Feature changed by: Andreas Jaeger (a_jaeger) Feature #310665, revision 16 Title: Keep the current kernel when doing a kernel update through yast - openSUSE-11.4: Unconfirmed + openSUSE-11.4: New Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Wilfred van Velzen (wvv) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: See this discussion on the forum: http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-help-here/install-boot-login/447030-k... Summary: Keeping the current kernel installed should be the default and automatic behaviour for a kernel update through Yast! (Provided there is enough space on the partition that holds /boot). Or it could be a setting somewhere to keep the last X number of previous installed kernels (where X should default to 1). Business case (Partner benefit): openSUSE.org: When the newly installed kernel doesn't work or has some issues. The user has an easy way to boot into a previous kernel, so he still has a working system. Discussion: #1: James McDaniel (jdmcdaniel3) (2010-10-04 14:16:06) I also agree that by default, openSUSE should maintain both old and new kernel versions so that in the event of a bad or defective kernel installation, it would be easy to drop back to an older kernel version. I would add this as the default method in openSUSE 11.4 to allow the addition or removal of kernel versions, but that loading a new kernel does not automatically remove the older version. Thank You, J. McDaniel #2: david henry (dvhenry) (2010-10-04 15:30:54) The advantages of always having a useable kernel far outway any savings made by not keeping the old kernel, and those savings are what? a few meg of disk space! #3: matthias propst (l1zard) (2010-10-04 16:26:38) the one i like about opensuse is not to have billions of kernels when i start up like ubuntu and debian does. it should be optin. i dont realy like it to uninstall old kernel by hand, espacialy not if you have to do that on several machines. #4: Patrick Dubeau (daax) (2010-10-04 17:27:45) Hi, Mandriva does it since 2009.1 I think and there is no need to erase old kernels, it is done automatically. I d'on't know how they do it though. When there is an upgrade of kernel k, the system keeps the k and k-1 and thus erasing the k-2 and + kernels and entries in GRUB. #5: Jean-Daniel Dodin (jdd_sysop) (2010-10-04 18:21:17) we had at least 2 major kernel update errors in the last years, so this option is really necessary. May be simply make the menu name softer (now it's the full kernel name), could be "openSUSE", 3failsafe...", "openSUSE old Kernel Failsafe" (full one kept but commented out) #6: Martin Seidler (pistazienfresser) (2010-10-05 14:40:12) By the way: Maybe there could be also added an easier way to test a kernel before it is in the main repositories. An easy fallback to the kernel from the main repository (update or 11.x) may be an stimulatition for not so willing to take risks (or at least something to minimize the determent). And hopefully the more a kernel is tested on diffenrent system the more it will likely be stable if it is intruduced to the main update repository. Regards pistazienfresser #7: Andrew Bacchi (udaman) (2010-10-08 14:31:29) This thread demonstrates a production system that could have benefited from multiple installed kernels. http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-help-here/install-boot-login/447707-s... #8: Martin Seidler (pistazienfresser) (2010-11-01 10:23:41) See also: # for Ubuntu: last-good-boot https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/removing-old-kernels # other openFATE Treads: ## #309205: Remove old kernel package only after the new one successfully booted https://features.opensuse.org/309205 ## #306971: keep the previous kernel after update process https://features.opensuse.org/306971 #9: Lucky Leavell (unixpress) (2010-11-14 03:47:09) I agree with the suggestion in the summary and made somewhat the same suggestion to #306971. I currently use multiversioning but have to keep track of how many generations I have and remove older ones. Thank you, Lucky Leavell -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/310665