kernel upgrade with yum removed old kernels

[Robert Locke]

On Sun, 2007-05-06 at 20:02 -0800, Kam Leo wrote:
> On 5/6/07, david walcroft <david_walcroft at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> > Martin Marques wrote:
> > > I just finished upgrading the kernels in my FC6 with yum and I see this
> > > at the end:
> > >
> > > Removed: kernel.i686 0:2.6.20-1.2933.fc6 kernel.i686 0:2.6.18-1.2798.fc6
> > > Installed: kernel.i686 0:2.6.20-1.2948.fc6
> > >
> > > Now, why did it remove does kernel? Shouldn't it just install the new
> > > ones and leave old ones there?
> > >
> > For what it's worth my system at /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/installonlyn.conf
> > is "tokeep=4" but the last kernel update only left 2 kernels in boot.I
> > have no idea how to fix this.
> 
> If you still have the packages for the removed kernels "rpm -ivh
> kernel-2.6.xxx." as either the superuser or root will reinstall them.
> If you don't have the packages locating them will be a hassle since FC
> mirrors keep only the latest two. (A request to the list might work.)
> If you do not want this problem to reoccur edit installonlyn.conf and
> disable the plugin.
> 
> In any event you should file a bug report.

Something I have not seen in the discussions here about "keeping old
kernels" is that there have been cases where an upgrade of some "other
package" has a "requires" of a certain level of kernel, and the
existence of a previous kernel has prevented it's installation.  Trying
to remember the specific occurrences, but didn't udev do that a couple
of times.  But, consequently, there are other reasons to keep the number
of installed kernels fewer rather than greater....

--Rob