Kernel ABI and why it matters

Kernel ABI is the exported binary interface provided by the kernel, and accompanying modules. Most Linux distributions have a way of tracking this ABI to detect when the kernel's exported interfaces have changed, and thus, modules compiled for it may be in need of recompiling. Usually this results in the incrementing if an ABI number (on Ubuntu, it would be the "-2-" in 2.6.24-2-generic).

There are many extremes on how this ABI is handled, from taking expensive measures to ensure it doesn't change in a released distribution, to just not caring at all (not tracking it will be an idiotic extreme I wont even cover).

In Ubuntu's case, we fall somewhere in the middle. We track it, and bump the ABI fairly reliably if _anything_ in our kernel ABI changes. We also try not to bump it in released kernels too often (security updates being an exception), but we don't put much effort into preventing it, or guaranteeing a subset of symbols will never change over the lifetime of a product.

The general consensus has been (at least for me, I can't speak for Canonical on this point) is that the only things that cared about ABI bumps were proprietary and/or third party drivers. For open-source third-party drivers, we've recently been pushing the use of DKMS. For proprietary drivers, I've been all for letting the vendors deal with keeping up with us.

However, kABI has more ramifications than just proprietary modules. Many certifications are based on the kABI it is running under (think Oracle, VMware, etc). When we bump the kABI, we in affect force a minimal recertification. This isn't good for an enterprise Linux distribution.

So it seems that things will change. For Ubuntu to be considered in certain installations, kABI will need to have strict guidelines and criteria. We'll need to justify post-release kABI bumps and do more work to rewrite security patches to avoid changing the kABI.

A bit of preparation for this has already taken place in Intrepid's kernel (based on 2.6.26). A new kABI checker has been implemented. This checker has always been there, and it runs at build time, but has been very basic and dumb. Now, it has much finer grain checks, and will be expanded to support white/black lists in which we will only bump the kABI if it affects major parts of the kernel (no more kABI bumps for appletalk, sorry guys).

You wont notice much when this happens. You probably wouldn't have known if I hadn't told you. Rest assured that it wont adversely affect our range of hardware support. Perhaps it will mean you have to do less compiling for DKMS packages on your system :)

Keeping the last successfully booted kernel

It's always been possible to boot to an older kernel on Ubuntu if a new kernel didn't work. However it was never possible to boot to the last kernel that was known to work, nor was there ever a guarantee that there would be an old kernel around.

Let's say someone installs Intrepid 8.10 Alpha 1 with kernel 2.6.26-2-generic. After installing (which presumably went well), they upgrade and get a new 2.6.26-2-generic kernel (remember, newer kernels don't always bump the "2" ABI). Upon rebooting, they discover this new kernel doesn't work for them. What now? There is no longer an older kernel to boot to.

Enter "last-good-boot". A new mechanism now in development that will save away the kernel+initrd+modules for the last time your system booted successfully.

It will add this as an entry in grub for visibility.

Currently there are packages in a PPA:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ben-collins/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ben-collins/ubuntu intrepid main

It includes the module-init-tools and grub changes needed to test. After installing these packages, you will need to reboot in order to get your first last-good-boot.

Feedback welcome.

Video conversion for PS3

So I was messing around with my PS3 this week. I decided I wanted to finally take advantage of it as a media center, since my laptop is getting too full with movies, home videos and photos.

Much to my dismay, there's a whole lot of people asking how to use Linux to convert videos for the PS3, and not a lot of success out there. Finally, after several days of trial and error, I've gotten it down pretty good, encoding all of my home videos and movies to h264 format.

First off, I did replace the weak 20Gig drive in my PS3. It's actually quite easy. The drive in the PS3 is a standard SATA laptop type drive. If you want to backup your current drive, simply go under Settings->System Settings->Backup Utility and use a decent size flash/pen drive to do it (I was able to back mine up onto a 4Gig USB pen drive). After the backup is done, open the side (you're responsible for this if it breaks your system, not me), and change out the drive with your new one, and power up. It will ask if you want to format it, choose "Yes" of course. Then use the same utility to restore your data (saved games and such).

So, now on to the encoding part. This ended up being extremely easy, but there was a lot of missing information I had to figure out. First, you will need the avidemux program. On my Ubuntu 8.04 system, this was available from the universe repository (apt-get, synaptics will find it by default).

Start avidemux and open your video. Go to the Auto menu and select "PSP (H.264)", use the 720x480 video mode when the dialog box pops up. This isn't it though. Next, select "Configure" under the Video section, change the encoding to "2 Pass - Bitrate" mode. Close the configure dialog. Click the "Format" dropdown, and change it to MP4.

That's it, now click save, and let it process. You will get nice, compact, high quality video suitable for your PS3.

WAIT. This is the part that I have yet to find. When transfering your video to your PS3, you will need to follow some key steps, else the PS3 wont "see" it on your USB device. Your USB device should be fat32 formatted. On the device, create a directory called "VIDEO" (all caps, no quotes). This is where you will copy your video files to. This part took me awhile to figure out. If you have videos you want to group together (an "Album" in PS3 speak), create a subdirectory in "VIDEOS" (e.g. "VIDEOS/Action Movies/") and place your videos there. You can then copy this entire "Album" together.

Well, that's it. Hope I saved you a lot of time and frustration.