First kernel upload for gutsy...priceless

[Ben Collins]

Well, it's all up. linux-source-2.6.22, which is 2.6.21 at the moment,
as we continue to follow linux-2.6.git through the 2.6.22 development
cycle. Followed by linux-restricted-modules, which is an exact dupe of
the package in feisty for 2.6.20, obviously compiled against the new
kernel.

A new package on the block, linux-ubuntu-modules, which is where all the
debian/firmware/ and ubuntu/ modules went to that used to be in our
linux-source package. This move was made to clean up the main tree.
We'll make use of the linux-meta packages to ensure upgrades go
smoothly.

We still have a lot of work to do, mainly syncing patches for the 2.6.22
merge window so that we don't have many (if any) local deltas to our
main source tree.

The new build system is in effect in linux-source. I've updated the wiki
to reflect a few things about it, but I still need to do a large bit of
public documentation. There's lots of comments and a few READMEs in the
debian/ directory. It has some great features, including a build time
test suite that we plan to use for module validation, among other
things.

Part of this new build system brings us some new and interesting
flavours right out of main tree: Xen and Real-Time.

Previously, large patchsets like this were rejected, and required to be
built out-of-tree. There's a million reasons we did this, but the main
one is that we didn't want this patch in our stock source. With the new
build system, however, we can have flavours which patch the stock source
at build time to produce a sand boxed build. So while we have Xen and
Real-Time kernels (-xen and -rt flavours), the main kernels are not
patched with this code.

This is a big win for us and the community. It means we can provide
steady updates during development cycle, and provide things like
linux-restricted-modules. For post release it means that security
updates will benefit even these targets.

Please note that this does not mean we'll be doing a flavour for any old
patch that someone drops in an email and sends our way. So please, hold
your suspend2 requests, and similar. Even though this is easier to
maintain, it still means we have to maintain it. If the patch doesn't
apply, we gotta do something about it (especially if the team involved,
like ubuntu-studio and ubuntu-xen, don't keep their end of the
bargain :)

This is the last kernel upload you'll see for a few weeks. 3/4 of the
kernel team will be on the road next week, and the following week is UDS
where we'll all be drinking the night away in some spanish saloon, maybe
dodging bulls in our spare time.

So happy kerneling everyone!

PS: -rt and -xen did not get nvidia or fglrx builds in lrm. For -rt it
was because Ingo's patch changes some things so that nvidia and fglrx
kernel modules link to GPL-only symbols, thus making them unloadable.


-- 
Ubuntu:    http://www.ubuntu.com/
Linux1394: http://www.linux1394.org/