User:Eliasp/GLEP draft - fully integrated Kernel handling

Abstract
This GLEP proposes a way to improve the handling of Kernels in Gentoo.

Status
Draft

Motivation
The way how Kernels are built is currently mostly out of Portage's control which comes with the following disadvantages:


 * Kernels need to be built manually using an external tool like genkernel and require additional knowledge of users about Kernel configuration.
 * Kernel config options defined in an ebuild aren't handled as dependency, they are only tested in pkg_pretend when installing a package.
 * Changes in the configuration of the current Kernel aren't detected by Portage, so (accidentally) disabling a Kernel config option which is required by a currently installed package doesn't raise any warnings/errors during a @world update.
 * The manual approach to Kernel configuration/building doesn't allow to manage Kernels in a fully automated environment managed by configuration management tools like SaltStack or Puppet and requires a full manually maintained Kernel configuration to be provided for each specific Kernel version before it can be deployed.

Copyright
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.