[ILUG] Debian stable / testing

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ciaran Johnston (cj at nologic.org):

> Tried this and had a few difficulties - mainly down to the order
> things had to be done. I'm currently running on a kernel compiled the
> "normal" way. I don't think it's possible to get a 2.4.24 kernel with
> apt-get on the stable branch, is it?

Probably not.  (I tend not to pay attention to the stable branch, having
moved beyond it.)  Most likely, what is provided prepackaged is a 2.4.18
kernel with all security fixes backported.  Except where one has some
specific need for a newer and probably less stable kernel (e.g., for
drivers introduced only later), that is considered, on the stable
branch, to be the best tradeoff.

> After some more playing around, I've pretty much decided to stick to stable. 
> The only thing I'm wondering on is the kernel; should I revert to a packaged 
> version, or stick with my nice compiled one, which is working fine? 

Well, if your kernel works for you, then that seems a good argument for
sticking with it.

> BTW the reason for rebuilding the kernel is to build software RAID
> support into it, but looking at the way Debian works, one of these is
> probably already available. 

Yes, I'd be really surprised if any of the official Debian kernels
omitted the md driver.  It's a very popular kernel feature, after all.
Debian was one of the first distributions to migrate to a radically
modularised kernel.  I guess their attitude was: If you can provide a
driver in modular form, then why not do so?

> Thanks and regards,

Yr. very welcome.

-- 
Cheers,        "Linux means never having to delete your love mail."
Rick Moen                                              -- Don Marti
rick at linuxmafia.com