Installing Debian kernels (after initial boot)

[Chad Walstrom]

Geert Stappers wrote:
> I hope that it makes it into the upstream version of FAI.  It is up to
> Thomas to include it, but he is busy with  Linux Kongress, so give him
> more time then he usual needs to respond.

Thanks for the kind words, but even I don't know if the script is
completely ready for upstream.  It's pretty specific to Linux and the
686 or K7 environments.   It won't work in all circumstances.  Then
again, FAI in general isn't very agnostic about things.

> Something different: What said Thomas about documentation and patches?

If people like this script, it could go in the /usr/share/fai/templates
directory, but since it's not really a test built into the subroutines
file, it doesn't really need documentation (other than the comments in
the script itself).  It's a customization, more than anything.  I can
create a standard patch against the CVS HEAD if you'd like.

There are a few more things (fixes) to consider for FAI.  The
subroutines file is great in that it's library-like, but there is a
limited environment available in BASH or ash.  We see that with problems
in the postinstall scripts that rely upon "xargs".  When subroutines
gets exported to the environment, xargs dies horribly.

One way to get around that is to reevaluate how we use the subroutines
in FAI.  One thing to consider is rewriting the functions as scripts by
themselves.  This will blackbox things a little better and reduce the
need for large shell environments.

Another thing to consider is using the "require" functions found in the
/usr/share/doc/bash/examples/scripts.noah/require.bash.gz file.  It
might cut down on the number of times we need to source a file for a
given functionality.

Anyway, time to get back to the grind.

-- 
Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net>                 | a.k.a. ^chewie
http://www.wookimus.net/                            | s.k.a. gunnarr