[arch-general] Reboot - Versioned Kernel Installs

[Paul Gideon Dann]

On Friday 10 June 2011 14:03:32 Yaro Kasear wrote:
> On Friday, June 10, 2011 04:26:21 Robert Howard wrote:
> > Why not just copy the old kernel image, modules and initrd image
> > somewhere by hand before you upgrade kernels. If we try to make this
> > automated it isn't going to be kiss. I used to do this way back in the
> > day by including the entire kernel version in the pkgver and giving the
> > images longer names. It was possible to have concurrently installed
> > kernels. Check out how some of the AUR kernels manage to be the same
> > kernel version as the official without causing issues.
> 
> +1 on this. If you really need the old kernel, why not make sure you back
> up the old one and its image before upgrading instead of inconveniencing
> other users and the developers for a feature only a minority even wants?

Because it's painful to go through that every time a new kernel update comes 
along.  Also, I think you're underestimating the interest in this.  This list 
will typically contain the most advanced Arch users, who are confident rescuing 
their system from a bad kernel upgrade.  I'm sure there are plenty of Arch 
users out there that aren't reading this list, but for whom this feature could 
save them a lot of time and effort.  Just because most of *us* can probably fix 
this in our sleep, doesn't mean it's right for Arch users in general.

Also, I wonder what happens if power is lost whilst pacman is installing a new 
kernel?  I haven't tried this, but it wouldn't surprise me if the system ended 
up with a truncated kernel that wouldn't boot.  That's a bug right there, 
although it's a pretty tiny corner case, granted :)

Paul