Re: Kernel packages

[Alan B. <al...@ms...>]

hi,

> One thing I noticed in the 'main' packages is that the tarball contains
> another gzipped tarball with the modules. This doesn't make sense as it
> prevents gzip from exploiting full compression for the 'outer' one. I suggest
> either putting the modules in a modules/<version>/ subdirectory or at least
> not gzipping their tarball.

this doesnt make sense...if gzip follows all sane rules of compression,
then it doesnt matter whether you compress it all, or just compress what
isnt already compressed.

ie take 4 directories, either tar them and gzip them, or tar and gzip each
of them and tar and gzip the resulting .tgz's, the result should be the
same in file size.
 
the reason why I chose the 'encapsulate' method for the modules is it
makes it 4x easier for users to install the modules, as they dont have to
make directories etc, untarring the modules package from root will do the
work for them (i cant imagine how many user problems we'd face if they had
to go around actually making directories! ;-) - after all, just see the
number of problem emails that just HAVING modules creates :-))

> Another point is that I have forgotten to include the modules in the latest
> 2.4 test package. It would be nice if from time to time, someone who builds a
> working 2.4 kernel puts it in a package and uploads it.

i cant build a kernel from the 2.3 CVS tree (the first time I've ever
tried was last night) I was going to make a '2.4' version similar to the
vmapus-kit of 000814. 

it fails in the /arch/kernel direcrtory, problems with fork.c

alan