upgrading Kernel

[Shard92]

I was looking for articles and how to's on upgrading linux and came across someone saying that upgrading just the kernel can cause stability issues and may make some of the programs in your distro not work.... My friend says that's a lot of bull. I have learned however that, though he knows much more than i he doesn't know everything so what can you all tell me?

[Gollo]

It can cause problems with certain distros. You have to download the kernel source for your distro and compile but even this can cause problems. I used the RHN update feature to update my redhat 9 system when I first installed it and it said that there was a kernel update. I downloaded it and it installed but it broke a lot of dependancies on the old kernel. I ended up having to reinstall to get it all back to the way it was (looking back now I see I could have used the backed up kernel but hey I was learning). For the most part if you have a stable system you don't really need to update the kernel to the latest and greatest. Just make sure you have all the security patches for your current kernel and recompile with the patches as needed.

[Shard92]

Thanks Gollo. Like I said I was unsure of all of this stuff. I will have to check but I think this kernel ( in 7.0 ) isn't enough for some of the software I want to run. Well I hope to be back posting and picking your brain 'cause that'll mean I'm getting closer and learning more..

[loki]

Thanks Gollo. Like I said I was unsure of all of this stuff. I will have to check but I think this kernel ( in 7.0 ) isn't enough for some of the software I want to run. Well I hope to be back posting and picking your brain 'cause that'll mean I'm getting closer and learning more..

If you decide to go with the 2.6.1 kernel there are a few things to watch for. You'll need to install the newest modutils (be sure to "make moveold" your old install) then convert your modules.conf to modrpobe.conf(the new version gives you a script to do this) You may also have to check your initscripts. But 2.6 compiles very quickly now and I've had very little problem with it with mandrake.

[Shard92]

Thanks Not sure what I'm going to do.. The reason I'm using the older stuff is because that is what I have ( it was given to me recently ) and I thought about upgrading because i thought I might need it to run the proggies I want.... i have since found out that the kernel is probably good enough I just may need to upgrade some libraries... The only thing is I do want to run Wine and the oldest suse I can find wine for is 7.2 and I can't find upgrades for the 7.0! I will continue to play around with this to see if this is something worthwhile and if so maybe I'll spring for suse 9.0 with winerack! Not sure how well that will do on the hardware I have though! ( my fastest machine is a pii-400)