On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 6:22 PM, Tavian Barnes <tavianator@tavianator.com> wrote:
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.
I agree. The reason I am against keeping old kernels around is that we would not be able to test user space against all the possible combinations, so it would not be a good idea to suggest that we do (we do try to support all sorts of self-compiled kernels, but at least if you compile your own kernel it is pretty obvious that it will not be as well tested as the "official" ones). One possibility would be to do like upstream does and always rename the previous kernel to .old. That should keep the last known working kernel around while making it clear that it should not be relied on for day-to-day use (and that it will get overwritten on the next kernel upgrade so these things won't get old). That said, I'm not involved with packaging the kernel, so if you want anything to change with how it is packaged (maybe after this discussion is over), it would be best to file a feature request on FS. Cheers, Tom