Automatic Old Kernel Removal Spec Proposal

[Peter Whittaker]

On Wed, 2006-07-06 at 23:51 +0200, Jan Claeys wrote:
> Op wo, 07-06-2006 te 23:12 +0200, schreef Andreas Schildbach:
> > Why is it that kernels are given new package names (and thus new 
> > packages) for new versions, rather than just new package versions? If 
> > its for being able to comfortably select a kernel to boot: you could 
> > backgrade to any uploaded package version using apt-get, too. 
> 
> If the new kernel doesn't boot on your computer, it's always good to
> have an old, known-to-work one available...  (And apt-get doesn't work
> without a working kernel of course.)

Would it not be possible to have some sort of "sliding contents" list of
meta-packages, along the lines of

	kernel-latest
	kernel-latest-1
	kernel-latest-2
?

The contents of the meta-packages would change (kernel 2.x.y.z would
move from kernel-latest to kernel-latest-1 when 2.x.y.z+1 was released).

grub, et al, would always use the real name, e.g., 2.x.y.z.

I would think the right thing to do would be to NOT remove latest-1,
latest-2, etc., automagically, as that could bork the system.

Some means of querying the user could be developed as part of the
regular updates check, e.g., "Your kernel has been updated, you have
rebooted successfully with the new version, and healthCheckOMatic has
not found any problems: Would you like to remove the previous version?
(Answer 'No' if you are unsure)?" A second message would also be useful
("You are short on disk space on /, removing previous kernels would
help").

Of course, some users might want a way of pinning their machine at a
particular kernel version (e.g., a kernel-pinned meta-package - under
user control?).

Random, likely insufficiently caffeinated thoughts,

pww

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