> > much easier to build & install the 3rd party hardware drivers we use.
> > Now 3rd party delivered build scripts "just work" since the correct
> > headers can always be found with the kernel.  Vendors have gotten
> > fewer callbacks regarding installation.  It no longer depends on the
> > last state of the /usr/src/linux* since someone last used the
> > kernel-source.  In fact, it removes the kernel-source requirement
> > entirely.
> > 
> > Better yet, the kernel src.rpm now gives me direct visibility into the
> > patches that RedHat's applied.  kernel-source always used to bug me,
> > since all I got was the post-patched kernel-source without much info
> > on how it differed from kernel.org's version.  If I just "rpm -i", I
> > get the virgin kernel source tarball in the ./SOURCES directory.  With
> > "rpmbuild -bp " I get the RedHat patched kernel, equivalent to
> > kernel-source.  Better yet, I can look in kernel.spec and see the
> > patches applied (with comments) one-by-one.  Though the src.rpm had
> > been available, I'd never really looked at it since most of the
> > literature (well .. web-searches) steered me towards kernel-source.
> > 
> > Arjan's write-up here: http://fedoranews.org/colin/fnu/issue14.shtml
> > seemed to cover the history and issues pretty well.  It would be good
> > to get this written up in a HOWTO or some more easily findable docs.
> > Especially prior to RHEL4, where I'd expect to see some quality docs
> > on these procedures, delivered as part of RHEL4 documentation.
> > 
> > Good work Arjan.
> 
> -- 
> Paul W. Frields, RHCE
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, Tech Writer
a lemon is just a melon in disguise
http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
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