Re: Multiple installed kernel-image packages?
Hi Paul,
Paul Gear wrote:
> A quick question: is there a way to get apt to install new
> kernel-image packages rather than upgrade them, and keep the existing
> kernel-image package installed as well?
>
> Back on Red Hat, i could 'rpm -iv' (install) a new kernel package
> rather than 'rpm -Uv' (upgrade), and it would update grub's menu.lst
> and make the new one the default without affecting the
> currently-installed one. Is there an equivalent to this under Debian?
If you are asking whether you can install (for instance) kernel 2.6.8,
kernel 2.6.9, and kernel 2.6.9 compiled for SMP all at once, the answer
is yes. In fact this is the default behavior. This is because Debian
provides kernel versions as different packages, not as different
versions of the same package. They have no files in common so, assuming
you're using a modern Intel chip, it should be as easy as:
# apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.8-1-686
# apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.9-1-686
# apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.9-1-686-smp
As a corollary, if you are currently using kernel 2.6.8 and want to
upgrade to 2.6.9, you will have to explicitly ask APT to install kernel
2.6.9, because "apt-get upgrade" will not do the trick. Likewise you
will have to explicitly remove any old kernels that you are no longer
using. However there are often several Debian revisions of each kernel
version; so "apt-get upgrade" WILL upgrade you from Debian release
2.6.8-6 to 2.6.8-7. Needless to say, you CANNOT install two Debian
releases of the same kernel version at the same time.
For the sake of completeness, in case you aren't already aware: the "-1"
in the package names is a result of the kernel ABI in Debian packages
changing at some point in the past, and the "-686" or "-686-smp" suffix
tells you the "subarchitecture" of CPU for which the package was
compiled. Running "grep-available -FProvides -sPackage kernel-image"
will give you a list of kernel packages known to APT on your
architecture. (The grep-available command is in the grep-dctrl package.)
regards,
--
Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty@princeton.edu> Physics Department
WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/ Princeton University
GPG public key ID: 4F83C751 Princeton, NJ 08544
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