[arch-general] Reboot - Versioned Kernel Installs

[Tavian Barnes]

On 6 June 2011 10:02, KESHAV P.R. <skodabenz at gmail.com> 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