Debian 2.6.2 Re: [LUG] distros and "drivers" as such

[Simon Waters <Simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kai Hendry wrote:
> Encouraging newbies to build their own kernel is a really bad idea.

Debian unstable went to 2.6.2 like this...

Install the kernel image using apt. (Something like: apt-get install
kernel-image-2.6.2-i686)

Reboot

Added "evdev" and "psmouse" to /etc/modules so they load at boot to get
my mouse (really a touch pad) back from the dead.

(Downloaded and installed the synaptic driver from source - so I could
fiddle with touch pad settings but this is optional)

Reboot (to make sure the changes to /etc/modules work as intended).

Ok tougher than most newbies will want - I had to surf around for the
"mouse" know-how - but then IT IS unstable.


It seems sightly faster than with the 2.4 kernel - but that is purely
subjective - otherwise the main difference I've noticed is the kernel
module names have changed (.ko).

It hasn't fixed any of my outstanding bugs, but then I never had many,
currently top of my kill list is that the j2re packages from Blackdown
don't integrate with Mozilla 1.6 well (SUN's own work fine but are not
free software - just gratis), and that irritating bug in X acceleration
is back (I have to disable OffScreenPixmaps to get perfect graphics).


Conclusions

Once they sort the mouse - they can probably ship 2.6 in Debian stable
pretty soon.

2.6 works - so if I need any of those trendy new features I have a
little more confidence in deploying it on more critical systems (which
are generally mouseless anyway).

It was a lot easier than upgrading from 2.2 to 2.4 ;)

No compiling from source required - but the synaptic driver is a 'must
have' for the laptop owner who wants to configure EVERYTHING. Oh the
synaptic driver will issue a reset - so I might have fixed my "booting
Windows first kills my mouse" bug, but then I boot Windows so rarely I'd
forgotten about that one.

Very little seems to notice a change of kernel ;)


Downside

2.6.2 has a known local root exploit - time to get 2.6.3 - not that
anyone is likely to hack my laptop as he is neary always NATed and I'm
the only local user. 2.6.3 hadn't made it into unstable at the time of
upgrading.

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