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Re: Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles

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Eef Hartman <E.J.M.Hartman@gmail.com> wrote:
> JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote:
>> Is that right, or do I need to install additional packages like
>>   /k/kernel-source-4.1.6_smp-noarch-1.txz
> 
> Only if you got packages with kernel modules (like NVidia, VirtualBox
> or such) that need to be recompiled against the new kernel.
> Otherwise you will _not_ need the kernel source package.

Thanks, Eef. Yup, installed 14.1x32 on a spare partition and tested
4.1.6 kernel upgrade there. Seems fine w/o new sources, though I guess
I'll download and install them at my leisure, eventually, as you
suggest at the very end.

> But I would recommend you DO get
> kernel-firmware-20150820git-noarch-1.txz
> (or a newer replacement) as the new kernel may need newer firmware
> to support certain hardware.

Okay, installed that, too. I first tried w/o new firmware, and that
seemed fine. New /lib/firmware/ seems fine, too. Like you say,
guess it can't hurt.

>> The doinst.sh for /a/kernel-huge-smp-4.1.6_smp-i686-1.txz
>> seems trivial -- just change the existing symlinks in /boot/
>> from 3.10.17 to 4.1.6.
> 
> I wouldn't upgrade the kernel, but use installpkg for it,

Nah, I prefer doing small upgrades "manually", i.e.,
  cd / ; tar -xv --xz -f filename.txz > /var/log/packages/filename
and then carefully execute the doinst.sh stuff myself.
Just makes me feel more comfortable that nothing's going to happen
that I'm not okay with. Of course, if there's too much doinst.sh
stuff, I just check it first and then use installpkg. But these
were pretty trivial. The firmware was hardest, but still easy --
just a dozen or so symlinks.

> after first renaming the "old" links in /boot.
> I.e.:
> vmlinux.old -> vmlinuz-3.10.17 
> vmlinux.new -> vmlinux-4.1.6
> (and the same for the System.map and the config file ones)

Yeah, the System.map and config symlinks are the ones that have
confused me about that. Each stanza can indeed contain
   image=/boot/vmlinuz.new
   image=/boot/vmlinuz.old
   etc,
but there's nothing I'm aware of in the stanzas that lets you
associate a System.map.new and config.new with vmlinuz.new, etc.
As far as I can tell, there's just one "global" System.map and
config, and they're going to be associated with all the stanzas.
How do you get around that?

> and then change lilo.conf to recognize both kernels, like:
> # Linux bootable partition config begins
> image=/boot/vmlinuz.new
>   root=/dev/sda1
>   label=linux
>   read-only    # Partitions should be mounted read-only for checking
> image=/boot/vmlinuz.old
>   root=/dev/sda1
>   label=backup
>   read-only
> # Linux bootable partition config ends
> 
> After running lilo you then always can get back to the distributed
> kernel, if you get any problems with the newer one.
> I always got at least two kernels on my systems, often three
> (old as backup, plain "linux" as the default and maybe a "new"
> one I'm testing).
> 
> PS: the firmware _should_ be upgraded as it will replace files that
> are already there, so the older package won't be available anymore,

I just mv'ed 14.1's /lib/firmware directory and just extracted a whole
new firmware directory from the tarball (and kept my fingers crossed
linux wouldn't hang in the meantime -- it didn't, everything worked fine).
But it's a little unexpected that for the old one (dated 20131008)
   du -sc firmware-slack14.1/
   59412 total
but for the new one (dated 20150820)
   du -sc firmware/
   109424 total
That looks like an awful lot of new stuff.

> but that shouldn't matter, the firmware is _hardware_ related, not
> kernel-version specific, that's why it doesn't have a kernel version
> number but a date.
> 
>> to suggest I may need those sources.
>> But those symlinks
>>  ln -s /usr/src/linux-4.1.6 source
>>  ln -s /usr/src/linux-4.1.6 build
> 
> These links are created so that a kernel module that has to be
> re-compiled can find the _right_ version OF the sources.
> So, as I said, the sources are needed for kernel MODULE recompiles,
> as long as you don't need any of those you won't need sources.
> But then again, as long as you "installpkg" them they don't do any
> harm either, just take up space on your disk.

Yeah, no problem with diskspace anymore. My first slackware install
was from floppies. Nowadays a stack of floppies from here to the Moon
wouldn't fill up my hard drive (actually, a stack of 10 is ~1.5" thick
and stores ~15MB formatted, so my 2TB hard drive is ~equivalent to
a 200,000" stack of floppies, which would be ~3.15 miles high).
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j@f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )

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Thread

Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2015-08-23 08:56 +0000
  Re: Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles Eef Hartman <E.J.M.Hartman@gmail.com> - 2015-08-23 22:28 +0000
    Re: Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2015-08-24 04:40 +0000
      Re: Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles Eef Hartman <E.J.M.Hartman@gmail.com> - 2015-08-24 05:38 +0000
        Re: Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2015-08-24 06:36 +0000
          Re: Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles Eef Hartman <E.J.M.Hartman@gmail.com> - 2015-08-24 11:07 +0000
            Re: Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2015-08-24 12:20 +0000
  Re: Kernel upgrade to 4.1.6 w/o recompiles JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2015-08-24 10:43 +0000

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