fake-pae

Patch the /proc/cpuinfo (add missing pae flag) so that new Ubuntu versions can be installed on Pentium-M processors without apt-get error messages..

Problem
=======

Ubuntu versions from Quantal (12.10) onwards only contain PAE-enabled kernels.
The kernel package's install script (preinst) will grep for the string " pae "
in /proc/cpuinfo. If it is not found then it will simply refuse to install,
leaving apt-get in a state with unconfigured packages and broken dependencies.

But most (all?) of the affected Pentium-M processors could run these kernels
without any problems if it only were allowed to install them!

Solution
========

The package "fake-pae" will install an upstart job that will patch /proc/cpuinfo
on every boot (using a simple bind-mount) which will effectively disable this
artificial install restriction.

If you own such a laptop (for example many of the older ThinkPad models) and
currently have Precise (12.04) installed (which is the last version officially
supporting non-pae kernels) and want to upgrade to Quantal (12.10) then simply
install the package "fake-pae" from this ppa. After this the distribution upgrade
to 12.10 and any subsequent upgrade should work flawlessly.

It can also be used to correct problems *after* you have upgraded already and
now have broken package dependencies due to the linux-image-3.5 package not
installing properly. Try to install fake-pae and then again try to solve the
package conflicts, this time the kernel packages should complete installation
without errors and you have a working system again.

If you are curious you can download and unzip the source package from this ppa
to see how this is done, all the magic happens in fake-pae.conf, this is
effectively the only thing that is contained in this package, along with the
postinst and prerm scripts to install and uninstall it.