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Re: Kernel upgrades



On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 10:18:44PM -0500, techlists@techgod.net wrote:
| I've noticed that progeny Debian has auto-upgrade of kernel upgrades.  How do I do this with my Desktop Debian system, and what are the cons?  

apt-get doesn't _automatically_ change (upgrade or downgrade) your
kernel if you use, for example, 'upgrade' or 'dist-upgrade'.  The
reason is simple -- the kernel is the most critical part of your
system and care must be taken to ensure that you don't break it.
Bootloaders such as LILO must be reset (ie run 'lilo') everytime you
change the kernel image.  Also, sometimes people make custom kernels
and they would not want apt to decide that the kernel on a server
somewhere is better.  It also protects against some attacker from
putting a bogus kernel package on an apt-gettable site so that those
who use the site provide a nice wide-open door for him.  You can
upgrade your kernel when you want to by 'apt-get install
kernel-image-xxxx'.  When I did that to upgrade from
2.2.18pre<something> to 2.2.19 I had no trouble at all.  I use grub so
I didn't need to change anything there for it to boot fine.

HTH,
-D



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