Package: ftp.debian.org Severity: normal Hi,
we, the current upstream author[1] (me) and the last maintainer[2] of dphys-kernel-packages (Gürkan Sengün) request the removal of dphys-kernel-packages from unstable and testing. [1] http://nic.phys.ethz.ch/projects/dphys-kernel-packages/#authors [2] http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/dphys-kernel-packages.html There are several technical issues which make the package not very useful if packaged in Debian, i.e. if older versions of the package are used: 1) As new CPUs are available the script needs to be modified over and over again to recognise them. This causes the script to be unfeasible for stable releases. 2) It's primary purpose is to build sets of up-to-date vanilla kernels. As new kernel options enter, the (hardcoded) filters for the generated configurations need modifications then and when. This, too, causes the script to be unfeasible for stable releases. 3) The range of possible kernel configurations with this package are somehow delimited by what hardware we use at our site and cannot be expanded by configuration, only stripped. So e.g. no kernels optimised for Pentium II kernels are possible since we never had such machines in use. We noticed these issues mostly during the last year with the deployment of new kernels as well as new workstations with Debian Etch. There are further issues which are not the core reasons for the removal request, but show that package is not that much useful for others: 4) Popcon stats show about 200 installations[3] of which about 170 to 180 installations are our own. (And the package will probably be removed from them quite soon, since we plan deploy the two contained scripts via dphys-config instead of apt.) 5) The package has been orphaned about more than seven months ago[4] and nobody stepped forward to adopt it. 6) The script cannot build other than i386 kernels, so although it's an architecture-all package, it's useless on all architectures but i386. (Our amd64 kernels are built manually and we have no multiple kernel configurations to generate for amd64. See also issue #3 above.) [3] http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=dphys-kernel-packages [4] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=449511 For those who still want to use the scripts, we suggest to fetch the current version from the dphys-kernel-packages homepage[5], deploy dphys-kernel-cputime like a configuration file (e.g. with dphys-config[6]) and use dphys-kernel-packages locally in the kernel build directories or installed to /usr/local/bin/. [5] http://nic.phys.ethz.ch/projects/dphys-kernel-packages/ [6] http://packages.debian.org/dphys-config http://nic.phys.ethz.ch/projects/dphys-config/ TIA, Axel Beckert and Gürkan Sengün. -- System Information: Debian Release: 4.0 APT prefers stable APT policy: (500, 'stable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.23.16-amd64-1 Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
