[Pkg-xen-devel] Re: Packaing Xen 3.0 etc for Debian

[Steve Langasek]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2006 at 06:32:10PM +0100, Guido Trotter wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 24, 2006 at 06:06:22PM +0100, Bastian Blank wrote:

> > It is a sort of kernel.

> Yeah, it's a sort of kernel, but it's not the linux kernel... And it seems the
> kernel team is about the linux kernel, not just any kernel, isn't it?

The dom0 kernel is a Linux kernel built for the Xen hypervisor target.  If
Debian is to provide a complete packaged environment for Xen, which is
certainly the goal I'm interested in (and Bastian as well, by the looks of
it), that means packaging (at least) a dom0 kernel; and the only way to do
that which would make the cut for stable is if it's kept synchronized with
the main linux-2.6 package.  I think the only reasonable way to do that is
within the kernel team, which means people interested in helping with this
part should consider joining the kernel team.

For the userspace tools and the hypervisor, clearly there's no reason why
these need to be part of the kernel team repo as long as they aren't going
to be part of the same linux-2.6 source package.  As Bastian points out,
though, there does still need to be close coordination between the
hypervisor/userspace tools and the XenoLinux build, because we don't yet
have mix-and-match compatibility.  My feeling is that it still makes sense
to maintain the hypervisor and userspace tools in a separate pkg-xen group,
and just coordinate between the kernel and xen teams for this; but that
should be sorted out among those doing the work.  I certainly can't see any
benefits in terms of source management to having them in the same svn repo
with the kernel, anyway.

> > Just to say, how connected xen to linux is:

> > For example: There are three kernel trees of xen:
> > - from xen-3.0-testing, 2.6.12
> > - from linux-2.6-xen, 2.6.16-rc4
> > - from linux-2.6-merge, 2.6.16-rc3
> > All of them have different needs from xen.

And are any of them applicable as patches to today's 2.6.15 linux-2.6 tree?

> > The kernels from xen-3.0-testing and linux-2.6-merge works with a 3.0
> > and unstable hypervisor.

> > The 3.0 utils only works on the kernel from xen-3.0-testing. The
> > unstable utils with the other. But with both hypervisors.

> That's I think because xen is still young, and is starting just now its
> distribution integration, and probably will happen a lot less when it will be
> integrated with Linux (Linus' tree) and the development of xenolinux will
> proceed at a different pace than the hypervisor. Then probably it will just be
> that any xen version will have a minimum linux version needed, just as now a lot
> of other stuff does, and there will be nothing special in it, except the fact
> that it needs a kernel compiled for the appropriate subarch).

In the meantime, to the extent this is an issue it probably means that some
of this stuff isn't ready for inclusion in etch.  I don't see a point in
uploading two versions of xen to unstable, certainly, if they aren't both
going to work with the provided kernels.

> What do other people in the kernel team think? If the majority of them agree
> fine, otherwise are you sure it's not counterproductive to force xen in the
> kernel team hands if most of them don't want to touch it, and on the other hand
> to risk driving away other people who just cannot follow the whole linux
> business but could work on the xen hypervisor and tools, help coordinate with
> xen's upstream, debian glibc and d-i, etc! Especially if you and other people
> who would do both can still do it! :)

As an erstwhile contributor to the kernel team who's also interested in Xen
packaging, you have my answer above...

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon at debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/
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