yum updated grub.conf badly

[Paul Howarth]

Michael Hennebry wrote:
> Shortly fter reinstalling FC3 yet again,
> I ran yum --update.
> After the next boot,
> my machine froze solid during login.
> 
> Previously, this had been caused by
> trying to run an SMP kernel on a hyper-threaded cpu.
> For some evil reason, the SMP kernel was the default.
> Whoever made that decision should be shot.
> Editing grub.conf fixed that problem.
> Until I ran yum.
> yum gave me
> # grub.conf generated by anaconda
> #
> # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
> # NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
> #          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
> #          root (hd0,1)
> #          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
> #          initrd /initrd-version.img
> #boot=/dev/hda
> default=0
> timeout=15
> splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
> hiddenmenu
> title Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp)
>        root (hd0,1)
>        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
>        initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp.img
> title Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.27_FC3)
>         root (hd0,1)
>         kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.27_FC3 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
>         initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.27_FC3.img
> title Fedora Core-up (2.6.9-1.667)
>         root (hd0,1)
>         kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
>         initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
> title Other
>         rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>         chainloader +1
> 
> I suppose I implicitly asked for a kernel update when running yum,

If smp kernels don't work on your system, remove them and then yum won't 
try to update them when there's a new one.

> but even so, it shouldn't make the default something that doesn't work.
> That is evil.
> 
> My guess is that the only reason for vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667
> still being listed is that it was what running when yum ran.
> 
> 
> In any case, warning: yum can and will replace your grub.conf
> with one that doesn't work.

If you read the release notes, in particular the kernel section, you'd 
see that it clearly describes there that kernel updates will by default 
be set to be the default in the bootloader, and that this behaviour can 
be changed by changing settings in /etc/sysconfig/kernel

/usr/share/doc/fedora-release-3/RELEASE-NOTES-x86-en

Paul.