Kernel upgrade questions....

[Tony Arnold]

On Thu, 2005-06-23 at 10:35 -0500, Charles Malespin wrote:
> Hi all, I want to upgrade/change my kernel and I have a few noobie
> questions about this.  First when I went to synaptic I noticed that I
> had the 386 package installed, but that the 686 is for P4(which I have
> with 1Gb ram).  Should I be using the 686 kernel from now on?

Yes, IMHO!

>   Secondly,
> I have seen talk on here about the 2.6.11 kernel, but for me it just has
> the 2.6.10-5 kernel option.  Why is this?

I don't know the answer to this one. I'm running the 2.6.10 686 kernel.

>   If I upgrade or change to the
> 686 kernel, what kind of changes am I going to have to make on my system
> afterwards, ie driver changes, reconfiguring things, etc.?

I've done this kernel update on three machines. Two desktops and a
laptop, and I didn't have to reconfigure anything else. I just selected
the linux-686 package in synaptic, installed it and rebooted. Don't
uninstall the linux-386 package at this stage!

Apart from a slight improvement in performance, your system will be able
to make use of all your memory. At the moment there is a limit on the
386 kernel which means you are only using about three quarters of a
gigabyte (I can't remember the exact figure).

>   Sorry for
> all the questions, its just that I have seen alot of posts here about
> people's computers getting screwed up because of kernel upgrades, and I
> dont have the experience to fix a major problem if one comes up....

If for some bizarre reason the 686 kernel does not work on your
hardware, then you can always boot the previous kernel by selecting it
from the boot menu. It should be clearly marked as the 386 kernel. Once
you've done this you can then remove the 686 kernel package and you are
back to where you started.

Have fun!

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, IT Security Coordinator, University of Manchester,
IT Services Division, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
T: +44 (0)161 275 6093, F: +44 (0)870 136 1004, M: +44 (0)773 330 0039
E: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk, H: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold