dsd
13 November 2004
Pruning some kernels from portage & some important hotplug info
The Gentoo Linux kernel maintainers are in the process of doing some
housecleaning with the sys-kernel packages in portage. If you run any of the
following kernel packages, please read the full article: aa-sources,
alpha-sources, gaming-sources, gs-sources,
ia64-sources, pac-sources, planet-ccrma-sources, or
selinux-sources. Details about an important behaviour change with the
sys-apps/hotplug package are also included in this announcement.
Important sys-apps/hotplug behaviour change
Previous hotplug releases included an init.d script used to detect hardware at
bootup and aggressively load relevant modules. Technically, this is not
hotplugging (hotplugging is when you plug in a device during normal system
operation, hotplug aims to make this possible).
For this reason, the automatic loading modules at bootup functionality has
been removed from the 20040923 hotplug release, and moved into the more
appropriately named coldplug package.
After upgrading to the latest hotplug release, if you notice that important
modules are no longer being loaded for you at bootup, then you probably want
to install and activate coldplug in order to retain the old behaviour.
# emerge coldplug
# rc-update add coldplug boot
Please be advised that it is much safer to achieve this by listing the modules
you need loaded in /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.x. coldplug is
quite aggressive and sometimes causes problems here.
Some kernel packages have been removed from portage:
In order to keep our kernel packages manageable, we have recently removed some
of the older and unmaintained packages from the tree. We have produced
documentation to assist existing users in the migration to other kernel
packages.
Please read the section below relevant to the kernel you are running, and
follow some of our new documentation to migrate to another kernel package:
-
If you are migrating to another kernel package of the same branch, then
you should read the
Gentoo Linux
Kernel Upgrade Guide. For example, if you are migrating from
gs-sources (based on the Linux 2.4 branch) to gentoo-sources
(also based on the 2.4 branch) then this is the document you should follow.
-
If you are migrating from the Linux 2.4 branch to 2.6, then you should read
the The Gentoo
Linux 2.6 Migration Guide. Please remember that our default kernels are
still based on Linux 2.4 (Linux 2.6 will become default at a later date), and
bear in mind that migrating from 2.4 to 2.6 is a bigger operation than
migrating from one 2.4 kernel to another.
For a complete listing of the different kernel packages that are available,
please examine the
Kernel Guide.
aa-sources
The upstream maintainer, Andrea Arcangeli, has stopped producing kernel
patchsets. The latest releases of this kernel package are out of date,
presenting security and maintenance problems.
The aa-sources title currently provides ebuilds for both Linux 2.4 and
2.6 based kernels. Users running aa-sources-2.4.x are encouraged to migrate to
gentoo-sources, and users running aa-sources-2.6.x are encouraged to
migrate to gentoo-dev-sources.
alpha-sources
alpha-sources was a Linux 2.4 based kernel which included patches to
improve hardware compatibility with systems based on the Alpha processor.
These fixes are now incorporated with the mainline kernel, meaning that it is
no longer necessary for us to maintain a seperate kernel for the Alpha
architecture.
Alpha users wishing to stick with Linux 2.4 are encouraged to migrate to
gentoo-sources. Users wishing to migrate to Linux 2.6 are encouraged
towards gentoo-dev-sources.
Note that alpha-sources isn't completely removed yet, because gentoo-sources
does not offer the sysctl UAC configuration feature. This will be resolved
soon.
gaming-sources
This package was removed from Portage some time ago, but we thought we should
use this opportunity to announce it officially. gaming-sources included
a 'broken' CPU scheduler which gave a performance boost to some applications.
This broken scheduler was not ported onto future kernel releases, so became
out of date. At the same time, improvements going into the development tree
mean that equivalent high performance is also present in Linux 2.6.
Users wishing to stick with Linux 2.4 are encouraged to migrate to
gentoo-sources. Users wishing to migrate to Linux 2.6 are encouraged
towards gentoo-dev-sources. Alternatively, ck-sources will be
another popular choice - this kernel is geared towards maximum performance,
and packages for both Linux 2.4 and 2.6 are available. Please note that
ck-sources is not developed or supported by ourselves.
gs-sources
Once flagged as the kernel choice for servers, gs-sources is no longer
maintained, out of date, and has built up a series of problems. This package
has been removed from portage.
Desktop users wishing to remain on Linux 2.4 are recommended to migrate to
gentoo-sources. Or, if you wish to migrate to Linux 2.6, then you
should migrate to gentoo-dev-sources.
Users currently running this kernel on server type systems are recommended to
migrate to hardened-sources, our Linux 2.4-based kernel targeted at
stability and security. Alternatively, users wishing to migrate to Linux 2.6
should head for hardened-dev-sources.
ia64-sources
Originally provided for supporting IA-64 architecture and its hardware, the
work that went into ia64-sources has been merged into the mainline
Linux development tree. This means that this package is no longer required,
as IA-64 machines can work well with any recent 2.6 kernel.
Desktop users are encouraged to migrate to gentoo-dev-sources, and
users running server systems are encouraged to migrate to
hardened-dev-sources.
pac-sources
pac-sources was an uncommon kernel package designed to enhance
multimedia, based on Linux 2.4. It has been unmaintained for some time and has
become outdated.
If you wish to remain with Linux 2.4, you are encouraged to migrate to
gentoo-sources. For maximum multimedia performance, you may wish to
move up to Linux 2.6, in which case, gentoo-dev-sources would be the
recommended choice.
planet-ccrma-sources
This package was removed some time ago, but we are using this opportunity to
formally announce it. planet-ccrma-sources, similarly to
pac-sources, was a kernel package optimized for audio applications.
This work has been superseded by development in the Linux 2.6 branch.
If you wish to remain with Linux 2.4, you are encouraged to migrate to
gentoo-sources. For a maximum audio experience, you may wish to
move up to Linux 2.6, in which case, gentoo-dev-sources would be the
recommended choice.
selinux-sources
selinux-sources was a Linux 2.4 based kernel enhanced with
security-based patches from the NSA. This patchset is no longer maintained,
and equivalent work (plus other security options) are now included in Linux
2.6.
If you wish to remain with Linux 2.4, you are encouraged to migrate to
hardened-sources. However, as the Linux 2.6 kernel offers greatly
enhanced security features, users are urged to switch to
hardened-dev-sources.