version numbers and other Qs about the gui update tool

[Paul Howarth]

Joel wrote:
> (apologies for breaking threading -- delivery disabled and copying from
> marc.theaimsgroup.)
> 
> 
>>Joel wrote:
>>
>>>Just did an update via the gui notification tool.
>>>
>>>The update tool now tells me I'm running kernel-2.6.10-1.9_FC2 and the
>>>latest is -2.6.10-1.771_FC2 . So, I can assume .771 is greater than .9
>>>in the version numbering, right?
>>
>>Right.
>>
>>
>>>I did kernel and userland at the same time. I'm thinking that's a no-no,
>>>but I'm not sure which should go first, kernel or userland. Does it
>>>matter when doing a binary update?
>>
>>In general it's best to do userland first so that any required updates 
>>are done that a new kernel might need but it doesn't really matter 
>>because you only start using a new kernel after a reboot.
> 
> 
> Hmm. When you recompile your kernel, which do you start with?
> 
> My memory with openbsd, for instance, is that you compile the kernel
> first and then userland. Will that be different for Fedora Core?

Perhaps we're misunderstanding each other. You probably want to look for 
something like "Linux from scratch" to understand how a fresh system is 
built from the ground up.

What I was writing about was the order in which you would apply 
pre-built updates. Major new kernel versions tend to move some 
functionality out to user-space processes, and need those processes (e.g 
modutils) to be installed on the target system before the kernel can run 
properly. So you would typically update modutils first before trying a 
new kernel. These dependencies are handled well by rpm though, so if 
you're installing RPMs and not using --force or --nodeps options, you 
should be OK updating things in whatever order you like - rpm won't let 
you get the order wrong.

> Thanks, Paul. Ripped out four old kernels, left the last two. (It was
> only six updates, after all.) Now my root partition is down to 40% of
> 500MB. 
> 
> du shows /lib contains about 100MB.

Sounds reasonable. Most of that is probably in /lib/modules

> I've got an /altroot partition that I just set up for grins. Is there a
> pointer somewhere to instructions for actually using it?

Perhaps; I've never heard of it.

> And is there something that should be done with the approximately 833MB
> in /var/spool/up2date ? Or is that something I just live with and keep
> an eye on, being careful not to update too many things at once?

Do you use up2date or yum? I'm not saying one's better than the other 
but there's no need to use both. So, if you're going to use yum then you 
could clear out the downloaded packages from /var/spool/up2date:

# rm -f /var/spool/up2date/*.rpm

Leaving the headers there is probably a sane thing to do so that you can 
keep the up2date applet running on your desktop and see when new updates 
are ready to install (even if you're going to use yum to install them).

Paul.