Should kernels be upgraded or installed.

[Colin Charles]

On Sat, 2004-08-14 at 01:17, Michael Schwendt wrote:

> > > Default of upgrade installation should be to boot the upgraded system with
> > > the upgraded kernel, not a mixture of an upgraded system with some old
> > > unknown kernel.
> > 
> > True -- but that doesn't mean we can't keep the old one around just in
> > case. I wouldn't suggest the old kernel should be the _default_.
> 
> The new kernel should just work. Everything else would be a bug.

And then there are cases when they don't work. And lo and behold, you
don't have another working kernel to boot from. It gets really
interesting when you're travelling, and have no other boxes, and least
of all a rescue CD handy :P

Not saying that this happens with FC stable, but if you're tracking
Rawhide...

> > Btw, I wouldn't refer to the old kernel as 'unknown'. The term you are
> > looking for is "last known good".
> 
> "Last known good" for some previous release of the distribution. Even if
> it still booted fine, what happens if user selected it and it it didn't
> include e.g. SELinux or other features needed during first boot? You've
> got the boot CD and rescue mode in case the new kernel doesn't boot. And
> if the rescue kernel doesn't boot either, it's a bug.

I was under the impression that we do keep them. A simple ls of /boot on
a stock FC2 system that just got updated whenver updates got released,
shows:

config-2.6.5-1.358        
config-2.6.6-1.435        
config-2.6.6-1.435.2.3    
config-2.6.7-1.494.2.2    

And it has a matching grub.conf as well. I'd vote for keeping "last
known good", because as I've said, installation CDs aren't always handy.
I've been bitten by this before (rawhide, ppc)
-- 
Colin Charles, byte at aeon.com.my
http://www.bytebot.net/
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, 
then you win." -- Mohandas Gandhi