Bug#398924: Conflict between Gnome, udev, hotplug and linux-2.4

[Steve Langasek]

On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 09:15:44AM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:

> > > When upgrading a 2.4 system, kernel first. It's also the easiest component
> > > part to rollback.

> > Kernel first before what?  Before anything else in userspace?

> Upgrading the kernel means to upgrade udev and also glibc. This is
> entirly possible.

> We have one problematic case, though: Upgrades from 2.2 to 2.6 on an
> arch without 2.4-kernels. Do we need udev-backports for them?

The only arch with 2.2 kernels in sarge is m68k though, which isn't
releasing with etch.  The m68k porters should surely be consulted about how
they want to handle this.

> > I don't see any reason to worry about rollbacks at all, except in the
> > specific case of "the new kernel isn't set up right yet, so I need to be
> > able to reboot to the old kernel to finish the upgrade."  I don't see that
> > installing a new kernel first helps much with that; whether you install it
> > first or last, installing linux-image-2.6.18-3-$foo is going to pull in
> > initramfs-tools -> udev and udev is going to kick out hotplug.  Whether this
> > happens at the beginning or at the end doesn't seem relevant to the user
> > experience, since in either case there's a window after hotplug has been
> > removed and before the kernel has been configured where a power failure
> > could leave the system in a state that isn't easy to recover from.

> So, we should document this state, and make sure people know how to
> escape from it.

> Cases where this state includes no network access worry me more, because
> lots of people depend on network for upgrades (both for login and for
> getting packages).

Yes, if hotplug has to be removed before udev can be installed, we will have
users whose network interfaces will become unavailable upon reboot to 2.4.
Definitely something to document if we can't fix it.

-- 
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/