Applying patches to the Debian kernel tree
==========================================

The Debian kernel packaging uses a custom patching system:

Patches are stored below debian/patches, loosely sorted in bugfix/,
features/ and debian/. Patches are in the standard kernel patch
format.

The order and the selection of patches which are applied during build
time are specified in the series/ subdirectory. For each revision
there may be up to one file named REVISION specifying the patches
applied for the standard revision and one file named REVISION-extra
for addon flavours. If, e.g. the patches are specified for 2.6.26-12, 
the patch order file is called debian/patches/series/12 for the
standard kernel images and debian/patches/series/12-extra for the
addon flavours.

Let's look at the actual series file for 2.6.26-12:

+ bugfix/all/net-unix-gc-fix-soft-lockups-oom-issues.patch
+ bugfix/all/inotify-watch-removal-umount-races.patch
+ bugfix/all/atm-duplicate-listen-on-socket-corrupts-the-vcc-table.patch
+ bugfix/all/ata-pata_marvell-vs-ahci.patch
+ features/sparc/video-sunxvr500-intergraph.patch

The patches to be applied are specified relative to debian/patches.
"+" indicates that the patch should be added, "-" can be used to
drop a patch in later patch series (e.g. if the patch turned out to
be faulty). The series files may be arbitrarily documented with 
comments starting with "#".

Let's now have a look at the series file for the addon kernel flavours
of 2.6.26-12:

+ features/all/xen/dom0-fix-processor-throttling-when-pr-id-is-minus-1.patch featureset=xen

The same syntax applies for specifing the patches, but an additional
argument is needed which specifies the featureset the patch applies to.



TODO:
- Generating DFSG tarballs
- How to define a flavour
- Generation of debian/control and configs