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Provide linux-{image,headers}-generic virtual packages on most architectures

Ben Hutchings requested to merge benh/default-flavours into sid

The Debian installer can choose a suitable kernel to install based on hardware information, but image builders can't do that and they need to know a sensible default kernel for each architecture.

I've resisted defining such a default before now, because there is no reasonable default on some architectures. But we can still provide a default for those architectures where there is:

  • [alpha,sparc64] default to SMP flavour; both flavours should run on everything but this seems more useful
  • [amd64] default to amd64, which should run on everything
  • [arm64] default to arm64, which should run on everything
  • [armhf] default to armmp, which should run on everything; non-LPAE CPUs are very common
  • [hppa] default to parisc, which should run on everything
  • [i386] default to 686-pae, which requires PAE; non-PAE CPUs are quite rare
  • [ia64] default to itanium, which should run on everything
  • [m68k,mips64r6*,ppc64*,riscv64,s390x] default to the only flavour
  • [mipsr6*] default to 32-bit flavour; 64-bit systems should use the 64-bit architecture

The architectures with no default are:

  • [armel,mips,mips64,mips64el,mipsel,sh4] flavours are platform-specific
  • [powerpc] 32-bit flavour won't boot on 64-bit systems and vice versa

Closes: #960209

Edited by Ben Hutchings

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