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Re: apt and kernel updates



On Fri June 9 2006 10:01, Michael Galloway wrote:
> what is the correct method to upgrade kernels via apt? i've install the smp
> kernel with apt and now in /boot there is:

Aboot looks for the file "[partition]/etc/aboot.conf" (where parition is 
hardcoded into it and can be viewed and set via the "abootconf" program) to 
tell it what kernel and initrd image to load.  I'm guessing you /boot is on a 
seperate parition, so the file to have a look at is "/boot/etc/aboot.conf" 
(if it's the same as your root, then the file would be "/etc/aboot.conf").

It will have a bunch of lines to the effect of:

[flag]:[partition]/<kernel image> initrd=/<initrd image>
...

were flag and parition are numbers.  Your run a command in SRM such as "boot 
dkc0 -fl 0" (you can automate this by setting appropriate SRM variables) 
which loads aboot off of dkc0 and passes it the flag 0.  Then aboot loads the 
kernel and initrd image that match that flag 0 in the "aboot.conf" file.

The only thing to really be aware of is that the paths are all relative to the 
root of the parition specified in the "aboot.conf" file.  So if /boot is on 
its own partition, and that parition is the first parition, you should have 
lines like:

0:1/vmlinuz initrd=/initrd.img
1:1/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1-alpha-smp initrd=/initrd.img-2.6.15-1-alpha-smp
2:1/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1-alpha-generic initrd=/initrd.img-2.6.15-1-alpha-generic

The first one boots the latest kernel you have installed (installing a kernel 
changes the vmlinuz and initrd.img links to point to it).

The second and third are probably not there, but I would put them in just so I 
have additional boot options (in case something goes wrong).  Usually there 
are maintained vmlinuz.old and initrd.img.old links and appropriate entries 
as for this purpose (but I don't see them in your directory listing).

Truth be told, you don't need any of them other than for convience.  If aboot 
gets passed a non-existant flag, it gives you a prompt, and you can manual 
specify everything via the command "b [parition]/<kernel> initrd=<initrd 
image>" (there are other commands for listing files, and so on).

Later!  -T

-- 
 Tyson Whitehead  (-twhitehe at uwo.ca -- WSC-)
 Computer Engineer                          Dept. of Applied Mathematics,
 Graduate Student- Applied Mathematics      University of Western Ontario,
 GnuPG Key ID# 0xF7666BFF                   London, Ontario, Canada

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