On Tue, 2007-08-28 at 22:21 +0100, Thomas Hertweck wrote:
Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
I know that this is a topic that gets endless questions. Perhaps because a mistake can be so problematic. Here goes mine:
I am running an openSUSE 10.0 system with kernel 2.6.13-15.16-default. This is a rather recent security-fixed kernel. But still the 2.6.13 that came with 10.0.
I am looking at trying a more recent kernel. Like kernel-default-2.6.22.5-4.1.i586.rpm, which is available from openSUSE's downloads.
A few questions:
1) This contains all the various SUSE patches so it will (or should) fit in like the 2.6.13 kernel did?
I am not sure what you mean by "fit in". It will most likely require updates of other packages to work correctly. RPM will probably tell you that it requires later versions of some packages when you try to install the kernel RPM.
I mean things like the boot splash and any other less obvious things that SUSE fiddle with.
2) Will this keep my current kernel? Meaning, can this rpm be removed allowing the original kernel to be used?
The SuSE kernel RPMs will change your bootloader config via the RPM postinstall script. In principle, you can install several kernels in parallel (don't use RPM's -U option). All you have to make sure is that your bootloader config contains correct entries for both kernels (after the installation) so you can decide which one to boot at the grub boot menu. The installation of the new kernel RPM will probably change the default kernel entry in grub's menu.conf and if you're unlucky it will also mess up some old entries (I've seen it happening several times; it will probably also change some links in /boot) - therefore, you should check the bootloader config and /boot before rebooting the system.
I understand all that. It is a 'best case' scenario. If the RPM has no errors. There was another thread here just recently where it was claimed that the parallel install of kernels in fact replaced large parts of the existing kernel. To be sure, as the kernel parts in /lib/modules and /usr/src have different top level directories, I am not sure how this could happen. But a determined RPM could surely find a way.
I am usually compiling and installing new kernels myself, I do not use the RPM packages.
3) Are there any issues with glibc when going from 2.6.13 to 2.6.22? Or any other issues? I see that sysfsutils needs updating. I guess this is because of the disk name changes. However, I do not find any sysfsutils for 10.0 when searching openUSUE (http://software.opensuse.org/search). The same is true for irqbalance.
You not only have to install a new kernel but other software as well (you've already mentioned it), and this software needs to be backward-compatible otherwise it could happen that you're no longer able to run the old kernel (usually, it is). The main problem is that you might have to compile all of these additional packages yourself because nobody offers ready-to-use RPMs for "old" distro versions like SuSE 10.0. And sometimes these software packages require updates of other software packages, and so on. Sometimes it can become quite tricky...
My recommendation: think twice whether you really need a new kernel. I am also using 10.0 here and the kernel works fine for me. Do you need some of the new features in the latest kernel? If you only want to have a look at it and play with the latest kernel version, then it might be easier to setup a new openSuSE 10.2 or beta 10.3 on a spare partition (or in a virtual environment) and use it there. Otherwise you have to go through the process of updating some packages on 10.0 - whether this is easy or not depends a bit on your experience.
I think I will give it a pass. My real reason for this is new features in the firewire video drivers that would drastically improve a component I make. There is a greatly improved user-land DMA interface. I want to try it, but it seems that it requires 2.6.19 or newer. I will next investigate if this is because of the kernel itself, or because that is when the new drivers were released. Maybe it will be easier to get the newer firewire drivers to work with 2.6.13. I should be so lucky... Which kernel introduced the udev changes? Wasn't it after 2.6.19? -- Roger Oberholtzer OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Ramböll Sverige AB Kapellgränd 7 P.O. Box 4205 SE-102 65 Stockholm, Sweden Tel: Int +46 8-615 60 20 Fax: Int +46 8-31 42 23 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org