yum wants to remove my kernels, why?

[Timothy Murphy]

On Sunday 22 January 2006 17:14, Jeff Spaleta wrote:

> > I regard kernel and distribution as orthogonal,
> > and would rather keep them separate.
> > I don't find it very onerous to go through the Grub menu,
> > and choose the kernel (or OS) I want.
>
> If you don't find it difficult to use the grub menu to find the kernel
> you want.. why is it so bad if the new updates become the default?

I'm not a newbie.
I don't think most newbies would know what to do if Linux fails to start.

Actually, the responses to my posting simply confirm in my mind
the enormous gap between developers and typical (ie home) Fedora users.

> Security kernel updates are very important, I don't see it as an
> appropriate trade off to make the security update kernels optional to
> avoid potential regressions.  Anyone running a system which needs to
> avoid reboots into kernel updates because of ciritical production
> situations should configure their system appropriately at install time
> and should be aware of the impact on security by not using the
> security update kernels.

Sadly, I've disabled SELinux on my machine(s),
simply because when I enabled it my laptop stopped working properly.
I spent a couple of hours looking at selinux documentation
but didn't find anything very helpul -
amazingly, there appear to have been major changes in SELinux
which haven't been documented.

Actually, I don't find security a major priority,
and neither I believe would most home Fedora users.
I'm running shorewall, and as far as I can see
that is sufficient for normal use.

My philosophy is that if an application is not properly documented,
and does not run in a more-or-less self-evident way,
then it is not worth worrying about unless it is essential for my needs.
I'm a Linux user rather than a devotee.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland