Subject: The PCMCIA and kernel packages

From: Brian Mays <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 19:31:15 -0500

At Oliver Oberdorf's request, I have assumed the responsibility for
maintaining the pcmcia-cs package.  Since this package contains kernel
modules, it must be coordinated with the kernel package.  From what
the package creator, Oliver Oberdorf, has told me, I believe that
three proposals have been advanced to handle the kernel-PCMCIA
compatibility problem.  Please inform me if this is incorrect.

Option 1: The pcmcia-cs package remains complete as it now exists.  It
would be my responsibility to ensure that the binary package is
compiled for the latest kernel.  This is the current state of the
package.

Option 2: The modules are removed from the pcmcia-cs package and
placed in Simon Shapiro's kernel-image package.  The remaining binary
tools and config files remain in the pcmcia-cs package.

Option 3: The pcmcia-cs package is given to Manoj Srivastava to be
incorporated into his "kernel debianizer" package.

There are problems with incorporating PCMCIA into the kernel package,
the most important of which is size.  Adding the entire pcmcia package
to the kernel package will increase the size of the kernel-source deb
file by 576k or 10%.  The size of the kernel-image deb file will
increase by 283k or 33%.  Even if the binary tools and config files
are omitted, the PCMCIA modules alone will increase the size of the
kernel-image deb file by 113k or 13%.  Since the number of users with
PCMCIA hardware is small, do we really need to add the extra modules
to the kernel package?

--
Brian Mays <[email-masked]>

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From: Manoj Srivastava <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Jun 1996 03:26:00 -0400

Hi,
>>"Brian" == Brian Mays <[email-masked]> writes:

Brian> Option 3: The pcmcia-cs package is given to Manoj Srivastava to
Brian> be incorporated into his "kernel debianizer" package.

	Umm, not to be a wet blanket or anything, but there are
 serious problems with option 3:
	a) I don't have a laptop, and can't test the package
	b) The kernel-package package  does not contain any
	   executables, so it is at the moment architecture
	   independent, and I belive the pcmcia module is not
	c) The kernel package package is a small 23K package, adding
	   576K to this is an 2300% increase
	d) The kernel-package package has little to do with the
	   modules generated.
 I urge you to reconsider this option.

	manoj
-- 
 Love is a matter of chemistry, but Sex is a matter of physics.

Manoj Srivastava               Systems Research Programmer, Project Pilgrim,
Phone: (413) 545-3918                A143B Lederle Graduate Research Center,
Fax:   (413) 545-1249         University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
<[email-masked]> <URL:http://www.pilgrim.umass.edu/%7Esrivasta/>

---

From: Brian Mays <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 96 10:10:06 -0500

>>>>> "Manoj" == Manoj Srivastava writes:

    Manoj> d) The kernel-package package has little to do with
    Manoj> the modules generated.

Apparently, I was mistaken.  The question now is whether to place the
PCMCIA modules in the (i386) kernel package.

---

From: Alexander Goldstein <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 13:23:16 -0500 (CDT)

> PCMCIA modules in the (i386) kernel package.

What about a separate package that is generated from a same source, at the
same time, as a kernel package.  That way people without the PCMCIA hardware
would not be forced to install it, but it will be always up to date with a
current kernel package.  I guess it would have to depend on exact version
number of a kernel.

--
Alexander Goldstein                         email: [email-masked]