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Fedora Core 4 -- yum update upgraded my kernel

R

Robor

Elite Member
I just did a 'yum update' and noticed that kernel i686 2.6.14-1.1653_FC4 was included in the update. It processed without issue and things appear to be working okay so far.

I remember when I initially installed FC4 I did a yum update and there was something like 125 updates applied. One of them was a kernel update and after that when I boot I'm presented with a boot screen to choose which kernel I want to boot with.

Right now a uname -a gives me 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4. I would assume that when I boot next I'll have 3 boot options. Is there a reason that I would want to use a previous kernel bootup. Is there a reason to *not* upgrade the kernel when it's available? I mean, should I just use the, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", logic?
 
Updating the kernel will cause no trouble unless you're using some drivers that aren't included in the kernel (such as proprietary video and some wifi). But even in that case, you just need to re-install the drivers and everything will be happy again.
 
you would use the old kernel if your new one doesn't work.

I keep 3 entrys into grub

1) My current kernel with 1600x1200 fb and perty splash screen default
2) My current kernel with no fb fallback
3) My previously known working kernel with no fb.

This way if my new kenel fails I can just select the old one and get the system to boot again. This isn't really nessisary for gentoo as I could just stick in a liveCD, chroot into my system and fix/recompile the new kernel, but it is faster then trying to find that liveCD so I can fix the kernel.

I would say that you can remove the oldest kernel package. There is no reason to have 3 kernels. I would keep your 2.6.11-1 kernel though just incase your new kernel doens't work after reboot. I'm not sure how fedora does things, but there are plenty of good reasons for a kernel upgrade. Driver bug fixes, security fixes, etc. Unless this is a mission critical system, I suggest always upgrading packages. If it is a mission ciritcal server, I would only upgrade security patches if I could help it.
 
Ah, so I didn't make a mistake - that's good to hear.

When you say remove the oldest kernel package, do you mean remove it via yum (like 'yum remove 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4'), delete it's section in the grub config file, or both?

Thanks!! 😀
 
I'm not sure the right way to do it in fedora. I would assume you can just remove it via Yum and yum will take care of the rest. But you might want to ask someone with more exp with fedora.

In gentoo we have to remove the package with emerge then edit grub (well this isn't a required step if you setup grub right). But I'm thinking fedora might edit grub for you.

Just to clarify I have 2 kernels in my grub.conf

2.6.14-r4 (the one I use)
2.6.14-r3 (my old kernel)

Before I installed 2.6.14-4 I was using 2.6.14-r3 and had the kernel previous in grub (I dont remember which one that was so lets call it 2.6.14-2)

So when I installed 2.6.14-r4, I would prune out 2.6.14-r2. This leaves me with my newest kernel, and my last known working kernel in case something went wrong.
 
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