Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Eric Sandall <eric AT sandall.us>]

Quoting Ladislav Hagara <ladislav.hagara AT unob.cz>:
> Howdy all,
<snip>
> I very like the options (check boxes) to chose patches on "old" linux 
> spell. It is great if I see them all in one screen and can very easy 
> select/deselect them.
> With linux-new spell I several times removed my selections and had to 
> make it from scratch.

And this is what I /like/ about linux-new. ;) You only see the patches
that are known to apply to the kernel you chose. If you want to try
others then you can modify the patches and (hopefully) let us know so
others can benefit.

> From the developer's view it is very demanding/difficult to maintain 
> or update linux-new spell.
> Several new files have to be created, several files should be 
> removed. I know there is some script but I prefer simple solutions.

I've found it quite easy to maintain and like the separating of the
patches into separate files, since not all patches will be following
the same naming convention this avoids some of the hackery that went
into the linux spell.

> I do not understand why the default answer for "Would you like to 
> have linux-new update your bootloader?" is no.
> Again, users are not interested is some options. Just "sorcery 
> system-updated" should update all system including linux-new and 
> updating bootloader.
> This default answer can cause for example that  the linux kernel 
> 2.8.8 is installed but user still use 2.6.10 due to the old lilo.conf.

It's safer to default not to modify someone's boot config in case they
did mess up on the kernel config. This way at least their system will
boot no matter how bad they screwed up the new compile (unless they're
replacing the old kernel, but then modifying the boot config wouldn't
have helped either).

> I did not see any message about gpg checking of linux kernel sources.

That's in the works, AFAIK.

> linux-new spell should use config from linux spell.

I thought Dave added the option for linux-new to pick up on a prior
kernel config from /proc/config.gz or /usr/src/linux/.config?

<snip>
> PS:
> Yes, there are users who really do not know what the lilo is, they 
> are not interested in hundreds of options, they do not want to still 
> anwer the same questions, they only want to run "sorcery 
> system-update" and want their system is up-to-date. They have chosen 
> Source Mage because we have up-to-date versions of their favourite 
> programs, that we provide spells which are not included in other 
> distributions, that Source Mage is easier to maintain than binary 
> distros (yes, it is, only "sorcery system-update"). We can not force 
> all our users to study what the lilo is, what is the meaning of 
> hundreds of options of our spells. Users are not interested in it.
> For example, I really recovered the box where the crucial init 
> scripts were disabled. Some questions should be hidden from users.

And they still can, they just have to answer 'y' to having linux-new
update the bootloader, but, as I mentioned above, it's safer to not do
that by default.

As for the init scripts, if they're marked ESSENTIAL than they'll
default to being installed and enabled, otherwise they'll default to
what you last answered (unless the options changes, then Sorcery
doesn't have a mapping to refer to).

-sandalle

--
Eric Sandall                        |  Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric at sandall.us PGP: 0xA8EFDD61  |  http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/             |  SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @
WSU
http://counter.li.org/  #196285     |  http://www.shock.wsu.edu/

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