FS#11169 - should arch reconsidder kernel upgrade policy?
Attached to Project:
Arch Linux
Opened by Christ Schlacta (aarcane) - Sunday, 10 August 2008, 02:55 GMT
Last edited by Greg (dolby) - Monday, 11 August 2008, 17:40 GMT
Opened by Christ Schlacta (aarcane) - Sunday, 10 August 2008, 02:55 GMT
Last edited by Greg (dolby) - Monday, 11 August 2008, 17:40 GMT
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Details
when upgrading a kernel, the old kernel is completely
removed, and replaced with the new one. driver packages must
be upgraded as well, and some systems might not power up
after a kernel upgrade with obscure hardware or uncommon
configurations. I would like to suggest a new approach to
kernel upgrades.
the system should not replace old kernels automatically, but install side by side with them. a set of symlinks in /boot should be maintained to point to the most recently installed kernel, and referenced from /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/lilo.conf. a utility should be provided (/sbin/update-kernel or similar) to change to any installed version of the kernel. editing grub to point to an older kernel version would be simple, but using a live CD to recover to an older kernel version is hard.. perhaps an -old kernel and initrd could be added as well that would link to the previous kernel, or whatever version you set it to as a failsafe. users can choose to remove old kernel versions when they're sure they're not needed, or could possibly set a pacman.conf setting "KeepOldKernels = 3" or whatever makes the most sense upstream. not sure what changes might need to be made to the kernel PKGBUILDs or pacman to make this change, if it's too unreasonable to implement, please disregard :) |
This task depends upon
Closed by Greg (dolby)
Monday, 11 August 2008, 17:40 GMT
Reason for closing: Won't implement
Additional comments about closing: For same reasons as before.
Monday, 11 August 2008, 17:40 GMT
Reason for closing: Won't implement
Additional comments about closing: For same reasons as before.
>Yes, let's make Arch Linux EXACTLY like ubuntu or red hat EL!
Can you explain me what's wrong in this idea?
This would only complicate things and the situations we would benifit from it are really rare.
>> Yes, let's make Arch Linux EXACTLY like ubuntu or red hat EL!
> Can you explain me what's wrong in this idea?
Because the current state of kernel affairs is just how business is done with Arch Linux. If we keep on adding stuff like this, what's the difference between Arch Linux and other distributions? It's user stupidity that they don't keep old kernels themselves.
I'm not prejudiced against ubuntu or whatever you define as a "user friendly distro".
If every user should do this, this should be automated imo. "Adding stuff like this": it is not like there are still hundreds of questions for the kernel update mechanism.
-1 also if my vote counts
the recent switch to 2.6.26 caused a handful of problems (nvidia broke, aiglx broke, someone reported a bug booting without acip=off on flyspray). the problem isn't in choosing to keep old kernels, the problem is in being able to because of how pacman handles the upgrades.