FLAME____ Why is the kernel source not included

[Paul Howarth]

Ken Johanson wrote:
>> Alexander said "Mount FC2 CD3"
> 
> Yes he did, and ended his comment in an inflammatory tone - without 
> investigating or being aware-of the FC3 release candidate, and the 
> reported plans to exclude the source from the install discs. He set 
> himself up for that response by using the word 'investigating' and being 
> rude.

I'm sure Alexander is well aware of the plans for FC3.

>> For the FC3 source (which is off-topic for this list btw), you'd need 
>> the SRPM:
>> http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2.92/SRPMS/kernel-2.6.8-1.541.src.rpm 
>>
> Sorry Paul - let me do looking and and find the test-specific mailing 
> list. Sorry if I burdened anyone here for pointing out an arguable 
> deficiency in a release due out in 2 weeks.

It is indeed arguable, which is why there has been an extensive discussion on 
it on the -test list.

Don't you agree that building modules from sources in /lib/modules... is in 
the long term the "right thing to do", since the kernel.org people have been 
advocating this for ages? Some module writers still require the old-fashioned 
/usr/src... way of doing things, so perhaps Fedora are doing the whole 
community a favour by encouraging the module writers to use the proper build 
system, which will then benefit all distributions.

> And hopefully anyone who has an problem while wanting to build custom 
> kernels or module will catch this issue when they browse through the 
> test 'list' and find my post about this, there... And most people wont 
> need to build NIC modules, or build in SCSI or NTFS drivers, so should 
> be able to get the source onto their machine form the site...

All of these things can be done in FC3. Building a custom kernel will require 
the kernel SRPM, building SCSI/NTFS modules should work using the out-of-tree 
build system without needing the source code.

> Do you sense a tad bit of sarcasm? I take the kernel very seriously - 
> like I said, it *is* our constitution. Constitutions are lost if we dont 
> fight to keep them intact.

I agree, the kernel source is very important, but it *is* being provided for 
those that need it.

I am sure that for those modules requiring the old-fashioned kernel source 
location for building, FC3 HOWTOs will appear rapidly after the release of 
FC3, at least for things that people actually want to use.

Paul.