Re: [arch-general] Reboot - Versioned Kernel Installs

On Monday, June 06, 2011 11:34:53 Thomas Dziedzic wrote:

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Tavian Barnes

wrote:

...

On 6 June 2011 10:02, KESHAV P.R. wrote:

...

Hi all, Since the next kernel will be 3.0 , the kernel26 naming is meaningless from the next kernel. I think this is also a good time to consider implementing versioned kernel install. Agreed arch has a policy of 1 package per software in the official repos. While this attitude is acceptable for Xorg or windows managers or even some low level utilities, problems with those can be corrected if the system can boot to a shell atleast (init 1 or 3). But if the kernel fails to boot and under the assumption that the user hdoes not have any rescue system/distro handy he/she cannot boot into the system (atleast not at that moment). Without a working kernel it is not possible to boot to a shell to run any damn command. While this topic has already been discussed at [1] the discussion was slow and has not lead to any fruitful result. This post is mainly to reach out to a larger audience and decide on how to go about since the upsteam version change provides the right time for Arch to reconsider the same. Another discussion at [2] is about removing the word kernel from the initramfs image. If in case versioned kernel proposal is accepted then the initramfs also (automatically) becomes versioned to match the kernel. Atleast Dave Reisner (falconindy) took the first step by making the change in his geninit program. I understand this might require changes in the way mkinitcpio (or geninit if at all it becomes default) and the way pacman handles different versions of same packages. Please join in.

[1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/16702 [2] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/18719

Regards.

keshav

I have kernel26-lts installed as a backup kernel, and this is all that's really necessary for rolling back broken kernel updates. I've been bitten by a BTRFS bug once and rolled back with -lts no problem. -1 from me on keeping multiple kernel versions installed; I really like that arch doesn't keep 6 old kernels around.

While we're at it, +1 for calling the kernel package "linux" for version 3.0.

-- Tavian Barnes

Agreed with Tavian Barnes. Also, don't call it "linux30" just call it "linux"

Or just 'kernel.' And yes, -1 on multiple kernels. That was one of the more idiotic brain- damaged practices of Ubuntu that drove me away in the first place.